Calling the Birds Home. By Cheryle St. Onge.

My mother and I have lived side by side on the same farm for decades. Our love was mutual and constant. She developed vascular dementia, and so began the flushing away of her emotions and her memory. At first I stopped making pictures with her, then I stopped making pictures at all. 

Perhaps as a counterbalance to her conversations of why she wanted to die, of how she imagined she could die. And because I needed some happiness, some light in the afternoon, these portraits of my mother began. At first made with any camera within reach, phone-camera, or 8” x 10” view camera. Made in the moment, as a distraction from watching her fade away. I would make a picture of her, then share that picture of her with others I love. Sharing the act of being in the moment, sharing the ephemeral nature of my looking and her seeing.

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Now, when I leave our home, when I leave my mother behind, people find me. They want to tell me their stories and they want to hear mine. It's a beautiful back and forth, much like a true portrait.. Because of the dementia, we have no conversations. But we do still have this profound exchange - the making of a portrait. 

She must recall our history and the process of picture making. Because she brightens up and is always up for what my children would refer to as the long effort with the long camera. That best describes sitting before an 8” x 10” view camera, on top of a tripod with its bellows extended out. My mother does her best and I do mine. And then in turn, I give the picture away to anyone who will look. It is an excruciating form of emotional currency.

Cheryle St. Onge

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photographs by Cheryle St. Onge via