Some years ago, I was rummaging through the boxes of photos I found among my mother’s things after she passed away. Some of the photos had names written on the back, but most did not. I recognized the people in some of them, but mostly I have no idea who these people were. Nevertheless, I treasure the photos because they obviously meant a lot to my Mom; they were people she knew and loved.
Most of the pictures were small, black and white snapshots. Judging by the clothes and backgrounds, most were taken around the 1930’s and 40’s. I shuffled through those photos many times, trying to figure out who the people in them must have been, wondering about their stories. Finally, it all coalesced for me, and I embarked on a series of paintings using a lot of those photos as inspiration.
I was looking at one of those paintings just the other day, as I had had occasion to exhibit it at the local art league for their show titled “Portraits.” This painting isn’t actually a portrait, but it shows a scene I remember well from my own childhood. Grandma is rising from a chair in our living room, where my brother is stretched out on the floor watching TV. I’m going to say we were all watching Person to Person, with Edward R. Murrow, because my Aunt Lee is there, and she always came over for supper on Friday nights. In this painting, there she is, sitting in an arm chair smoking a cigarette, and I’m sitting on the floor beside her, admiring the smoke rings she blew so expertly. (I blame her for the fact that I took up smoking when I was a teen. Fortunately, I was able to break the habit over 40 years ago!)My Gramps is walking towards us from the ‘sunroom’ that occupied the front of the living room, and my mom and dad are sitting cozily on the couch. My Aunt Mollie is just entering the apartment from her own apartment across the hall. My Uncle Bennie is leaning casually against the fireplace. And there’s an inset view of the outside of our apartment building, on Chicago’s West Side, in the area we now call West Garfield Park.
The painting is titled “Memory,” which is, obviously, an apt title. All of the people in the painting, including, sadly, my little brother, are gone now. But I think of all of them often, with love. We say, in the Jewish tradition, “may your loved one’s memory be for a blessing.” The memory of each of the people in my painting is always a blessing.
