Meanwhile, I have been painting a lot. This is one that I am currently working on in my dad's recently rebuilt house (it burnt down last August). Instead of a back splash in the kitchen, he asked if I would paint him a mural type thing. Included are some of my initial sketches and the process work thus far (and I am not even half way finished).
So this pice is based on the most vivid of my memories about growing up in that house with my dad, the feelings of growing up and realizing that the home you grew up in is the same place, but completely different.
When I was five, I walked into our kitchen to find my dad standing in the complete darkness, staring out of the window and crying. I was shocked by the vulnerability of this man that I looked at as my hero, this unbreakable, and unbelievably strong man. This was the first time I ever saw him crying, the first time in my memory that I saw the crushing effects of heartbreak. The love of his life had left us that week, just wanted something else from life and left him and I. I thought I was hidden behind our large kitchen table only to find out last week that he knew I was there and thought that it was important for me as a child to see that men do cry and that there was no shame in that.
This inspired the basis for the painting. The figures are obviously representative of my dad and I, The table is what I hid behind, but more than that tables are stable and structured, and I wanted to symbolize that aspect of my raising. I'll keep the blog updated with my progress because this project is so important to me, and give further explanations as I post.
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