Building Books 1 – University of Southern Maine, 2023
Flo & Alice: Swimming Pool Memories
Accordion fold with vertical drop down (like souvenir postcards), photographs and original text
15 w x 4” h – closed
15 w x 48” – open
Edition of 6
$400
Swimming is a strong motif in my family, vacations synonymous with water. In his twenties, my dad won a medal in a long-distance swim race in New York harbor and swam till his death. After mom died, we scattered her ashes in a beloved pond where they lie with my dad’s.
I still visit Hollywood, Florida, where my parents, aunt and uncle retired. I love to swim in the pool. Flo, my mother’s younger sister, now one hundred, still lives there. On her wall is a photo of her with her swim team at Ohio University. At eighty, Flo could do a perfect dive but that ended when she broke her leg soon after. My mom swam into her eighties.
Feeling deeply nostalgic on a recent trip, I photographed my aunt in her apartment then outside with her aide. I photographed the pool and empty chairs. Being alone at poolside conjured both sweet and sad memories of swims together and of good times lost… a small odyssey for me.
Ruth Ginsberg-Place – Brookline, MA
