FRAGMENT (TWO)

I didn't sleep for three years.

It began on the monthly full moon. It all felt very romantic.

Soon, it was every night.

I got so much done.

I couldn't drink more than one cup of coffee or my eyes would vibrate.

I would wake up in the middle of the night, finally hungry, and make myself toast with butter and smoked turkey. In the morning, my husband would see my plate in the sink and know I hadn't slept.

By the end, I could no longer sleep next to him or any other breathing body. I couldn't stand being touched. I couldn't sleep naked. The sheets were too much. My skin and nerves too sensitive.

I would like to say it felt sad, but it didn't. Despite being able to feel everything, I also felt nothing.

The night before I wanted to end my life, I only slept two hours.

The night before I went to rehab, I only slept for three.

I spent ninety days in Colorado waking up with the sun and two cups of coffee.

When I returned to Seattle to face the smoldering embers, all I could do was sleep.

I bought a home in the Central District—a financial transaction I am still losing sleep over.

I moved in to my new place last week and there are boxes on the bed.

I still haven't slept there yet.

Rachel Demy (b. 1982, San Diego, CA)

FEATURED IN FRAGMENT II

You lost, 2023

Too tender to be, 2023

I am a daughter, a dyke, and photographer, born and raised in Seattle. The first career I remember wanting for myself was to be a surgeon. However, I received my Bachelor's in Photography at the University of Washington. This initial fascination jump-started my interest in the body as a material, attached and unattached to a social condition, using scrap from my father's job sites, locks of hair, and other personal possessions, I study this connection. Through photography and additional mediums, I myself get to open up and perform on my friends, strangers, and lovers, dissecting their accumulations of muscle, fat, synapses, organs, and psyche. This typically focuses on shared and personal experiences with the brutalization of feminine anatomy and its estrangement. While sometimes morbid, the work does not support shock value but instead honors the psychoticism, animalistic desires, and mourning that all bodies endure, and gives them a place to breathe.

FEATURED IN FRAGMENT II

Burn Prototype, 2024, Digital Print, Thermal burns.

Cleaning Meat: The Act of Stripping, 2025, Polaroid Scan, Digital Image, Written Text.

I began my photography career back in 2012 simply as a faster means to rough drafting for painting. As I continued to work in the medium and study written journalism I realized its capacity to both capture audiences attention and provide definitive eye witness proof. I realized I could paint nothing more astonishing and unbelievable than what could be captured with a camera from real life. I prefer to document culture and history from within. Thus all of my bodies of work so far have originated from within my own life.

I have documented the changing landscape of the Kathmandu Valley, lowriders in the pacific north west, the BLM movement in Seattle, gang intervention and work with at risk and incarcerated youth, and addiction recovery. This current showing is from a never before seen body of work on my own life and past history with substance abuse. May it stand as a reminder to myself and others that there is a definitively out of control before and a peaceful after.

All the best 

Ethan 

Founder and owner of Moodys Film Lab

FEATURED IN FRAGMENT II

Bad News, 120 Film, Seattle, 2023

Trunk Full of Memories, 120 Film, Seattle, 2024