‘My mother had dementia but beautiful things unfolded’: Cheryle St Onge’s best photograph | Art and design

I I am an only child. My father was killed in a car accident when I was 14 and my mother was 47. After that we bonded really well. She worked at a university and was an artist: she painted and sculpted birds. She was a wonderful person, who lit up a room and was someone everyone wanted to be with. She was very generous.

Later in life, she developed dementia. I left my teaching job to stay home and take care of her. She was very active – she would go out and pull out bulbs, put horses in the wrong stalls. It was very stressful coming home – I would pull into the driveway and think, “Oh my word!

I had no prior experience with dementia and thought it wouldn’t last long – but sure enough, it did. The first year was slow. She said she was losing her mind, and it made her sad. I too became depressed and stopped taking photos. Photographing my mother was sacrilege. I thought it would be voyeurism. Then a friend, Joni, who also knew her, challenged me to take my mother’s photo. I turned to my mom on the couch and said, “We’re going to take a picture for Joni.” Then she did a remarkable thing: she turned towards the window and ruffled her hair. This shocked me. She said: “Why not – what else do we do?” It changed everything.

She loved being outside and we would go out whenever possible to take photos. This picture is of our dog – which my mother didn’t like very much – a Jack Russell. Skipper loved the pipe. My mother came out and they were dancing together, two beings in the afternoon sun, having their own conversation. Beautiful things like this just kept happening. It eased my sadness and depression.

As the dementia developed, my mother would say she wanted to die and ask me to take her there, as if it was a place we could travel to. We lived a surreal life together for a few years. I couldn’t think of losing her; it never occurred to her that she was losing me too. I remember she was dancing to a Dolly Parton song, swaying her hips, and she looked so beautiful that it stopped me in my tracks. I cried, I looked at her and I remembered her as my mother. She came up to me and gave me a big hug and said, “Why are you crying?”

If I feel sadness, I feel there is an equal amount of love – this has been a useful form of self-preservation. I couldn’t take pictures of the stained sheets and dark closets. This, along with sunlight and happiness, is a very careful point of view – a lot has been deliberately left out. The title of the book, Calling the Birds Home, comes from a day when I felt like I couldn’t do anything else: I got up in the middle of the night and she had moved the refrigerator to the middle of the room and stacked the chairs on the couch, and was walking around naked. I was so upset that I had to raise my hands, recognize our place in the universe, and ask for help.

After he passed away five years ago, I discovered how much I missed caring for and caring for someone. The mother-daughter roles had been reversed. She was a wonderful mother, she made our life together as beautiful as possible throughout my childhood and beyond.

When I started sharing the photos, it became a universal experience – yes, it’s disastrous, but what I did with her was a new way to have a conversation as we lost our ability to express our love. It helped us through a dark time. The images were secondary to that. She thrived on these photos all the time, she was up for it – it was part of her nature, and that didn’t change with dementia. I wish we could tackle difficult topics and also think about how to overcome them. I hope this work helps motivate someone to overcome sadness and go do something with someone they love.

Calling the Birds Home is published by L’Artière

CV of Cheryle St Onge

Born: Worcester, Massachusetts
Highlight: “The day I bought my first 8×10 camera. I was in grad school at the time and spending too much money on it – even though it was worth every penny. I was young, enthusiastic and had way too much energy. But once I started working with old Deardorff, the process forced me to slow down, I gave myself time to think and imagine – my work changed and I never looked back. “
Trick: “Be organized, keep a sketchbook, find a group of other artists to share and discuss your work with. Be kind and patient with yourself – nothing happens as quickly as we hope.”