Painted Memories

About the Author

An old, coming apart picture album of the family set this memoir off. It was my mother's. Over time the edges turned brittle, empty spaces appeared where the glue dried and the snaps dropped out. Or was it anger and petulance that would urge a young girl, who would be my mother, to tear old boyfriends from their part in her life. Sadly, neither my mother nor anyone else is around to point out the characters in her early life. I still can recognize some from the time we paged the album together. As she mused the pages, tears came to her eyes. There is one special photo of my grandfather with my brother, Saul, on his lap. In the background, in a field alone is my father in his wheelchair. He is reading his newspaper oblivious to the picture being snapped. I began sketching, using that photo as the jumping off place. I added my mother, my grandmother and myself, in a sailor hat holding a flag, for a full family portrait. With that simple liberty I was off painting a series of small caprices chocked full of the family and friends: The act of painting dredged up many memories and inspired all kinds of feelings. I tacked the paintings around the studio and allowed them to play with me. I was provoked to write about each, allowing them to take me on flights of memory, though some recollections do not seem to relate to the paintings. Memory is triggered by many, and at times seemingly incongruous things. The paintings do not illustrate the text. The test does not give evidence to the paintings. They exist together, members of the same family. Here they are… all true.