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Walking Backwards
Plate no. 20 How I Remember You, 2025, archival matte photo paper, mulberry paper, 8”x10.” We all wish we could go back in time. If you don't, you're lying to yourself. But if I could go back, would wisdom fade? The savoring that comes from knowing, would that be lost too? They say it’s not that easy to go back, but maybe it could be: Close your eyes walk backwards in a straight line, simply will it into existence. So I do. One step, then another. Time begins to tick in rever
Jessica Pettingill
Nov 51 min read


Roses in July
I remember, the call of the bird clock on the kitchen wall, chirping on the hour every hour. It echoes like the ocean in the shells I used to collect. The ones I piled high on the garden table. Now, Someone else lives there. And the birds of paradise, once worshipped by wrinkled hands don’t bloom like they used to. I remember, Nana’s garden spilled over with roses peach, red, almost white, their scent folding into the air like sugar and earth. I breathed it in, not know
Jessica Pettingill
Oct 81 min read


Great Great Grandmother
Plate no. 4 Grapes, 2025, archival matte photo paper, embroidery thread, cyanotype, 7" x 9." I don’t know anything about you, except how you died.1926. Grapes sprayed silver with poison, you breathed them in, not knowing. But I imagine hibiscus flowers tucked behind your ear, like I do when I get the chance. Salt wind combing through your hair, bare feet pressed into damp soil. You must have loved flowers, like your daughte
Jessica Pettingill
Oct 71 min read


Luisa
Plate no. 5 Luisa, 2025, archival matte photo paper, 6" x 8." You were born in a storm, In the California hills. Wild poppies bent the knee to you, as you emerged into the world. The year was 1920. You grew up barefoot trampling through fields of wildflowers Desert marigolds grasped between your fingers Running through the vineyard Resting under the shade of the big oak tree. That was your world. You hadn’t learned yet how to measure yourself against everyone else. Then your
Jessica Pettingill
Oct 31 min read
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