©Cheryle St. Onge, Book Cover for Calling the Birds Home, published by L’Artiere

I remember first seeing Cheryle St. Onge’s poignant, exquisitely rendered black-and-white large-format photographs of her mother and feeling immediately connected to this final photographic journey between two women—a mother in her last incarnation, and a daughter cherishing what remains. The work is suffused with love: the warmth of the sun, a deep attentiveness to the natural world, and the quiet intimacy of shared time. It is a testament to living fully, celebrating small moments, to finding beauty in the ordinary, in the fleeting, in what might otherwise go unnoticed.

When a new image would appear on Instagram, it felt less like a post than a reminder, a continuation of a conversation already underway. Each photograph extended the narrative, marking time not by milestones but by light, gesture, and presence. Together, the images form a meditation on care and witnessing, on how photography can hold space for tenderness, grief, and gratitude—allowing love to persist, even as everything else begins to change.

L’Artiere Editions has recently released, Calling the Birds Home, 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.

A short interview with the artists follows.

©Cheryle St. Onge, Spread from Calling the Birds Home, published by L’Artiere

©Cheryle St. Onge, Spread from Calling the Birds Home, published by L’Artiere

©Cheryle St. Onge, Spread from Calling the Birds Home, published by L’Artiere

Calling the Birds Home is a photographic exchange, portraiture, of the energy of life—the give and take of the familial between mother and daughter who lived side by side on the same New Hampshire farm for decades. Our love was mutual and constant. In 2015 my mother developed vascular dementia, and with that began the loss of her emotions and her memory and the relationship of mother and daughter as we had known it for nearly 60 years.

In my mother’s earlier life, she was a painter and then in more recent decades she began to carve birds. A carving would begin with her vast knowledge of birds, her research and then after whittling away at chunks of wood. My mother would eventually offer up an exquisite painted out chickadee or barred owl, life size and life like. I began to photograph her with any camera in reach—an iPhone or an 8×10 view camera as a distraction from watching her fade away, as a counterbalance to conversation with her about death, as a means to record the ephemeral nature of the moment, to find some happiness and light, and to share the images with others we loved. 

©Cheryle St. Onge, from Calling the Birds Home, published by L’Artiere

Because of the dementia, my mother and I no longer had conversations. But we did still have a profound exchange through photography. She must have recalled our history and the process of picture making because she brightened up and was always eager and willing to be photographed. My mother did her best and I did mine. And then in turn, I offered up the pictures away to anyone who would look. It was an excruciating form of emotional currency.

My mother died at home On Oct 3. 2020. Time has been excruciatingly measured by that loss. Days into months to reflect on the passing of time, sans her, measured out within a snowy winter bird count, a summer witnessing the gold finch and wrens eating from the fruit laden shrubs in her backyard, fall afternoons watching migrating birds pause at her bird baths and feeders. The expanding and the contracting of time with hope and longing for some semblance of her anywhere. – Cheryle St. Onge

©Cheryle St. Onge, from Calling the Birds Home, published by L’Artiere

Can you tell us about your growing up and what brought you to photography?

My earliest memories were of walks I would take with my parents and we would often walk by a pasture with horses. I gravitated to two of them I knew their names and was fairly obsessed and would spend endless hours – like many young girls, drawing horses. It was in high school (public school) when I actually started to play around with a 35mm that belonged to my father.

©Cheryle St. Onge, from Calling the Birds Home, published by L’Artiere

When did you focus on using a large format camera? 

When I was in undergrad I took a view camera course with Ron Rosenstock. He was very kind, quiet and taught it as half science, half art. There was math, some chemistry, there were rules and consequences if you failed to follow directions. I loved the process, the time, the wandering and looking. When I got to grad school I bought my first 8 x 10, an old Deardorf and of course they are work horses – I still use it.

©Cheryle St. Onge, from Calling the Birds Home, published by L’Artiere

Does the book include work with your mother prior to her dementia diagnosis? 

It doesn’t.

©Cheryle St. Onge, from Calling the Birds Home, published by L’Artiere

What surprised you in making this work? 

That I would be making portraits! Truly we began by simply going out to make pictures – as a means to be outside, in the sun, walking and looking at birds. The pictures were something to do. Of course I was missing her long before she was actually gone. And I started to make pictures of just her –

©Cheryle St. Onge, from Calling the Birds Home, published by L’Artiere

I have thought a lot about using an 8 x 10 when making pictures that feel spontaneous, can you share your working process? 

Ha. Yes I can. It’s a mix of rushing, stressing and rushing more. As with any picture making, there is some waiting to see what is what. With the view camera there is that process too albeit under a dark cloth. And I got good at picking up the tripod and moving over three feet as my mother would wander over to whatever was catching her eye.

In the end, this work is a mix of film (8” x 10” view camera) and digital (DSLR and iPhone).

©Cheryle St. Onge, from Calling the Birds Home, published by L’Artiere

Your mother was a true partner, did she enjoy performing for the camera?  

I want to acknowledge that we can never know what someone is thinking. Especially when someone is less verbal, be it a child or in this case my mother with dementia. That said my mother was the greatest person on the planet and you would want to be in her company and have her smiling and laughing with you – I felt her mutual joy during many glorious days together.

©Cheryle St. Onge, from Calling the Birds Home, published by L’Artiere

I am so sorry for your profound loss, your book has been a gift to us who also lost their mothers. What did you learn about her through the process?

That she loved me – inside and out. I knew this as a child. But the final years with my mother was a beautiful reminder of our love.

©Cheryle St. Onge, from Calling the Birds Home, published by L’Artiere

And what did you learn about yourself?

As adults we have jobs, perhaps children, responsibilities, goals, dreams. And it can feel impossible to actually accomplish anything significant. During the final years of caring for my mother I stopped caring about much else except her. I routinely had to ask for help from people I loved and loathed. My mother wanted to die at home and I wanted to be there with her to make that happen. If someone understood and was supportive, I was appreciative. When people were less than that, I just didn’t give a rats ass. In the end we were together, so intertwined, we were both so exhausted for vastly different reasons but it was an astonishing experience – it is life ! I learned we can do what may initially feel truly impossible.

©Cheryle St. Onge, from Calling the Birds Home, published by L’Artiere

What are you working on currently?

When a project comes to an end there is that mourning process and I struggle with the starts and stops that come as we work away. There have been some small projects to keep me making and thinking. I was at MacDowell last winter in the studio playing with making pictures of my mother’s bird guide books and making long exposures of the night sky – wondering about the clarity of cold clear February nights and the birds that passed over head just months prior – stars and flight patterns. Who knows.

©Cheryle St. Onge, from Calling the Birds Home, published by L’Artiere

©Cheryle St. Onge, from Calling the Birds Home, published by L’Artiere

©Cheryle St. Onge, from Calling the Birds Home, published by L’Artiere

©Cheryle St. Onge, from Calling the Birds Home, published by L’Artiere

©Cheryle St. Onge, from Calling the Birds Home, published by L’Artiere

Cheryle St. Onge works primarily with an 8” x 10” view camera and counts her portraits as a collaborative process. Embracing the methodical nature of large format photography and the mutual quiet looking and contemplation for the communal act of making a portrait. St. Onge received her M.F.A. from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and has been on the faculty at Clark University, Maine College of Art, and Univ of New Hampshire. She is the recipient of a Polaroid Artist Support Grant, Guggenheim Fellowship, Critical Mass Exhibition Award, New Hampshire Charitable Arts Grant. Her work is widely collected, privately and publicly most notably, SFMOMA, the Polaroid Corp, the Univ. New Mexico Art Museum, The Portland Museum of Art, the MFA Houston, and the Guggenheim Foundation.

Instagram: @cherylestonge

About L’Artiere Editions is a young publishing house specializing in  photography volumes , distinguished by the exceptional quality of its products. The publishing house was founded in 2013 by Gianluca and Gianmarco Gamberini.

Specializing in the presentation of photography collections, Artiere Edizioni strongly believes in the concept of quality and attention to every detail of the finished product, dedicating itself to the creation of aesthetically refined volumes, aimed not only at an audience of expert photographers, but also at enthusiasts, or people who simply wish to delve deeper into the work of a particular artist.

Passion, dedication, technical knowledge and craftsmanship are the cornerstones of our business. A product carefully crafted in both content and printing, volumes that become true collector’s items.

At the heart of L’Artiere Edizioni’s experience is  Grafiche dell’Artiere, which has passed on to l’Artiere Edizioni its highly advanced technical know-how and award-winning experience in the printing sector.

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