Selections from 40 MOONS

Elizabeth Stone honors and depicts the passage of the last 40 months of her mother's life. 3200 pages of handwritten notes by caregivers, witnesses of her decline into disease and dementia, are transformed by the artist into a series of 40 moons. Each moon is an acknowledgment of gentle daily rhythms, filled alternatively with laughter, hallucinations and worry. Stone weaves these tangible essences of her mother's fading existence into geometric abstractions overlaid with an indecipherable metaphoric language. Framing her mother's wane within the wax and wane of lunar cycles is an apt metaphor. The moon's ability to reflect sunlight depends on its proximity to earth. This reflective process is lovingly depicted in this collaborative life process of mother and daughter. The dynamic caregiving relationship is rekindled and transformed when depicted among the celestial moon and stars. The fading in brightness as with the cycles of a moon waxing and waning , becomes a metaphor for her mother's decline and transition back to the stars.