Fault Lines

Living in California means you could have a fault line running through your backyard. At any unforeseen moment, an earthquake could strike and your home could fall to destruction around you. The fault lines in our lives are much the same, building pressure over time until one day there is a shift in the foundation and, through a phone call, a diagnosis, or a few words uttered, the life we knew before is lost in the fallout.

After losing my mother to the darkness of Alzheimer’s disease and enduring the end of a long-term relationship, my sense of home and belonging was shaken. Feeling like a walking ghost, I took notice of and resonated with the abandoned houses in my new neighborhood; spaces in transition, overtaken by the wild, existing among the ordinary.

I processed my grief by exploring these places in solitude. I would disappear for hours with my camera into the stillness, and there I found healing within my own interiors. These houses informed me of the beauty amongst the ashes, conveyed that life always pushes us forward, that new growth is inevitable, and that there is a message in what was lost.