This all started on June 10, 2015 when I took my first photo of a TV antenna. My parents were both ill and I was driving back and forth between their house and mine a lot and started noticing the TV antennas along the way. It was an extremely heavy time, but the drives were a pause to reflect and think (if I was alone and my son wasn’t with me asking lots of questions). I ended up taking 57 photos of TV antennas between June 10, 2015 and April 9, 2022. (I feel that I probably will still take photos of them, even though this project has ended for now. It might keep going.)
Part 1: The Obsolete: A crankie in a cigar box with a little security envelope pattern border around the window. I included 46 of the 57 TV antenna photos in the scroll. I played static from my dad’s radio and occasionally played single notes on a xylophone (sort of like the tone on tapes or records that accompanied film strips/slideshows to call you to attention to turn to the next image) while scrolling through the photos.
Part 2: Intermission: A zine explaining what led to the TV antenna photos and the security envelope collages. After the center, it becomes a poem or list of single moments of care given by me to my mom in the days leading up to her death. The last lines: “Ingress/Egress. Static rolling, static.” An entrance/an exit…..searching for one who left through the static.
Part 3: Egress: A large collage (11” x 14”) made from my mom’s mail (security envelopes I’ve saved) and hand stitched (sewing thread inherited from my maternal grandmother and mom) pieces of vinyl with seed beads and a few photos of TV antennas, representing when someone leaves through an exit. I’m really interested in how the sunlight will interact with the vinyl piece and what the subtly changing shadows throughout each day will add to the piece because it is about change.
So, in parts 1 and 2, I state “a story of loss and change,” but I do feel that this project is also about the inanimate objects we view and/or things we do or create to keep ourselves intact when everything is disintegrating or changing in uncomfortable ways around us. For me, photographing TV antennas and making collages out of the security envelopes from my mom’s mail (something that caused me a great deal of stress in the weight of the responsibility of handling finances and decisions, etc.) brought me peace and helped me continue through a heavy time.
