JD WEISS
“remembering the way home”
Medium format film / archival pigment print on panel
18” x 18”
Inspired by the poem Marie by Robert P Langdon
MARIE
I helped someone die today. Held Marie’s tired and bruised
hand and talked her through letting go.
I was honest — as I know she would want me to be —
and relayed the final truth without a coat of sugar.
The truth that this time she wasn’t going to bounce
back. That they wanted to cut her open again and clean
the guts of this stubborn infection. That the tubes had to come
out and she would forever breathe through a hole dug in her throat.
The truth that her cherished independence would be filched and she would
be under someone’s care in a home of weakness, popsicle stick crafts and wafts
of urine. With tears slipping down my face and falling onto her brittle
hand I offered the dignity of choice and asked if this is what she wanted.
She looked at me through her cataract milky eyes. I knew
she understood but she couldn’t respond because of the tubes
feeding her air like a decorative aquarium chest.
But Marie’s treasure was spent.
She moved her head from side to side like a pendulum. “No”
she mouthed closing her eyes with final thoughts racing through her healthy
mind She didn’t want this new quality of life.
She didn’t want this fight.
She looked up at me while they injected morphine into the IV bag. The gaze
lifted as her eyes rolled into her head like a junkie. They pulled the breathing
tube from her mouth — unrolled like a tape measure — and switched
off all of the machines except for one that monitored her beat.
Gurgles rose from her throat sounding like a child pushing air
through a straw into a glass of milk. I held her hand tighter as she faded
deeper into the task of giving in. “You will always be with me,” I repeated.
“Tap me on the shoulder to let me know when you visit.”
She gazed at the ceiling mouthing words that only the dead could hear. She saw
them reaching out to her—Ted, Manny, Duckie — and grasped their hands as they escorted
her into death. One final blip on the screen and she left without dramatics.
She simply closed her eyes and stopped living.
Later that evening the stress of the past month released like a slow leak
in a birthday balloon. I sunk into the mattress like it were a cloud and dreamt
of a younger Marie. Smiling like how I wanted to remember her. I felt
a tap on the shoulder and smiled knowing it was herletting me know she was there. Just as I had asked.
— © Robert P. Langdon
jd weiss discusses her work here.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I am drawn to nature whether it is the open vistas of the ocean or the smallest features in a dry brown leaf. Although, all that I see in my every day experience is part of my palette.
Open spaces of fields, lakes, and oceans reflect our fears, hopes, dreams and, fantasies. After all, the reality is that there is no out there without the perceptions (and the thoughts/emotions attached to them) that each individual brings to these spaces. It is this relationship we each have with nature that is explored throughout these images; often dream like, and surreal, open to each individuals interpretation. In addition, the nature of time, and impermanence are explored throughout these collections.
I use 6x6 medium format film cameras that produce negatives with both depth and subtleness. After scanning the negatives I sometimes combine multiple frames taken at the same location to create a more complete impressionistic experience. The prints are made with archival pigment inks on cotton rag paper. Each print is hand varnished, negating the need for glazing; providing the viewer with a more tangible experience than with typically framed photographs.
Finally, and most importantly, I believe photography's true power, is not in the capturing, and then saving a special moment from the past, but rather photographs serve as a reminder that these wonderful moments abound, and we are surrounded by them and indeed, are part of them in every present moment.
-jd weiss, 2018