My grandmother passed in August 2021, and I wanted to honor her by creating an installation and booklet to preserve her memory. I was drawn to the idea of transparency and preservation as a way of encapsulating one's life. I created an installation of 3 panes of plexiglass, pressed flowers from her funeral, old photos of her, and traced her handwriting from old cards. The booklet is made of stories and memories printed on sticker paper and placed on vellum--snippets of her life to capture the memory of who she was and share it with those who read the short stories. The transparency of vellum allows the viewer to see the culmination of her life with stories overlapping and showing through to show all the pieces that create a person. The stories are aspects of her life and personality that is ultimately tied up together to show the person that was my grandmother. The viewer sees the essence of her character in the installation but is able to know her more intimately with the accompanying booklet.
