VISITING MOM 

A woman who has lived in New York since 1924, gets married, becomes a mother of 3 boys and is an artist, realizes in her 80’s  she can no longer live on her own.  She is now about to journey from the east coast of New York to the American West in Colorado (USA), to become a permanent resident at the Veterans Center at Homelake, Colorado.   “Visiting Mom” is a photographic series documenting her relocation to a new life but also including the underneath story about American car travel since so much of our time was involved being in a car.  The vehicle became a player in the story and large part of the visual experience.  I live in Manhattan. I don't drive much.  Spending so many hours in a car I started to see the car door and car windows as an entrance or framing for as visual narratives.  In the USA so many people drive and cars become an extension of us.  I was fascinated by the compositions seen through the car windows.  The great American myth of being on the road was a part of the process.  The sense of freedom, the mobility, the open spaces.  Having read “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac, had put that spirit of the great open space in both my mom’s sense of adventure and my love being on the road. “Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.” Jack Kerouac.  In August 2011 my mom and I traveled to Colorado to set up her new life at the Colorado State Veterans Center at Homelake.   Tax dollars well spent.