Artist's Statement

Ruth Lauer Manenti

archival pigment prints / 6”x 8”, 9”x 11”, 11”x 14”

Since Seeing You is an observation of the lingering experience of the final week of my mother’s life. She rarely let me photograph her, except in those last days when she changed her mind. After she passed the nurses seemed in a rush to cover her body and take her away. I wondered why. It seemed so natural that I would want to stay with her for a while. Since the loss of my mother, I find I can communicate with her when I am in nature and that led to my photographing the woods as a way of feeling her presence. At times, the memories of her gently fade out, and at other times they overwhelm. I have tried to place objects on a table in search of arrangements that could express this. This body of work is a contemplation on missing those we love and how they still exist within our lives.