Love at First Sight

As an artist, I am interested in the secrets people keep hidden.  The things that are just too difficult to talk about.  These defining events and stories become one’s identity and remain private even in the closest relationships. This concept was my primary focus in creating a piece about loneliness and aging.  The work developed from a series of phone conversations between my seventy-nine year old grandmother and myself over the course of several months.

I often think about my grandmother who became a widow at age 48.  She has now been widowed longer than she was married and her children moved out over twenty years ago.  It is hard for me to imagine living alone for so long.

Through our conversations, I asked my grandmother questions about living alone and what that was like for her.  I assumed she would be sad, lonely and even scared at times.  Instead, she told me reminiscent stories about her life and my grandfather.  It seemed her way of coping with the present was by remembering the past.  At this time, I was living alone in a city with no family and no close friends.  I was scared to be living alone.  I didn’t want to be by myself.

Love at First Sight is a blend of stories exchanged between the two of us; two voices that speak together and reflect on living alone.  The image covering the chair is of a woman who is both my grandmother and a reflection of me in the future. The private moments that are revealed throughout the chair are universal matters that occur in the lives of many living alone.  Love at First Sight is meant to be a quiet reflection of these bittersweet moments.