FOR RECKONING
and coming back and long times away and still not to stay
after all these places the one that hurt me is just another place i’ve been
In July 2023, I returned to my hometown for the first time in seven years. Strong enough for reckoning, I visited my estranged mother at my childhood home. I retrieved many mementos, photos, journals, and lost remnants of my sanity. I rescued my favorite childhood stuffed animal, a bunny named Strawberry. A talisman for my inner child, Strawberry will now get to see the world with me.
This photo series was taken at the end of my trip, at a playground that meant a lot to me throughout my childhood. In town, and in taking these photos, I had a lot of realizations.
Things I thought would feel formative, didn’t. Things like my favorite restaurants or the Great Lake. Instead, I was struck by ordinary things like green grass, cattail fields, and empty swimming pools. This playground and all the days when swinging on these swings was my only escape.
I went to my hometown looking for something, not knowing what I’d find. Hoping to reclaim some lost part of me, to bring me back to life. I wasn’t ready to realize how many parts had already died.
My past is dead. My childhood is dead. My innocence is dead.
Some of it was dead before it was gone.
I have been gone a long, long time. I left for good, yet did not mourn until I returned. I have died, yet I have survived.
Never will I find all that’s been lost. Not in the place it never really was.
Trauma is the baby I will carry. I love you and I cannot stay. I love you and I’ll take you away.
Photos were created in collaboration with local artist Erin Connorton using a Canon a1 28mm lens with starburst filter on cinestill 400D 35mm film.
In October 2023, I presented this series along with a shrine to Strawberry & my inner child as a visual installation at a gallery show in New Orleans, my current home base.
Living in New Orleans has offered me much healing. From that healing rose the courage I needed to take this trip. From that trip, I gained an immeasurable amount of strength in claiming my own narrative that will forever strengthen and lighten my future.
I am grateful to have been part of an exhibition with fellow New Orleans-based & affiliated artists Madeleine LaVoie, Todd Taylor, Carlos Sanchez, iConNac, and Steven Lepre.
Thank you to all who helped me prepare for this show, who supported me during the trip this summer, and gallery viewers who shared sweet feedback and encouragement.
All photos can be purchased and mailed as prints.
If interested in owning a photo from this series, please respond to this email.
Thank you for your tender holding of this project.
xo Lenny