Family Portrait

The formal family portrait makes no effort to present the real, but rather documents a performed ideal. All efforts, at least on the part of those who initiate and schedule the archivable proof of their familial relationship, are to show the best face, the cohesive nuclear unit, a highly choreographed and stilted statement that "This is us."

At some level the point of the exercise is that the not-so-ideal reality of family can, for a few shutter-clicks of the studio camera, measure up to some dreamed of enough-ness.

Outside of the portrait, not-enough-ness is an unspoken dread that shapes life in the form of measuring marks. These marks look like comparison, competition, and criticism.

What happens if the marks of measure disappear? What becomes of a measuring cup that no longer measures?

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