Kathy’s Family (1986-Present)
It is Christmas morning, and unbeknownst to Kitty, her grandkids had just covered her with self adhesive gift wrap bows. Twenty minutes later, when she finally discovered the bows, everyone cracked up.
When Kathy and I started going out with one another in 1986 I became a part of a family that was very different then my own.
I grew up in an upper westside NYC apartment, and it was just the four of us; my brother David, my parents, and I. At the age of seven my folks got divorced, and soon afterwards my mother, brother, and I moved to the east side (my Dad found another upper westside apartment for himself), which was the first of a number of places I would live until I went away to college.
Kathy on the other hand was born into a large family. She had a brother and sister, a slew of nieces, nephews, uncles and aunts, and her parents lived until their dying days in the same small town, four bedroom house where Kathy grew up. Her family could be called a “typical American family” by most standards of the time.
I was welcomed into Kathy's family immediately, and we spent many weekends and holidays with them. I would always have my Leica at the ready, and I was thrilled to have a whole new cast of characters to photograph. As the decades went by I found myself continually documenting the many moments that made up the everyday rituals of family life; meals, watching television, backyard bar-b-q's, family outings, playing cards, beach and dog walks, birthdays and holidays, first communions and graduations, births, illnesses, and even deaths.
In 2021 as I began to assemble in chronological order the photographs I had taken of Kathy's family, it became clear to me that I had not only captured the story of a family's physical and emotional change over an extended time, but I had also captured my own.
(For image data, click thumbnail and hover cursor over enlarged photographs)
