Bethany, Celeste and Baby Guy

I took the following portrait of Bethany with her daughter Celeste and her baby Guy while I was up at Camp Etna in Maine working on a new project. They are sitting in front of their home where they live and which is still in the process of renovation. Bethany and her husband and her three children are the youngest residents at Camp Etna. This was my favorite of many portraits I took of them.

"Bethany, Celeste, and Baby Guy", Etna, Maine, August 2013. ©Juliana Beasley

Demons in the Closet

I need to call my Aunt Jeanie. This morning I received a correspondence with a young woman who had worked with her, helping her organize her belongings in her beautiful home in Hyde Park in Chicago. She knew about me and I knew little about her. She said she knew about my mother. I felt like a worm that had been uncovered from underneath a heavy stone. My Mom at Med School Graduation, Philadelphia, PA, 196?. Beasley Archive And then I wrote a separate e-mail to my friend, Jason. The two correspondences connected in my fleeting mind. "My demons take pills, read to many books, have to many degrees and accolades framed and hung on walls. They have no social grace or morality or integrity. They live in depravation and destitution.  They are fun and like to dance in circles and are always the center of attention. They leave their children sitting on the curb after school waiting for 2 hours after all the other children have been picked up by their parents. Then they show up in a fierce red TR6, classical music blasting,high on Ritalin and throw you in the jumper seat in the back because the dog is sitting in the passenger seat. They don't take you home. They take you on a 2 hour joy ride through Brooklyn and deposit you at the nursing station in the emergency room of some hospital where you wait another couple of hours. Yes, you are right. at least, I know my demon. She is dead in body but still alive in spirit and occupying my being. I either kill her off once and for all or i learn to love her because she is me. My demons are cute as a button but selfish as all hell. They will will trick you with charm and murder you with false hopes of tender love and friendship."