The history of love and child abuse among four generations of my family is represented by manipulated portraits copied from albums I inherited from my mother. These figures are printed to scales that indicate the relative weight of their importance to the theme, (the women relatively large, my father much smaller). They are gathered around a flame that functions both as a symbol of unity, and as a recreation of the fire I started in the broiler of our stove that instigated the punishment represented in the Center Panel.

My great great grandmother, Mrs. Annie Hodge appears on the bottom left. According to my grandmother, Eladia Hodge, Annie Hodge was a powerful and sadistic woman. My grandmother told my sister Gloria and I that Annie Hodge would tie her to trees and beat her with switches.

My mother and father appear on either side of the flame. My twin sisters Gloria (left) and Angela (right) and my mother and I are in the upper left corner. All the other images are of me as a child.