The Hand Series is about the transformations that take place when one’s hands are severely injured. Since November 2013, the focus of these photographs has been on Kathryn — how she has changed, what her life is like, how she is dealing with the changes and the challenges. Yet this series is as much of a personal journey in my own healing process as it is hers.
The exhibition Photography by Cozzi at the Los Angeles Center of Photography in 2016 was a way to present the first one and half years of this series. The process forced me to relearn to use my hands in the lab — if I wanted to have the show, I had to relearn to print.
The final works were on exhibition in my Open Studio. On seeing and reading Kathryn’s story so many people talked about the life-threatening things that had happened to someone close to them.
In May of 2013, Kathryn had gone into sceptic shock after giving birth — in less than 24 hours her organs were failing — she was put into a coma for 10 days. She hadn’t been expected to live. The first photos that you see are almost 6 months after this happened to her.
November 13, 2013, is the day I started documenting Kathryn’s journey. When I met her in August, 3 months earlier, she was like a shadow, barely there. Her hands were completely black from her fingertips to above her wrists. As I sat next to her in hand therapy that day, I kept wondering what could possibly have happened to her.