After the Embers Burn and Die

My father often told folk tales and stories, which used fear to shape my views from an early age. He would pretend to transform into various beasts and monsters, raising his lip to reveal wolf-like canines. Overcome by a primal aggression, he would grasp his face in agony, but just before losing control he would catch himself, always promising that the next time may not be the same. Juxtaposed against my father’s attempts to disguise theatrical, fear-evoking stories as lessons of morality were his teachings informed by Native American spirituality and culture. I was raised in an animistic household and was taught the sacredness of the land. We engaged in ritual, giving thanks to all forms of life. Together, this created my sense of self and identity. As an adult, I learned that my father was deceived. He had little true connection to his parents, but after his father’s passing, he discovered a photograph of him dressed in full Native American regalia. Mistaking this image as evidence of having Native American lineage, he became enveloped in this false heritage. He pursued an understanding of the culture, wrongly making it his own. After the Embers Burn and Die is an ongoing body of work exploring identity built upon false truths and a lineage of self-created mythos. I see photography for its ability to create narratives and utilize the medium to explore a world between fiction and reality, investigating themes of mysticism, animism, and death. Through image-making, I engage with the duality of my father’s stories, exploring how both storytelling and photographs hold the power to construct one’s identity and their understanding of the world around them.