Asleep

When my twin daughters were approaching their seventh birthday they had asked me if they could get bunk beds for their birthday presents. They had been sleeping in the same double bed for a few years and were ready to have their own space in which to sleep. I had been enjoying my mid-night gazing at them while they were asleep since they were born; entwined with one and other or in a variety of symmetrical or more random configurations. I agreed to make a change in their sleeping arrangement as a seventh birthday present, but also began to realize that this mid-night pleasure of mine would soon end. I began to record my nocturnal gazing by photographing my sleeping daughters each night before I went to bed. In Asleep these images have been stitched into old bedding?pillowcases and stuffing?with cotton thread and my own hair. This work is both about savoring fleeting memories, which we embody. Asleep is also a metaphor for our cultural sleepwalking at a dangerous time of life on this planet.