a look back
Family Album
This journey began several years ago when I found myself in that time of life that everyone should expect, but few see coming. I was simultaneously raising three children, while caring for my aging and terminally ill mother and aunt. The notion of “generational transition” became all too real as both women turned over the family albums. In my mother’s case, she set an afternoon aside, nearly made an appointment with me so I could receive the albums and be properly informed. My aunt threw hers in the trash. The context seemed far more important to both women than the pictures themselves.. In spending time with them, I realized that both were bumping up against an inevitable yet imprecise boundary of a life fully lived and in simplest terms, did not want to be forgotten. They passed 4 weeks apart, my mother grieved greatly, and my aunt having left this Earth completely and utterly estranged from her children. Grief and life moved on, as it does, and my own realization followed. The passing of the generation is the universal requisite for all families with the narrative in the hands of those who are left.
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“Family” as a word, concept, idea crosses all cultures and is one of the few common human experiences. Family is perhaps the most powerful, surely the first and most primal influence in defining who we are or or whom we imagine ourselves to be. The previous generation takes its exit one by one. As we watch this cycle unfold we realize that “family” is beyond space and form. We idealize the ones who are no longer with us and become keenly aware that their influence. These paintings reveal a captured moment in time, the previous generation recorded as future generation looks back in curiosity. The transition unfolds until it is passed and all that remains is the family album.
LOOKING FOR THE COOLIDGES
Someone approached me at an opening offering a box full of photos found in her Aunt's attic after she passed. Neither she nor her mother recognized anyone. I took the box and carefully went through the box of over 200 photos, a record on one couple and their two children. The portraits above are from these photos. I wanted to find the family that these photos belonged to so taking a pharmacy receipt from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio I contacted the local paper for help. With the help of the editor and local art critic they were able to locate the brother of the man in the photos. Ironically, Cuyahoga Falls is only 30 minutes from where I was raised so I was able to deliver the photos in person when I was visiting family. The family was grateful to get them back.
PHOTOS TAKE A LONG JOURNEY : Akron Beacon Journal