Alix Deane

Language in stone is a response to loss and grief. I am interested in how the passage of time shapes our understanding of mortality and memory. As a physical and emotional being I am inherently connected to my mother: our relationship from birth defines the way that I move through the world. I turn to the land to find meaning in the uneasiness of my connection with my mother. I am fascinated by rocks and water and the relationship they hold. Water shapes rock like the mother shapes the child.I like to imagine the experience of aging similarly to the way a rock is affected by time. Elementally, stone is a carrier of memory and meaning. Stones hold the history of time and life within their makeup. What does it mean to understand belonging through an object which is nonliving? Further, I am interested in finding meaning in death through non-human elements of the landscape due to their stoicism.

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I lost my stepfather, with whom I had a complicated relationship with. I lost him with no warning. This experience of death was the first that came with so much anger and shock. There are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. While grief doesn’t necessarily function in this particular order, I was in the first two phases for several months. During this time, as a daughter, I could feel what felt like a convoluted version of my mother’s pain but was unable to fully understand it. In the recent weeks I have just begun to experience and comprehend the fourth stage of grief; the deep heartbreak that comes with such a tragedy. I can feel it all throughout my body.

 

The weight of this loss is different than any other loss I’ve acknowledged. The heaviness lingers. Language in Stone reflects on my childhood in an effort to understand and find beauty in the process of aging and dying. Representations of stone through photography, glass, and ice embody the past and present experiences surrounding absence, distance, and grief.

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a cyanotype of ‘the passing’, a lake on a rainy day, 25 photographs/years of stone, my mother’s back, found text on water, stone, and body, my body weight in glassy stone, my mother's body weight in melting water, and thirteen sparks of light on the surface of water (rebirth).

2021