Ed - 24 x 48 Original Art Acrylics on Canvas

The earliest memories I have of my maternal grandfather are from when I was about 7 or so. At the time he and my grandmother lived here in Oklahoma City and we lived in Chicago, so we came for a visit. Rose was not quite a year old. We didn't know she had autism yet. But I remember my grandfather singing to us. He had a beautiful deep voice and he would sing Christian hymns. I would look so forward to summers before we moved back so I could hear his voice and be engulfed in his kind spirit.

Later when we moved back and learned that she had autism I remember how he would sit and rock her for hours. When she would have meltdowns he was always so kind and patient.

This painting is from my 2013 solo show "Think Pink - Remembering Liza" dedicated to my maternal grandmother who lost her battle with Breast Cancer. It's titled "Ed" because my grand dads name was Ed and you can find it for sale on Daily Paintworks.

Have a great day everybody, thanks for stopping by.

I've been incredibly busy the past 8 months or so. I've done a couple of shows, Rose has been in a show and a storm knocked over a tree which took part of the house with it. Luckily we were safe and the tree didn't do as much damage as it could have.

This painting is from one of the shows I did "GUMBO." GUMBO was held at the Living Arts Center in Tulsa. The painting is titled "Neighbors" and was done using acrylics on 16 x 20 canvas.

Have a great day everybody, thanks for stopping by.

Journey

I started drawing geometric shapes on notebook paper when I was about six years old. I was fascinated by color and the visual appeal of different color combination's. I would sit for hours drawing lines, circles, and squares.






I loved fashion and as I got older I started drawing images from magazines. I decided I wanted to be a Fashion Designer but after obtaining a degree in Fashion Design I pursued other interests.




Through the years I did some freelance illustrating, but never painted until I was off work for a year recovering from a back injury. I didn't take a class, I just went out and bought paint and canvas and started to paint. I got commissions almost immediately.

Earlier this year I decided that instead of painting geometric shapes, as is most often the case, I would paint something different. I painted a small canvas with shades of red and waited for ideas to come. But, every idea involved geometric shapes. And so the canvas sat there waiting. One day after Rose was done painting I added the yellow she had left from her palette...still nothing. So there it sat.







Then one day, after days had turned into weeks and weeks had turned into months but before months could turn into years, I painted what I felt in my heart from day one.....geometric shapes. I titled it Journey, in honor of myself and all you other creatives out there who have a tendancy to get in your own way. It was done on
7 x 5 inch wrapped canvas and you can find it for sale in my Etsy shop with a portion of the proceeds benefiting cancer initiatives.


Have a great day everybody, thanks for stopping by.

Unexpected

My earliest memory of my uncle, moms brother, is from the summer after our parents divorced. Mom, Rose and I came to Oklahoma City to visit her parents. My uncle and his family came over to our grandparents for a cookout. There was so much food I couldn't imagine how we were ever going to eat it all. My uncle and grandfather grilled for what seemed like hours while my cousins and I played in the yard. Rose and my youngest cousin were both infants at the time and we delighted in pulling them around in a wagon. There were many such cookouts over the years once we moved here and always so much food and fun. We never thought about how at some point those days would be gone forever.

My uncle was a kind gentle man much like my grandfather. He served in the Air Force first in active duty and then in the reserves for more than twenty years. He had nine children, seven stepchildren, numerous grandchildren and great grandchildren but he treated Rose and I like daughters. Then quietly, much as he had lived, he died on April 7th.

I spoke to him everyday since I moved back home four years ago, sometimes three or four times a day depending on what was going on in the world. At first our conversations were mostly about mom since she was battling cancer but after she passed away we mostly talked about sports, he was an avid sports fan just like mom was. He would also call about things he heard on the news, I don't like watching the news so he wanted to make sure I knew what was going on. The morning of April 7th we talked about the fact that he wasn't feeling well when he woke up. I asked about his blood sugar and his blood pressure. They were both high but he had taken his medication and was going to take it easy he said. The day before he had been running errands and on Monday he had worked in his garden. I didn't think much of the fact that he said he didn't feel well but asked that he call me later to let me know how he was feeling. When my phone rang at about 7:00 pm and I saw on the caller id it was him I answered the phone by saying "hey how ya feeling?" but, instead of his voice it was my aunt saying he was not breathing.

We rushed to the hospital but I knew that if paramedics had left their home with him not breathing they were unable to revive him. When I told Rose that he was in heaven with mom, grandma and grandpa, our favorite cousin Thomas and our Aunt Julia she said she wanted to go to heaven too. I didn't know how to respond at first but then I said that I hoped she would stay with me because if she left there would be no one to take care of me. She didn't respond but I hope we both live a long time, I'm not sure what I would do without her.

There are things in life that are expected but yet when they happen they are often unexpected. Death is one of those things. And even though I have lost all of the people who made me who I am and the pain of that will never go away, I am grateful for being born into the family that I was born into.

This is my first painting since my uncles death and I titled it Unexpected for all those things that I should have seen coming a mile away but never did.

Have a great day everybody, thanks for stopping by.