Each day, one photograph is drawn and afterwards, the photograph is discarded. The notion is that the violence of throwing away a graven image is eradicated by its transfer. On heavy pain medication, one drawing a day is all that really can be managed. In the end, the drawings, over 40 in total, are given away without record of owner or image. The typed up captions remain. Below, a handful:

Ben Tre, Vietnam. 1997.
Photographer: Self or Sean Meyer
Subject: Daughters of the American War Veterans at a Wedding

Sean and I illegally sail down the Mekong in a small and unlicensed boat. When our boat is no longer in sight of the city, we sit on the roof and sing songs with three students on their way to a wedding. At dawn, the students invite us to the three day nuptial ceremony. There, we ware urged to take as many photos as possible. We begin to think that taking photos is perceived as a measure of respect and we comply—Celluloid Miles of Respect. We take the kind of wedding photos we would loathe to take back home—staged, beaming, stiff. We feel ashamed of our two-facedness. We are urged on. We keep snapping.

Canto. Vietnam. 1997
Photographer: Sean
Subject: self at floating market at dawn

One market floats on the river, each store shifting, circulating. Here is the pharmacy, here is the same pharmacy but it floats next to the boat full of carrots this time and not the boat full of eggs, like last time. I want to be photographed in conjunction with this. That by association, somehow, I too will have an interesting geometry, and that I also could be aligned with beautiful morning labor. When we get the picture back I see that I look like something I don't want to be and must be: Plump Lady, Smiling. Delighted. Tourist. American. American.

France, 2001
Photographer: Stepmother or father
Subject: chateau

My adopted father and stepmother tell me they are going to France for Christmas and they go.

We have not spent Christmas together since the late 90's. They send photographs instead.

They are on a tour of structures: chateaus, castles, monasteries, fortresses. Sometimes, there is too much to draw and I leave some details out. I cannot imagine that they, my parents, pay any attention to the arrangement of the hedges in the left hand corner of the garden.

France. 2001.
Photographer: Adopted Father or Stepmother
Subject: mansion.

They never broach a stranger—asking a passerby to add them to the picture. So, I decide to add them in to the drawing. All their photos focuse on the sites, but I take the site away. Me, I've never been to France. What am I supposed to do with the picture? It conjures no memories. It elicits absence. I wasn't there.

Near the Uranium mines, New Mexico. 1999.
Photographer: Unknown
Subject: Japanese Archeologist at leisure at the end of the day's excavations

Because the photo is backlit, one can see the valley and the next mesa beyond. The details of Michio's face are lost, but we know he is smiling because his dimples have not been swallowed by the lack of exposure. He is probably holding a can of beer, but it is hard to tell. When he drives us from camp to the archeological site every morning, he drives so fast, that he endangers our lives and we both are thrilled by it—the car bucking and buckling-hovering, even—as we hit bumps in the dirt road and go airborne. In a couple of weeks, he will separate from his wife. Years later, he will move to another state and become an acupuncturist. We will lose contact.

Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1999.
Photographer: self
Subject: Ricardo in our apartment above the corner grocery store

In junior high I vow that I will never take photos of a lover. I think that making a visual record of a boyfriend will mean that I equate my self-worth with the boy or that that by taking photos we possess each other in some total, intractable way. Years later, I begin to doubt that this must always be true and suspect the desire to photograph your sweetheart might be more benign than I had originally thought. I give in. I start with Ricardo. And end with him—when the film is processed I can't make connections between what I see and what I love.

Homer, Alaska. 2001.
Photographer: Mother
Subject: Daughter at Guesthouse.

We are staying at a seaside hostel that belongs to the aunt of Jewel, a singer-songwriter in the 1990's. My mother has me pose as the thoughtful and pretty writer; I draw the photo with my pants off because I have to mess up my mother's mythmaking...

Denali, Alaska. 2001.
Photographer: Mother
Subject: Animals Visible from the Bus

My mother is so taken with the elk she is willing to capture their forms even if an elderly lady's gray hair halo fills the bottom layer of the photo. I am uncomfortable as it is being taken and I am uncomfortable when I glance at the developed results. I don't understand why she needs to take the picture so badly. I don't understand the relationship between the elk and my mother. Today I am more ashamed of myself, my unwillingness to allow my mother to respond to that which she loves.

Kenai Peninsula. Alaska. 2001.
Photographer: Self
Subject: Mother and Bald Eagle

Here is my mother. I am trying to align her head with the bald eagle who is scavenging on the beach in front of us. The eagle appears to be the size of a small German Shepard. My mother looks tired and the sunlight is harsh. This is why I throw it away.