Barbara

In 1986, driving past a farmhouse in upstate New York, Andrea Modica noticed a cluster of young people sitting on the porch. She stopped, and struck up a conversation that was the start of a fifteen-year relationship. The group she was drawn to comprised Barbara, then aged seven, several of her many siblings and some of their own children. For the next ten years, Barbara and her extended family posed for Modica’s 8 x 10 camera in a remarkable collaboration that culminated in the publication of Treadwell (Chronicle, 1995). During this period, Barbara was a strong and spunky young girl brimming with ideas for the work in progress. Then illness struck, and Barbara was diagnosed with a case of diabetes so severe that it would ultimately kill her. In the years to follow, Modica continued to visit her young friend and to take photographs of her. Barbara’s decline was harrowing, and for the last few years of her short life she was bedridden and slept much of the time. Using the same camera, and a bedside lamp as her only source of lighting, Modica produced a ?nal set of portraits of Barbara; their ?nal collaboration. Barbara passed away on October 7, 2001.