As a young girl growing up in the American South, photographer Lauren Shaw watched her mother with fascination as she prepared for a night out. After lightly misting her hairspray to set her coif, she reached for a small jar of silver glitter resting on the counter and, with the delicate touch of her index finger, carefully dabbed it onto several strands along her hairline. She gazed approvingly into the mirror—she was dazzling, and she knew it. Shaw’s mother maintained her well-groomed appearance at all times, even as she kept a watchful eye on her children as they played along the sun-drenched shores of Daytona Beach. Her closet was meticulously ordered, each dress in its own plastic bag, shoe boxes carefully stacked: This was her arsenal in the battle against the passage of time. Later in life, Shaw’s mother was struck by Alzheimer’s disease, and her impeccable self-presentation began to crumble. As Shaw began to examine her own relationship to aging, she realized her mother’s armor of attractiveness—her vanity—maintained her sense of self in a world that inevitably pushed her toward aging.
Traces of Impermanence explores the transient power in both nature and the human body through photographs that examine the cycles of growth, decay, and renewal, reflecting the rhythms that govern all living things. In this series, Shaw documents her body yielding to the natural progression of time—its scars, bruises, and marks reflecting resilience, vulnerability, and a record of a life lived. These are juxtaposed with poetic images from the natural world, showing the interplay between beauty and imperfection, growth and decay, each shaping and deepening the presence of the other. Along with Shaw’s own written reflections on aging, Traces of Impermanence contains essays by esteemed art critic Lucy Lippard and writer and activist Terry Tempest Williams.