I often wonder, what kinds of unknown traits, preferences, mannerisms, do we carry with us from our distant family members? We know in some cases only fragments of their lives, at times not even their names--

one, a scribe.

one, a miner.

another, an opera lover who ran a restaurant.

Imagining what parts of me are linked with them-in body and mind- I thread through wood, pull together pieces of the past over the walls of my small house, and dig into the grains and grooves like a record trapped in a single moment of time.

Discovering, and altering, turn of the century glass slides from the New York Department of Education. She is one of my mother's relatives. Not sure of her name.

This one I may not alter. 1916-man washing dishes in New York.