Melinda Barlow

 

Little did I know when photographer Laura Shill introduced me to “hidden mothers” that this particular image was lying in wait for me.  Nor did I imagine it would kindle my own collection.  But one month later I found myself online, searching obsessively for 19th century tintypes and cabinet cards of cloaked female “attendants” holding their children, further concealed by oval mounts, tucked into tiny cases, their faces sometimes scratched out or cropped off by the edges of the frame.  This one was riveting; it made me shiver and think grim reaper.  And yet that dark figure with a gaping maw was also supporting a rather startled child held in place by a veil of reticulation cascading from left to right in shimmering waves.  The effect was breathtaking.  Light and shade, solid and void, from steadying hand to swallowing lap, the image was at once familiar and unknown, an emissary from another century and an augury of a mysterious future.  Who was that masked woman?  What happened to her baby? Haunted by maternal presence, the photograph discloses its absence.  I love that its ghoulish aspect is laced with tenderness, and treasure each nick, dent, and trace of previous intimacy scoring its surface.  This tintype was held; it now touches me.  A potent totem, its contradictions are my own.