CODA

A Landscape Of Grief

On the eve of my mother’s first yahrzeit and the onset of the pandemic, I turned to this photograph and wondered whether there was more to uncover in this small black book. I began looking through it, slowly and quietly uncovering the mysteries within

I found this bible waiting for me in the bedside table the day after my mother died. I had seen it once before: when she handed it to me in her garden at sunset to read aloud the concluding memorial service of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It was the last time we observed the holiday together.

This prayerbook belonged to my paternal grandfather, Henry F. Bloomfield, and was given to my mother. Now, I hold it as it had been held by others, searching for significant meaning in the dog-eared pages, handwritings, and pressed flowers left behind.

In 2015, another bible was mailed to me by a cousin in Cleveland. This book had belonged to my great-grandfather, Moses Bloomfield. It, too, had passed through Henry. Now these books live with me in my studio.

I have spent my time during the pandemic sequencing photographs for CODA: images from the bibles, images of my mother on her last journey, reflective photographs of her home and objects left behind after she died, and ephemeral photographs from the archive of her life.

These images connect me to those no longer here, and their hauntingly beautiful presence comforts me in a time of uncertainty.

CODA is both an internal landscape and a universal narrative. It illuminates the memories of my mother and her last journey, woven together through a process of discovery and grief.

—3.29.22