Art in the family

When I was plowing through a pile of the most fabulous old family photos and trying to think about art projects in which I could use them (without the pointy hats, crowns and wings - can I say that frequently enough?!?), I started thinking about the artistic talents of my family.

My mother was always a bit on the whacko side. At family gatherings, she would regale us with stories about her life that were absolutely fiction, delivered as if she absolutely believed it all. I remember her talking about this class she took about ancient hieroglyphics, or the one she took about law or Chinese. In reality, she graduated from high school, got a job in a department store, got married within a year of that and took a class about office equipment when I was in elementary school (offered through her employer for all of the secretaries). The family, including her sister, agreed that she just wasn't happy with her real and very simple life, so she was just making one up that was much more interesting. My stinker of a husband would always make the same declaration in the car on the way home in a Monty Python voice, "...and then I had teaaaaa with the Queen...." to which we would cackle and figure whatever makes her happy is fine. The thing is, she really had some remarkable talent that she never shared with much of anyone, but for which she would have been recognized (as she clearly desperately wanted) as being very talented and gifted. She had a beautiful singing voice, and had remarkable talent with water colours. I remember finding a postcard-sized painting of a bird on the branch of a flowering tree, unsigned and unframed, tucked in a little nook of her desk at home. When I asked where she got it, she replied that she had painted it. I was floored. I was sixteen years old and had never seen her paint. Sadly, she passed away at age 63 just twelve years ago and my father donated everything he didn't need to survive in the home, so it's gone. There is nothing left - none of her artwork, no recording or home video with her singing, nothing. What a tragedy.

My younger sister was a remarkable sketch illustrator. I say "was" because right now, I understand she wanders between marriages and shelters, the victim of decades of alcohol abuse. She was a frequent runaway beginning at age 12. Unsuccessful in school, she ended up in one of those continuation schools for delinquents. She used to doodle the most fantastic drawings, complete with dragons, castles, waves crashing against cliffs, all in the most remarkable detail and with just plain paper and a #2 pencil. She illustrated the entire yearbook that final year she attended school, I believe her junior year. Then she quit it all and life was downhill like a rocket from there, with nothing to show for her talent. I tried and tried to help her, got her to take a class at the community college by taking it with her, and tried encouraging her to finish school and get a job using her talent. Booze called louder and won.

My older sister is a wonderfully warm and creative woman with a lot of familial challenges - big family, not everyone on track - but she works with it and is a great mom and grandmother. She has the most remarkable artistic skill as a painter, and sculpting (including making jewelry) with polymer clay. When I was about 12, I commented that I loved the sets of posters advertised in the back of comics. I saw one of a lion with a little kitten that I thought was cute. For my birthday, she painted it. Just like that! She looked at the tiny picture in the comic, and painted an exact copy. She is an amazing oil painter, but spends her time these days with polymer clay projects, some sewing still (I think), and other crafts. I believe she could become financially comfortable making a career in custom tromp l'oeil work, but she is content with what she is doing which I think is great. I love the passion with which she talks about her current projects and ideas. I wish I could paint like her. She rocks.

So I'm feeling pretty darned blessed about life today. I used to worry that one day I'd be gone, and there would be nothing left behind to say that I'd been here. Looking at all these old family photos, there are so many people who have left us and for which there is no sign that they were ever here but for the photos in a box in my house. On the other hand, I have the school primer that was my grandmother's at age 12 in 1903, complete with a story that she wrote on loose paper and attached with a single straight pin to the inside back cover. What a fabulous gift to have that reminder of her, and the reminder to leave art in the family, for the family.