Chasing Fog :: Learning how to Breathe

I use creative practice as an act of listening to what’s unseen and unsaid - mapping intimacy, longing, and belonging across the psyche, the spiritual, and what lives in-between the words.

Chasing the Fog :: Learning How to Breathe began when my son was a baby and I found myself scanning the world for danger - both real and imagined. He has Down syndrome, and I wanted to protect him from everything. I felt powerless in a culture that didn’t know how to respond to him, in a world that often looks away instead of leaning in. I felt overwhelmed by what I couldn’t hold or control. Like I was chasing fog. Learning to trust became a practice of letting go. A practice of learning how to breathe.

The project deepened as I moved through divorce, new relationships, old patterns, and a growing understanding of what it means to create meaningful intimacy - starting with myself.

This work comes from moments I didn’t want to forget. Moments when something opened, broke, or mended. Times when I reached for love and found silence. Times when I came home to myself instead of someone else. These images were made in the aftermath of conversations I didn’t know how to have, or while holding tenderness or experiencing a depth of love I wasn’t sure I could carry.

Shot on a vintage Polaroid SX-70 and 4x5 large format film camera, each image asks me to slow down and be with what’s real - especially when it’s uncomfortable. Some are hand-stitched - a way of mending what I can only repair within myself. A quiet devotion. A kind of prayer.

The series moves through Marrakech, Paris, Rome, and Los Angeles, but it’s really a map of my inner life. A place where I let myself tell the truth, or at least try to find it.

For availability of one of a kind pieces or limited edition prints and pricing contact studio@catherinejust.com