The Elephant Project

Early in 2022, I was informed my stepfather was in the hospital. My mother who was suffering from dementia could not be left alone. I flew south to help. With the help of my daughter and step brothers we were able to move them both to a safe place where they could get the help they desperately needed but had been pretending they didn’t. As my mother was leaving the house, her obsession with things over whelmed her and she cried out “ I can’t leave without my elephants”. She had been collecting them her whole life.

On the flight home, I conceived this project to help me cope with the situation. I carved on linoleum blocks, 9 elephants. One for each decade of her life. Each elephant would be printed on handmade silk paper. As I carved I was able to process the events that had occurred.

Using the same drawing of an elephant, each image became less and less or sometimes more and distorted in some way to depict the changes that occurred in her life and memories. They represent how life changes us, and how our body and mind change over time, and the disintegration of her memories as she aged. The silk paper showing the fragility of the human mind and body. My mother’s dementia is related to her heart primarily. She is still alive and as active as she can be at 90 plus, but no longer recognizes me.

This is fine with me. I feel unburdened, knowing she is in a safe place and has people to care for her, and being visited by those she likes. I am not someone she likes, as she so frequently told me since I was a young child. I am moving on now. The elephants I have carved will be used again. Having spent so much time on them I have grown fond of them.

Four of the finished elephants were exhibited at the Mad Printers Annual exhibition at Studio 402 in July 2022. The Mad Printers are a small group of Printmakers from the Rochester NY area.