Deborah Annette Simmons

Motivation                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

 

My project is a celebration of family. Great-great grands, great grands, fathers and mothers, uncles and aunts, sisters and brothers, nieces, nephews and all my extended relations, not bound by blood, but love and acceptance. I am so grateful to my brother’s oldest daughter and my niece, Erica Simmons King. She has taken on the role of genealogist for our family- a laborious passion to discover our roots! Visiting her and her two sisters in March 2025, I sat with her late into the night listening to endless anecdotes of different members of my family- filling in historical gaps. Faded photos in an album of faces that I recalled and ones that I was unaware.  My head swam to keep up. Her passion was addictive.  The notebooks she created, connecting old photos to detailed genealogy forms, described generations of family marriages and offsprings provided the motivation to embark on this project.

Process

Using modern technologies, I was able to digitally photograph using my iPhone small often, discolored blurred images as well as capture Facebook pictures to upload onto my Mac desktop.  Using the advance edit mode within the photo app, I monochrome the images to grey scale, sharpening as needed, reducing the contrast and exposure to a minimalist outline. The final image was enlarged and printed on 18” x 24” multimedia paper. Using charcoals, I enhanced aspects of the image to draw the viewer in.

Working on each image, I recount interactions with some, stories of those who had passed and stories of ancestors that I never met. I studied their faces, their eyes seeing the past and the future.  Charles Francis Simmons, my great-great grandfather was a carpenter’s apprentice on a plantation in South Carolina. Learning of his woodworking skills, I understand my father’s interest in woodworking and his willingness to teach me in the cluttered basement of our house at the age of 10.

Impact

The project has given me crucial insight as to who I am and where I come from. In the current society in which certain histories are being questioned, I am so grateful for my niece’s efforts. Bringing to life fragmented memories of my family who were the ancestral building blocks for me as much as I will be for my nieces, nephews and their children.