Bookends
18 x 36, acrylic on canvass (mounted).
I spent 15 years working on this painting, starting the night my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and ending the day my oldest daughter moved out of our home and started her career. Layered in between are the emotionally-driven sweeps of paint, built up over the years, to create texture along with color, both disturbing and soothing.
The thought of losing my mother, watching her suffer and endure brain damage… an independent, bright, pioneering woman coming in and out of lucidity; it was hard to understand. I’m not sure, given the other losses I was experiencing, that I appreciated the gravity of this loss.
Each time I went back, my emotional state changed along with the nature of the grief, slowly burning off, peeling back, opening up. And along with it, this piece changed as well.
18 x 36, acrylic on canvass (mounted).
I spent 15 years working on this painting, starting the night my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and ending the day my oldest daughter moved out of our home and started her career. Layered in between are the emotionally-driven sweeps of paint, built up over the years, to create texture along with color, both disturbing and soothing.
The thought of losing my mother, watching her suffer and endure brain damage… an independent, bright, pioneering woman coming in and out of lucidity; it was hard to understand. I’m not sure, given the other losses I was experiencing, that I appreciated the gravity of this loss.
Each time I went back, my emotional state changed along with the nature of the grief, slowly burning off, peeling back, opening up. And along with it, this piece changed as well.