Daniel Terna — My First Wife Stella

Outside Eureka, CA, 2011, Pigment print

Sausalito, CA, 2011, Pigment print

Along Route 1, CA, 2011, Pigment print

Heather, Arcata, CA, 2011, Pigment print

Bridge to Bagby Hot Springs, Mount Hood, OR, 2011, Pigment print

Twin Brother, Orleans, CA, 2011, Pigment print

Orleans, CA, 2011, Pigment print

Izzy, Mount Hood, OR, 2011, Pigment print

Nalgene, Orleans, CA, 2011, Pigment print

Spider, Tiburon, CA, 2011, Pigment print

Izzy, Bagby Hot Springs, Mount Hood, OR, 2011, Pigment print

Wetting the Wall, Orleans, CA, 2011, Pigment print

Catherine, Orleans, CA, 2011, Pigment print

Beecher, Orleans, CA, 2011, Pigment print

Target Practice, Orleans, CA, 2011, Pigment print

Bad Weed, Orleans, CA, 2011, Pigment print

Along Route 1, CA, 2011, Pigment print

Believe it or Not!, Mendicino County, CA, 2011, Pigment print

World's Greatest Dad, Along Route 1, CA, 2011, Pigment print

Stair Landing, Portland, OR, 2011, Pigment print

Boarded Up House, Along Route 1, CA, 2011, Pigment print

Morgan, Portland, OR, 2011, Pigment print

Simone, San Francisco, CA, 2011, Pigment print

Kyle and Hazel, Portland, OR, 2011, Pigment print

Horse Rider, Along Route 1, CA, 2011, Pigment print

My First Wife Stella (2011) is a still and moving image project that came about from the discovery of slide pictures taken in 1967 that Daniel Terna’s father, Fred Terna, shot while on a west coast road trip with his first wife, Stella. Terna retraced the route that Fred and Stella made together and took footage at the same places the couple visited several decades years prior. Terna was “interested in seeing how the landscape had aged and if it was possible to sense Stella’s presence by absorbing the sites in front of me. Like my father, Stella was a holocaust survivor who had been traumatized by her experiences in the camps. One of the driving forces behind their trip was the hope that the landscape might have a therapeutic effect on her. I planned my destinations around the slide images, using them as if they were markers on a map. While there are no formal monuments in the photos, I treated each picture as a postcard commemorating a site.”

Press:
My First Wife Stella, Mutant Space, Online, 2015
My First Wife Stella, Block Magazine, Issue 1, 2014
My First Wife Stella, Yet Magazine, Online, 2014
My First Wife Stella, Big Big Wednesday, Portland Mercury, July 17, 2013
My First Wife Stella, Big Big Wednesday, Issue 1, 2013