On Finding My Grandmother's Portrait
In Tidings of Magpies, Jasmin Darznik MFA '14 reflects on finding a portrait of her grandmother from 1960s Iran.
Writes Darznik:
"By force of time, but also immigration, my family’s lost many things. Some we’ve thrown away. But photographs, never. Ten years ago, when my mother began her descent into dementia, I became the custodian of the family photographs. I’ve boxed them up and taken them wherever I move, the way the ancients traveled with their ancestral masks.
"This past year I’ve spent many hours sifting through these old photographs. Without my usual routines and habits, I’ve fallen out of focus. Amid so much uncertainty, I’ve found comfort returning to the past, and pictures offer the surest connection to it.
"What I’ve craved is familiarity. Just as often what I’ve found has surprised me, but no picture has done so more than the portrait I discovered of my grandmother."