Passing of Mind

When living with a someone who is being taken from this world by dementia, one can only sit back and watch as a once active and agile mind slowly fades into nothingness. Memory becomes fragmented and often morphs into nightmare.

Passing of mind was made using a collection of battered vintage dolls from the family attic, these images are based on the experience of caring for my grandmother after she was diagnosed with dementia. The dolls used for this project have been in our family for several generations. Much like my grandmother, they are old and broken, but still well loved.

The images were created using hand-made waxed paper negatives. In this process, a negative is created from a digital positive and printed on light-weight matte paper. The paper negative is then distressed and waxed with encaustic medium. The result is a large translucent paper negative that can be used to make contact prints in the darkroom on
traditional silver paper.