Linda Bryan

Falling Leaves: Mothers and Daughters

Dear Mom you said you wouldn’t hit anymore love, _____. (sister)

I recently found these words, scrawled in a child’s hand on pink origami paper, buried in a box of old report cards and other family ephemera. The message sent my mind reeling—its words didn’t align with how I remembered my mother when we were children.

Decades after my sister wrote that note, as I sift through keepsakes saved by my mother and grandmother, I am uncovering more questions than answers. I once believed our family tree was strong and historic; now, I see it as fragile, slightly twisted, and missing limbs—much like my childhood memories.

Within these boxes are old sepia photographs—faces of distant relatives, strangers without names or context—along with contemporary images, some bearing the weight of time, their colors fading, surfaces cracked or water-damaged. They are physical reminders of how Memory fades, distorts, or vanishes entirely.

In one old, damaged, and out-of-focus photograph, I am sitting in a light-green Victorian chair in my grandparents’ living room. It bothers me that I can’t pull the image of the person who took the picture from my memory, nor recall the day the photo was taken. Has the photograph replaced the memory?

When I ask my sisters about past events or old photographs, our recollections often differ widely. Which memories are real? Have the stories I’ve clung to—the ones that once defined my sense of self and family—been misinterpretations all along? Despite these uncertainties, I feel an urgent need to reconnect, to piece together the faces and events, even if it shatters what I once considered true.

Falling Leaves is a project with many branches. By combining personal and vintage family images and objects, I create a visual dialogue on memory—both real and imagined—exploring the intricate ties between family, place, and identity. Each piece derived from my ever-shrinking branch of a larger family tree—one that, like memory itself, continues to shift and transform

Artist Bio

Linda Bryan is a Vermont-based photographer, printmaker, and educator whose work is deeply rooted in the natural environment, familial spaces, and personal experience. Working across a range of photographic mediums—including film, digital, alternative processes, and photopolymer gravure etchings—Bryan explores the interplay of place, memory, longing, and personal connection.

She holds a BFA in Studio Arts and an MFA in Photography and has taught both digital and darkroom photography at the college level, along with workshops in digital, darkroom, and alternative photographic processes. Between degrees, she refined her craft as a printer and film processor at a professional photo lab. Her work has been exhibited throughout New England.

Bryan’s work has been featured in several solo exhibitions, including Deeper than Blue at Quimby Gallery, Northern Vermont University, VT; Blue x2 at Two Rivers Printmaking Studio, White River Junction, VT; and Tarpentry at Studio Place Arts, Barre, VT.

Her work has also been included in numerous group exhibitions, such as Alternative Processes in Contemporary Photography at AVA Gallery, Lebanon, NH; Tethered Between at Catamount Arts, St. Johnsbury, VT; and Unique: Alternative Processes at A. Smith Gallery, Johnson City, TX, juried by Jill Enfield. Additionally, she participated in Summer Open at AVA Gallery, Lebanon, NH, juried by KatherineHart, Interim Director of the Hood Museum.

Bryan’s work has been featured in both print and online publications, including The Hand Magazine, Vermont Art Guild, Light Leaked, and Don’t Take Pictures.

Bryan’s images carry a quiet, immersive narrative, inviting personal interpretation. “While my work spans a range of subjects,” she says, “I’m drawn to places and moments that are often overlooked—where light or form stirs a fleeting memory or connection. These ephemeral moments often evolve into deeper, more personal projects.”