carrie is mom to annika, eden and nora ~ still within. i met her almost two years ago when she came for the newborn session of eden. she meant so much to me that i still have several enlarged images of eden in my office, which i will surrender soon and hand them over to you, carrie!
noted from our first meeting, carrie is a textile artist. there is absolutely nothing she cannot knit or crochet so i knew first that i wanted to incorporate yarns and textures into this shoot. every thing the girls are wearing in these first few images, carrie handmade! i also felt with carrie’s whimsicality, i wanted to add something that would be a little more fairy-tale. this was outside of knowing she would have princess crowns for the girls. simply, confirmation. the crowns were brilliant! i haven’t met a more content mom – ever. a woman happy to have less in order to have more with her daughters and husband. she doesn’t have to do anything to prove it. you will easily see her connection to the girls, not because i am taking pictures of them, but because the bond strongly existed long before they came to me.
as i was cleaning and converting the living room into a studio, i dusted a photograph of my daughter when she was 9 years old. she was eating an orange in it. i was struck with this memory: shortly after it was taken (some 15 yrs ago) i had found a poem by a mom written with imagery while eating oranges with her child. ownership of this poem now being lost i will credit it to ‘an amazing anonymous’. i am dedicating this poem to carrie. here in these photographs annika and eden enjoyed completely a bowl of oranges just so i could create the poem in pictures.
Eating Oranges ~ for you, carrie
Eating oranges with you is amazing ~
Worth the cessation of the interminable laundry foldings…
And infinitely rewarding in contrast.
Five minutes with you like this is a parenthetical event,
(unplumed, but persuasive in it’s simplicity).
The brilliance of this moment, infact, throws into the shadow
the tears (yours and mine),
the exhaustion,
the endemic clutter,
the smiles at my occupation, (even)
the here-to-fore glaringly obvious dearth of spending money.
You are oblivious to such miracles, of course.
Thoroughly juiced you sit cross-legged, absorbed in your third orange.
This is sweet! you say overcome.
I know,
I know.
I have tasted these years fully.
belly painting – carrie’s idea… woven paper floor – mine!
once again the day here in south dallas proved to be too hot (106) to make a pregnant woman spend much time outside… so my front yard had to suffice for part…ugh! i think it fell short of what i had envisioned, but that’s just got to be let go of.
the reward!
THE END!!!!
15 weeks
