St. Onge – Calling the bird home

Calling the Bird Home is an intimate portrait of love, memory, and loss. For decades, photographer Cheryle St. Onge lived with her mother on the same New England farm, sharing a deep and constant bond. When her mother developed vascular dementia, memory and emotion began to fade, first interrupting their long photographic collaboration, and then halting St. Onge’s practice altogether.

In an attempt to counter her mother’s growing wish to die, Cheryle began making portraits again, spontaneously, with any camera at hand, searching for light in the dimness of their afternoons.

The book explores St. Onge’s signature themes of environment, fragility, and human presence, intertwining portraiture, nature, and the passing of time into a poetic narrative of devotion. Though dementia has taken their conversations, these portrait sessions remain a profound exchange, familiar, collaborative, and quietly joyful.

With every photograph, Cheryle offers a small act of resistance and love: an emotional currency against the slow erasure of memory.

23 x 27.2 cm