Right Where We Are, Josh Jackson

Right Where We Are.
Josh Jackson. 
Digital Art.



:::

about this piece.
I began this project after reading the entries in the Right Where I Am project. For me, the project was borne out of a desire to connect with Margot and to connect to the babyloss community. And it sort of became a grief study, even though I realize that where people were at on the day they took part in the project could have been totally different the very next day. I wanted to learn and see if I could find any themes or patterns to this overwhelming grief. I read every post at least twice.

Here are some figures and thoughts regarding the project:

- Basically I took a word or a few words or a sentence from every single post and put it in the art piece I created in Photoshop. I read every post at least twice and looked for a theme within that post. Whether it was sad or hopeful or depressing or content, I tried to honor that person's post with what I chose to include in the document.
- On a deeper level, to begin with, I also put all of the collective posts together in one document and then read through the document as a whole piece to see if I could find lots of repeated ideas that were communicated. For example, how we will all miss our baby forever or how hard it was for so many people to deal with friends or how anxiety filled the subsequent pregnancy was...stuff like that. And then I tried to include this kind of thing as well from different posts that were written for the project.
- Special love goes out to Sally (HopesMama) and Jill (FireFlyForever) - they commented on almost every single post in the entire project. I felt their presence as I read and copies and pasted for hours on end.
- All in all, there were 138,571 words written. 239 pages in my pages document (enough to fill a book!). This doesn't include a few BLM's that had private blogs that I couldn't access.
- I went over and over through this piece to make sure I didn't leave out any baby names...I hope I got them all, but I'm fairly certain I did (excluding those who have private blogs that I couldn't access).
- The document itself is 4800 X 6000 pixels and 300 DPI, so it prints really clearly at 16 X 20 inches. 
-Josh

If you are interested in a copy of this poster, please visit Josh's blog and website where he can email you a copy. 

about the artist.
My partner Kari and I live in Los Angeles with our first child Stella, who was born in February 2009. On March 24, 2011, at 39 weeks pregnant, Kari tripped and fell on her belly. We rushed her to the hospital and they performed an emergency c-section. Our second daughter, Margot June, was stillborn thirty minutes after Kari fell, due to placenta abruption. Margot weighed nearly eight pounds and looked just like her sister. Kari almost followed Margot, and needed fourteen blood transfusions to save her life. Both of her kidneys failed as well, so we didn't leave the hospital for two weeks after losing Margot. For work, I design and build furniture out of reclaimed and salvaged wood. I have been blogging for many years now, using it as a way to keep a family record. Now I'm writing about Margot and grief and doing my best to integrate her story into our story. Josh blogs at Jack (at) Random.  -Josh