AnOther Magazine writer Miss Rosen interviews Kristina Shook about her mother Melissa Shook’s artistic practice. Melissa Shook’s Daily Self-Portraits 1972–1973 are the subject of a homonymous monograph recently published by TBW books.
For as long as Kristina can remember, her mother’s camera was always there, a third eye that happily shared in their daily lives, chronicling fleeting snippets of memory with a tender bliss that belies profound tragedy. At the age of 12, Melissa Shook’s mother died and with her passing, the young girl suffered traumatic amnesia. Her memories of her mother were erased and what remained was an alcoholic father exhibiting extreme negligence.
In this moment of guarded intimacy, Shook slowly began stripping away the proverbial veils that had enshrouded her entire life, setting forth on an epic exploration of self inscribed within the domestic interior among family and friends. Every day until August 1973, she set up her medium format camera, crafting an intimate portrait of herself as both artist and muse. With the opening of Daily Self-Portraits 1972–1973 in Kansas City, Missouri, and the publication of an accompanying book of the same name (TBW Books), the complete series of 192 photographs comes into view for the very first time, offering an expansive and inviting meditation on womanhood.
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