Life comes with markers, big and small: birthdays, anniversaries, first times and lasts times.  We count schools, jobs, children, spouses, accomplishments, wins and losses. There are shared celebrations and shared tragedies. These marked experiences permeate the stories we tell.

Over the years I have been constructing a visual memoir using many of these markers in photographs, photo essays, artist’s books and print on demand books. In this current but on-going series of self-portraits, “Little Procedures*,” I use a new marker.

Life is full of little procedures.  Some start early in life, others creep up on us as the years build.  There’s the haircut, hair dye, facial, massage, manicure, pedicure, waxing, threading, shaving, drilling and cleaning.  There are medical tests, mammograms, pap smears, colonoscopies, bone density tests, X-rays, blood tests and urine tests. There are tubes, ointments, cups, pipettes, clamps, lights, diagrams, X-rays, johnnies, pasties, towelettes, lights, scales, tape and gauze.

Using a camera with a twistable view screen, I am able to compose my self-portraits and take them in the midst of the procedures.  I present the photographs in a small format, 3″x4″, to maintain the intimacy of the subject itself and to suggest an intimate sharing of my experience with the viewer.