Allyn Bromley on her work A Letter to My Mother

To observe Motherʻs Day, we spoke to Allyn Bromley about her work A Letter to My Mother, on view in Allyn Bromley: At the Edge of Forever through June 22. 

This large-scale work, comprised of thousands of transparent plastic squares printed with text and bound together with wire, is about the enduring love we hold for the caregivers in our lives. The project actually started 10 years ago.  

“I had a really lovely mother. I missed her so much, I thought, why don’t I write her a letter?” says Bromley. “And then one thing leads to another.” 

She first made a small version of the work and thought it needed to be bigger. As she figured out how to scale Letter up, it turned into a literal a labor of love.  

“I’ve always liked plastic, it is easy to work with, and screenprinting is a good medium for plastic,” says Bromley. She collected the clear plastic that hold fruit in the supermarket. “I washed them, peeled labels off, then cut them and drilled holes in them.”  

Sometimes she had friends and family help with the laborious process. She recalls: “Once I took some to my daughter’s house who said instead of gossiping tonight, let’s tie knots for you.” 

And, of course, she printed the text from the letter she wrote to her mother on the plastic. It is a letter of gratitude. “It thanks her for all the different things she did for us,” says Bromley. “There were three of us and she just wanted to be a good mom. She was completely devoted to our well-being. She liked to teach us things, like cooking and outside stuff—the names of wildflowers. She would take us walking and hiking and camping—and my dad too. They were conservationists before the concept of conservation.” 

Talking about her parents, she marvels at what they must have gone through as a couple in the 1920s and later. “That must have been something in those days, for my mother, an anglo from San Francisco, to marry this dark-skinned Hispanic man,” she says. Her maiden name was Tunzi, from a grandfather who emigrated from Italy. “Dad was from San Juan Bautista, when California was still Mexico.” Her grandmother’s side of the family were Mexican farmers and she remembers how “the hands of my grandmother were like sandpaper when she touched me.” 

Turning back to the assemblage of thousands of printed squares of plastic, shimmering with her words of thanks, Bromley explains, “Itʻs sort of a whisper to my mother. I don’t know how I feel about death, but I wondered if she could hear me in sort of a cosmic way.” 

We’re not crying, you’re crying. 

Bring your mother, or the mother figure in your life, to the Museum to experience Bromleyʻs poignant, yet joyous, work. On May 11, HoMA Café is fully booked, but you can order takeout and grab a seat in one of the courtyards (the special is duck confit benedict) or enjoy the best coffee in town and pastries at the Coffee Bar in Palm Courtyard. And the HoMA Shop always has something just right for a meaningful gift for mom.