Family

This latest group of paintings has really crystalized around the concept of family even though not all are family members. This first painting is of my grandmother, my father’s mother, who emigrated from Poland as a young woman. She arrived in this country via Brazil (though I have no idea why–if anyone knows, I’d love to know too). People have said that I resemble her, and I painted this from a black and white photograph taken when she was a young woman. But I have added the color: the rug, the Klimpt-like garden, the potted palm, and tried to imagine what she felt coming to this new land with its new language with a new husband from her home and everything she knew. Such courage she must have had!

This next one is a work in progress (I am still seeing mistakes and areas that do not photograph well). My younger sister Claudia is an avid gardener and collector of sunsets. I am afraid that this does not do her justice. But the broccoli she holds is a symbol of the life she brings and the love she bears for the rest of us (there were eight sibs in our family, and we managed to grow up without killing one another).

I was playing one day with asemic writing (scrawls on paper that look like writing but have no semantic content) on different backgrounds. When I pasted fragments on canvas, this lady holding books asked to be painted. And so I did. She became the English Teacher with words flowing from her head instead of hair. I don’t think I will ever lose her as one facet of my identity. I think those who lived inside of books as I did (reading the Encyclopedia while hiding beneath tables amid loud family “discussions” and clearing whole library shelves at the local Enoch Pratt library) can relate.

Finally, Lady Wisdom makes another visit to the sanctuary inside my head. She has been a persistent presence in my psyche all of my life, and I honor her always. She is the one who has turned the light of day into stained glass, teaching that there is holiness even in the most mundane in this gift of life.