Rebecca Rhees

Agnes
tintype photograph
14 x 11 in.

Agnes and Mary Beth are storybook dolls that belonged to my mother when she was a child. Stored in a small box, many years passed since they received attention. A record of my mother’s history, they laid lifeless- without the personality that the hands of a child creates in play. During a time when my Mother too, seemed lifeless in her battle with cancer, I felt unexpectedly connected to these objects. It seemed important to preserve them photographically, and with the tintype – a historical technique that offers associations with the past – appropriate to capture the nostalgia that these dolls provoke.

© Rebecca Rhees