Bertha Alyce: Mother exPosed, 1973-2002

Enrolled in my first photography course in 1973, my teacher said, “Put a roll of Tri-X in your camera and start shooting something you need to understand.” The next morning, I found myself at Mother’s apartment door, letting myself in with my key.

When I entered her bedroom she was on the phone, nude. I wasn’t surprised and she didn’t flinch. She liked to be undressed and was never embarrassed about her body. Why should she be? At 60, it was pretty amazing.

I waited a few minutes and then took a picture. Again, she didn’t flinch. When she was off the phone she tried to show me some business papers — I wasn’t interested in them but I took another picture. Then she started posing and the last three amused her. I was surprised I had done such thing. I developed the film and made some prints but never took them to class. I showed them to Mother and we had a good laugh. I don’t recall her asking me to be discreet with them but I think she trusted I would. I hid the negatives.

Five precious frames. Every few years I would make sure I could still find them but it wasn’t until twenty-three years later, when she had been dead for five years, that I decided to see if these negatives would print. I wasn’t sure — I had taken them before I knew anything about photography.

I continued to photograph and videotape conversations with Mother, always trying to understand her, to like her, to see if I could get her to love me. Mother was the fulcrum of my work for the first two decades, whether or not she was the one actually in front of my lens. After she died in 1991, I worked for ten more years on a book about her. Finally, without her around being cruel and difficult, I began to understand her and know that we had both actually loved each other.

I wanted to publish this work for two reasons: first I hoped to encourage others to try to do this before their parent died, and second, to redeem and honor that parent. Some think the book did just the opposite but others see it differently. Mother would not have objected to being exposed — she was an exhibitionist and loved my photographing her. And I like to think she was giving to me something I wanted, and that felt good to both of us. This may be the most key factor: after Mother died, when I read all of the letters she and Daddy exchanged in the 30s before they married, I became convinced that she had wanted to have a career and had great respect for the one or two women she knew who did. Perhaps that’s why she let me photograph her. More than anything, I now believe she wanted me to have a successful career.

Mother at 21

At 5 with my family

Mother, circa 1941

At 12, photography seemed like magic to me, something girls couldn't understand.

The house we moved into when I was 7

My first photography assignment to photograph something you need to understand led me to Mother's bedroom as her bath was running. Her nudity was no surprise. I waited, then snapped a picture.

Off the phone, she sat on the bed to show me some boring business papers.

Then she decided to get into a sexy pose. I took 2 more pictures, but really, I didn't yet know how to take pictures.

She wanted just one more sexy one. Okay, I said.

Then we laughed. I had 5 negatives - what would I DO with them? I made a few prints, we laughed about them, then I hid them until she died in 1991..

Could I make big prints of these? Yes! My firsts tri-x negatives enlarged to 20x24!

1976, 3 years later, I was back again hoping to do bare breasted pictures of the 2 of us. Yes, she agreed, but first wanted one of herself alone.

Soon we're both in the bare breasted pose, cable release bulb in my hand. Then you say it. Again. I knew you would. “It’s too bad your breasts aren’t as pretty as mine.”

I go behind the camera and you start tweaking your breasts: "Come on little fella! Stand up! Come on! Don't you hear me take the picture? My camera is very loud.

In your dressing room with the 3 mirrored doors and so much perfume that I can't breathe.

A morning pop in visit.

You like to show me your exercises.

Your look of frustration, trying to control your anger.

Four generations of females: Dear, Mother, me, Alison.

A surprise at a temple reception

Love and Marriage

The plastic surgeon getting the "before" pictures.

This is what I look like now.

This is what I WANT to look like.

Always disappointed that I wouldn't airbrush your wrinkles, I've found an old portrait in which the airbrush has faded.

Your favorite from the sitting with the professional portrait photographer, Kaye Marvins.

But THIS is the one I like best, one that I took in 1976. Many years later I can see her sad eyes.

My grandmother, Dear, in her living room in Monroe, LA, c. 1930. Me on the same couch in Santa Fe, NM, 1998.

I posed for George Segal in 1983.

Mother and her paramour, an affair that lasted from 1966-74. Daddy died in 1971.

My children, Barry and Alison, at Mother's wedding in 1978.

Mother and Al in their bedroom

Mother in her dining room.

And in her office.

Heartbreaking

Silence

Mother, 70, in her ostrich feather dress. This picture looked angry to me until Joan Coke exclaimed, “My! What an elegant woman!” Instantly, I missed her - the same picture no longer looked angry.

Mother took all of us on a 2-week cruise for her birthday, but she was always angry with one of us, usually me.

Before and after her stroke, 1987-88. She refused to work at rehab: "But Mother, the doctors say you could walk again!" "Don't push me, Gay!"

Al wanted to move so they bought a new apartment in a fancier building. Eight days later she had a stroke. She'd always said that people her age shouldn't move. This always happens.

The last images I made of Mother. She had deteriorated and was often angry. She died a month later, in 1991.

What was Mother's is now mine

"I Begin to Forgive You" This text is a tight synopsis of the book I did about Mother, Bertha Alyce: Mother exPosed

Mother's jewelry, in 8x10 photographic paper boxes

My jewelry, in 8x10 photographic paper boxes

Mother's I LOVE YOU bracelet

My brother Sidney at a basketball game. He owned the Denver Nuggets for a few years.

Sidney and me in his Denver apartment, c. 1985

Sidney in hospital after his accident in 1998, after which he lived five years as a paraplegic.

Me in Mother's Wedding Dress

Me in Mother's Nightgown

Mother's Furs returned to the wild, Santa Fe, NM

Mother gave herself weekly manicures - never thought the pros did it well.

The contents of Mother's Purse

How I changed as I was working on the book about my relationship with Mother. c. 1994, with her aroma still in her fur coat. c. 1997, coming up for air. c. 2000, Breathing