Breathers (After Alzheimers)

Breathers is an emotional portrait, a near-typology of Pacific Northwest trees and their relationship to the developing landscape of my late mother-in-law’s early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease. They push upward and hover over homes, set against skies that isolate them like studio backdrops. The holes in their branches and leaves mimic gaps in cognition and metaphoric holes left in the brain. This work processes a disease that has claimed a rapidly vanishing memory, and the toll it’s taken on our family. In this context, the trees serve as listeners, breathers, and emotional guardians that have witnessed trauma and change.