Growing Tired of Calloused Knees
$45.00Preorder now for delivery in early April.
Growing Tired of Calloused Knees is a book that attempts to carry the multitude of issues that stem from domestic abuse as the catalyst for the persistent cycle of mental illness, poverty, and substance abuse.
Chance DeVille's mother was physically and mentally abused by his former stepfather. As a result, she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and severe post-traumatic stress disorder. Absent psychiatric help, she turned to drugs and alcohol to suppress the disease. For a decade, DeVille photographed her at their home in Louisiana as an attempt to understand this abuse on an intimate level.
The photographs and related material within attempt to hold empathy, understanding, and care while showcasing the visual representations of these difficult topics to understand the overbearing weight of exhaustive circumstances, a space that holds grief and hope for both the living, dead, and worlds imagined.
This project is not only a photographic investigation of DeVille's mother, but a way to build a new relationship through collaboration and documentation, showing the sum of the permanent effects of abuse: poverty, disordered living, relationships left to be rendered, letting the viewer in on the irreversible effects of schizophrenia and addiction. The book is their reclamation — or perhaps, more bluntly, DeVille's attempt to resolve his endless grieving of his living mother.
AUTHOR: Chance DeVille
TITLE: Growing Tired of Calloused Knees
PUBLICATION YEAR: 2025
ISBN: 978-1-957301-08-2
92 pages, accompanied by an essay by Odette England
250x180x15mm, 628 grams
EDITION: 450; First edition, first printing
