Kathy Vargas

The three pieces from the Missing series are about the palpable missingness of a beloved body. Missing #1 came about as I helped a friend unpack Guatemalan folk art. One of the newspapers used to wrap clay figurines featured ads asking for help locating disgraceful men who’d abandoned their families. There were pages and pages of these ads, and I commented that there seemed to be a lot of men fleeing familial obligations. A friend from Guatemala explained, “Most likely, they didn’t leave by choice. They were “disappeared”. This is a way for families to ask where the body might be – without getting disappeared for asking.” I was surprised, in one ad, to see a face that looked so much like my own: indigenous. I wanted to make for her the only family portrait possible, through a tangible reference to her partner’s missingness.
Missing #2 was re-titled Broken Column: Mother, a quick reference to Frida Kahlo’s “Broken Column.” In was first shown in spring, 1997, eight months after my mother died. She is the woman in these images.
I wanted to photograph my mother before she died, so I asked her permission. My mother knew me well. She knew that I understood the world best when looking through a camera lens, so she said, “do whatever you need to do to come to terms with this.” I photographed her head to toe. The x-rays represent those made by doctors trying to figure out why she was dying. There was no one reason. It was just time. My mother didn’t seem to mind. A true Catholic, she felt that whatever physical pain she suffered on earth only brought her closer to heaven. The cross seemed an appropriate metaphor.
Her hands are depicted on either side. On the left side, her hand has grown weak, its strength gone. On the right side, her hands are young and strong. She’s holding onto me. I was barely able to remain vertical and needed her strength to lean against. My head is turned toward her approaching death because, if time is truly layered, then the future can be foretold as easily as memories are formed, and everything is in the present tense.
Her hands are depicted on either side. On the left side, her hand has grown weak, its strength gone. On the right side, her hands are young and strong. She’s holding onto me. I was barely able to remain vertical and needed her strength to lean against. My head is turned toward her approaching death because, if time is truly layered, then the future can be foretold as easily as memories are formed, and everything is in the present tense.
Missing #3 is about my own eventual departure. It comes from a dream I had about turning into a bird and flying away. My thoughts about death are not dark. Rather death is a continuation of life with those whom I’ve loved and who have left before me.