A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house, but you
do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the
trees, or the laws which pertain to them.
– Her Grave by Mary Oliver

Lucky

2024-present

When my great-uncle Donald Stamper passed away in 2017, he left a number of possessions to his sister, my great-grandma. With no children of his own and his wife having passed away two decades before, there were so many objects and images whose histories were lost. I inherited his collection of cameras and, with that, a sandwich bag full of photographs. These photographs were a special collection – each one was a photograph of Don and Gloria’s first dog, Lucky I. Lucky lived up to his name. In the images, you hold all of the evidence of Lucky’s life, from his first Christmas, where he was a present for Don, to his wheelbarrow rides and snow days.

Lucky explores ideas of memory, time, and love through the family archive. The archive both reveals and hides our histories. This series is a collaboration between Gloria and Don, and myself. There’s been a shift in what we photograph as the world transitioned from analog to digital. Twentieth-century albums usually hold images of important family events, while digital albums today consist of…well, everything. The careful consideration Gloria and Don put into these images shows the care and love they had for Lucky. These images remind us of what is important. Lucky made such an impact that there were at least two subsequent Luckys, who did their best to live up to the original.

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