Skein traces it across three generations, asking what a family actually passes down — not just objects, but a photographer’s vocabulary for how a woman was meant to be seen and remembered.

Each woman in the cabinet cards that found me at a small second hand shop about a year ago was photographed at the same New York City studio — confirmed by the imprint on the cabinet card. The brooch is the one constant. So, I decided to dive into the archives and find a mourning brooch (The Met Open Access) to anchor the series.

Each panel is built from the visual grammar of the cabinet card — the formal pose, the face is clear, the body and dress receding into flatness. I preserved that hierarchy deliberately, but really wanted to play with transparencies and generations. Layered above the torn, resolved fragments is a transparent print of the original cabinet card, hovering and ghosted — because memory is never a clean transmission. What survives is partial. Then, I constructed each of them around the single piece of mourning jewelry that outlived all three women who wore it.

Wrought, mixed media collage on wood, 14x18", 2026

Borne, mixed media collage on wood, 14x18", 2026

Carried, mixed media collage on wood, 14x18", 2026