The Imaginings
In my quest to uncover information, I flew to St. Louis and visited Gary's grave for the first time. I discovered that our mother is buried in the same grave with him. Gary's name is on one side of the stone and our mother's name is on the other. The family had become dysfunctional and I had no information as to where either of them were buried. In turn, I "buried" all associations with these bad memories and refused to let them resurface until I began the project.
Finding the address of the apartment where Gary died printed on the death certificate, I visited the apartment building in St. Louis. I had never been there. Making a few photographs from the window of my rental car, I eventually gathered the courage to get out and walk around in front of the building. Nervous, I didn't want anyone to notice and ask me what I was doing there. I walked down the sidewalk to the door of the apartment building and back again, taking note of the scene before me. I wanted to see what his daily landscape looked like and I wished to document my experience there that day.
As this story is about my brother, it is also my own story. Sometimes I include my thumb, my shadow, or some other reference to myself in the photograph to remind the viewer of the surviving family member telling this story through photographs and words. I consider some of these photographs to be self-portraits.