Hate Crime part 1, Stare

Hate Crime part 2, Shoe

This set of photos is about the hate crimes committed against several in the LGBT community. By simply being themselves, these people are persecuted and tortured every day.

Childhood Lost

This piece reminds me of how precious childhood is, and how painful it is when it is taken away from you. The sadness, the emptiness… all come over you in a moment to shift out what was once a happy, cheerful, colorful life.

I was a simple child once. I lived in a house.

When I was 11 I sat on a toilet at my Grammar School. I investigated the smell of dried blood in a paper lined receptacle.

I didn’t understand as I didn’t belong, not yet.

When I was 12 I sat on our toilet at home reading directions I had pulled from a box of tampons. It seemed easy enough.

I didn’t understand that life as I knew it was surreptitiously eroding.

When I was 13 I sat on the lap of a friend’s father, his oversized hands cupped my emerging breasts keeping me from leaving.

I didn’t understand my body or him.

Filth and grime, blood and hair; simplicity hid and what was once still is vacant.

Medium: Silver Gelatin Print and Marker

The title of my project is called “Stop the Cycle”, the reason why I chose this subject is because it is important to spread awareness for others to get out there and help. However, what about saving the children who are now adults that carry out such violent crimes because it is all they know? This topic is important to me not just because I was a victim of physical abuse, but because I had no one help me through suicidal thoughts as well as years of depression. It important to let people know that there is help out there if they want to get better.

Don’t Tell Mommy

Home Becomes Prison

It’s just my period… but a little early this month

Please let it be just a dream

These individual pieces are from a photography project I did for a college art class. It was a series entitled, The Thing that Happened to K—–. It is based on the story of a former friend “K” (who will remain anonymous), who I recently discovered had been sexually abused between the ages of 12-16. This is only a vague interpretation of what must have went on for those 4 years, behind closed doors.

This is how I try to understand it.

click to play: You by Amber Johnston

10 Years Old

Garden

The home of my parents remains as it did 17 years ago, when traumatic events filled its rooms, a memento moiré for lost childhood. The garden in the back of the house has not been touched since his banishment. Briars and weeds fill the sunken landscape. A fountain that used to nourish the pond lays on it’s side, buried in the decay of over a decade. Bare winter branches expose a scene of molestation, recognizable only by two. The garage sinks ever deeper into the earth; wood rooting, wholes in the roof, waiting to be torn down. Waiting to forget. The 100-year-old house is split, red brick, and white panel, forgotten and ever present. Fingers of ivy, naked, crawl across the paneling, filthy from the dirt yard below, like veins that offer no life. Inside, old doors, paint chipping from lack of care, still hide sexual betrayals, closed off to the rest of the family. The bedroom of the brother, perpetrator, is used as a storage space. Filled with childhood toys and memories, it literally holds the baggage to a past of which no one in the family can seem to rid themselves.

His Room

His Ceiling

Corner

Bathtime

Dismembered

click to play: Your Voice Deserves to be Heard by Lyrikel (Kelly Hatch) featuring Izakura

My friend Izakura worked as a counselor for a while, and I met him on a blog that I wrote in about my past. He would share stories and give positive and hopeful things to me, and others. I’m a writer, and one night I was thinking about counseling survivors of sexual abuse, and thought of everything I went through and came up with the song. Before the first verse was written I called up Izakura and asked him to sing in the chorus, and he agreed! It was hard doing the song together because we live in different states, but it came out just fine.

I continue to write about getting my voice heard, and help others find their own voice. It’s something that isn’t being talk about enough, and it needs to be.