A Portrait of Tony

Tony at Seventeen, 2012

mixed media on Rives BFK, 22" x 30"

After my experience in the the stone shop, Tony has been on my mind. I have so few photographs of him, and could have sworn that I had given an envelope full of the ones that I do own to my son Eben and his wife. But they said, no, they didn't have them. And when I've searched for them in my albums and boxes and big Rubbermaid bins full of photos, I've had no luck. But one day last week, just before getting ready to leave the house, I felt compelled to look for them once again. I dropped everything and went to the closet in the spare bedroom where I keep all our old photos (this includes my father's massive collection - there are tons...) and like someone acting out a hypnotic command, like a homing pigeon, like an arrow heading for the bull's eye, I mechanically yanked out several of the large bins, took the lid off one, and there they were, the photos I'd not been able to find, including the one at the top of this post, Tony's high school yearbook picture, taken when he was seventeen. I quickly scanned this pile of images and put them in a digital file.

After finishing a commissioned portrait in my studio later that afternoon, after the sitter left, and I was alone in my studio, I felt compelled again - but this time to draw Tony's portrait. I brought up his image on my laptop and enlarged it until he was looking at me, filled my brush with paint and set to work. And while working on it, I cried. Alot.

Something has shifted inside of me this week. Some door in my heart has opened.

This brings to mind one of the last bits of wisdom imparted to me by my grandmother, who lived to be 100.In the final weeks of her life, Gramma took my hand and sandwiched it tightly between both of hers, then looked me in the eyes and pronounced simply, urgently,

"Never hate, Martha. Never hate."

Serve Somebody

Look for Them...

This little ice sculpture in a window box on Front Street stopped me in my tracks yesterday afternoon. I was taking a break from working in my studio, feeling traumatized and tired from the night before. I saw the hummingbird first...and took my camera out of my bag and snapped a few pictures. When downloading these images this morning, I saw the centaur...

I thought of last week's Promise...

I thought of the woman who checked us in at the ER Tuesday night...

She was wearing an enamel horse pin, and she told me about her business, Healing Horses, and invited me to bring Lisbeth out for a visit sometime soon. She said, "She doesn't have to get on a horse right away or even at all, if she doesn't want to. She can just enjoy being there with the horses - maybe help to feed and brush them. It does folks good just to be around the horses, out in the fresh air." I asked her if she has an all white horse, thinking that Lisbeth would love to see a horse that matches her kitty, Milkweed. She said, "Yes, in fact we do. He's an old Arabian that we rescued. His name is Trooper," and she gave me her card.

Yesterday morning I told Lisbeth's house manager that I would like to start taking Lisbeth to this horse farm.

Thoughts of guardians and angels...

When I open my eyes, when I pay attention, I see that they are all around me...

Guardians

In a sad stroke of synchronicity yesterday, my phone rang while I was working on these pieces in my studio. It was Lisbeth's one-on-one helper calling to tell me that Lisbeth had just had another bad fall during a seizure. I quickly yanked off my painting apron and told them I'd meet them at the emergency room. Evidently Lis had one of her "no warning" grand mal seizures where she goes down like a felled tree. These are the worst - no bending at the knees, no initial crying out, just BOOM. Straight down. She and her helper were in the kitchen about to make some banana bread, when Lis crashed into the refrigerator door, face first.

She's banged up but OK. Breaks my heart what she endures.

After getting Lisbeth back home and comfortable, I headed back to my studio and worked on these paintings even more prayerfully.

A Lisbeth Series

This is the start of a new series of drawings of and about my daughter Lisbeth. I've wanted to do this series for a very long time, and I finally feel emotionally ready. Ever since I took this photo of Lisbeth in the ER last fall I have felt compelled to draw it. I've also been wanting to try working with acrylics and pastels on primed canvas instead of paper, so this week I bought some raw canvas and tacked it to the new homosote panels lining one wall of my studio, and gessoed it. I drew the image in first with charcoal, then worked into the drawing with acrylics and pastels, back and forth, back and forth. It's a new surface, with new challenges: I'm just getting used to it, and I'm enjoying it so far. I plan to work the hummingbirds into the piece this afternoon, either on this drawing of Lisbeth, or on smaller separate canvases that will circle this piece, like little angels...

The Devil's in The Details

My most recent progress on the Primaries triptych - I think that's what I will title it. Primaries.

Tripping

I've spent the past two days in my studio, pushing and pulling dark and light, and playing with proportions and the placement of images on my triptych. In addition to charcoal, I have started to add some white acrylic - I want my drawings to have the same range of grays and sparkling whites and rich blacks as found in a good old movie.

I stated before that this piece is about the primary three people who raised me - my mother, my father, and my maternal grandmother. These three also happen to be the people closest to me who have died, and while working on the triptych, I have felt their presence quite strongly. At times I find myself weeping, even though I don't feel particularly sad - just overcome with emotion. I've had the sensation that I am loved unconditionally and feel cheered on by all three, as if their spirits have none of the fear or judgement that their human forms may have sometimes harbored about me and my art.

I have been a little concerned that this piece is too personal for anyone else to relate to, then found a great quote this morning:

Women are repeatedly accused of taking things personally. I cannot see any other honest way of taking them. ~ Marya Mannes, American writer b. 1904

(I've been listening to Raising Sand quite a bit in my studio, and yesterday saw the humor in how a song may have subconsciuosly affected my placement of certain images...:^)

Projecting

Playing with the idea that we physically hold memories in our body...