and so it goes, and so it goes...

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and so it goes, and so it goes, and so will you soon, i suppose...

This work is dedicated to my mother, Stella Kehayas Jeon. She lived a rather remarkable life, and always unselfishly took care of others as she shunned the limelight herself.

This image was featured by Bob Weil for the April 18th Apps Uncovered column at iPhoneography Central. Of this image (and one other that was featured the same week), Bob wrote:

"I was particularly taken by the two pieces by Diana Nicolette Jeon. Both are in reference to her mother’s deteriorating state of health, and attempt to express her state of mind in coming to terms with her mother’s condition, and the gifts the daughter has received from the mother. These two images are especially moving when taken in context, as you can see from the backstories."

http://www.iphoneographycentral.com/apps-uncovered-18-april-2014/

It was also selected by Jennifer Bracewell for inclusion in the first Portrait of an Artist showcase at The App Whisperer. Jennifer wrote,

"I adore this subtle double exposure by Diana Nicholette Jeon. The meditative pose and interesting crop make me want to know more about the story behind this piece."

Finally, Geri Centorze at Art of Mob also featured this work in Painterly Mobile Art Monday No. 28 at Art of Mob.

The Backstory:

The last week of March this year, my mother was diagnosed with terminal, advanced stage cancer - and she passed on May 2, 2014.

This caused me to ponder quite a number of things, but one was to think about what it means to lose one’s home. Not literally, but figuratively – about what it means when you no longer have the psychological shelter of the ability to return to one’s childhood home.

A mother is also another form of shelter, of a home, as for many of us, she is the person who shielded us from all sorts of real or perceived dangers.

The Process:

For this work, I used myself as a stand-in model for my mother. I photographed myself standing again a wall in a dress, and I altered it using apps on the iPhone and iPad to change the form to be less realistic. I also took a series of self-portraits of myself shortly after getting the news, to capture my emotions while they were still fresh. While my common practice is to intentionally intertwine apps seeking to obscure which was used, to use them to create something new, in this case, I wanted to subtly but still identifiably use Tangled FX to show the skin of the woman as webbed – in order to visually show the ravages caused by my my mother’s illness.