In October of 2014 we lost our precious feline companion, Sumi, to an event aptly called “FATE”, or Feline Aortic Thrombo-Embolism. FATE is commonly fatal and the prognosis is grimm- the small percent of cats that survive the hospitalization don’t make it past a year. Sumi’s case was hopeless. 

While she was in shock and I was trying to get her to the vet, she grasped on to me, claws and teeth, as if she was drowning. Those moments haunt me and the physical scars on my hands were but a trace of their emotional equivalent.
I don’t know how to reconcile that she had to go through such terror and pain. It still breaks me. 

I wanted to capture the scars, to hold on to
the truth and rawness of that experience and
to honor the imapct of her short life,
I photographed my hands a few days later, in a style  that paid homage to 19th century wax moulages, making specimens out of them. 

 Art is a trustworthy tool in processing grief, or at least it always has been for me. The act of putting the unutterable into light and color and lines, bringing it into the world slowly begins to dispel its hold, perhaps. 

— Evi Numen