I'm also developing my own narrative, because I'm the son of a widow. And so, while working with women and gathering their oral histories, I'm taking a step back to do my own art book and visual work.

When you make art, those things change shape into something else. It's transformation into a body of different visual elements.

Mary's [Hamill] working from an outsider perspective and I'm working from an insider-outside perspective. In this case, it will bring an added dimension to the visual aspects of the work. Also the processes and approaches that I'm thinking are about learning. I'm playing it by ear to experiment and see what happens.

A lot of my work is process-oriented. I delve into my work and sit alone in silence and work with the material and process it, like talking to yourself.

Every day you are bombarded by so many different things. When you sit down to process everything, it can become interesting visually. You can incorporate a lot of those things that you internalize.

This is my first collaboration [with Mary Hamill] so I'm going to learn how it's going to work.

Some people have witnessed the killing of their husbands, or they survived other horrific things. My sister is a widow but her husband was killed after the Khmer Rouge. There are different periods in which violence has occurred, and differences in how these women became widowed and how they survived afterwards.