Artist's Statement - "Album Series"

This recent series of paintings reflects an absorption over the last few years with old photographs, particularly those of my husband's family. I have always loved these photographs, but the loss of both my parents two years ago and the process of creating family albums for my brothers and sisters led me to refocus on these particular pictures in a new way. I found them not just charming, but haunting. They had begun to come alive. Somehow the events in my own life now enabled me to feel, very strongly, that the people in these pictures were very much alive, as vibrant at the time the photos were taken as I am now.

With that comes the realization that, in time, photos taken of me will be all that is left of me. Perhaps it was not simply the loss of my parents, but my own ageing that has made me more acutely sensitive to all of this. Photos like these are visible memories .. when there is no longer any living mind to hold the memories themselves, the photos remain. Tangible memories.

The particular photos that provided the basis for this series can be sorted into two groups. The first were taken around 1910. They are primarily of my husband's grandmother (a poet) and her three sisters. Several focus on one of the sisters (Mamie) and her fiancé or spouse (A.V.). How evident it is from the photos that Mamie and A.V. were very much in love! Several of the photos include their parents (my husband's grandparents), the whole family enjoying their joy. These photos seem particularly enchanting because it seems unusual to me for photographs of that era to be so candid. They are also particularly touching because I know that Mamie drowned after barely a year of their marriage.

The second group is from the late 1930s and early 1940s, and again are from my husband's family album. In selecting these and the earlier photos, I chose those that communicated to me a mood or feeling tone, which I in turn tried communicate by means of the painting. The process of re-creating the photograph as a painting involved, for me, bringing it to life by adding some color, but not too much. Strangely, each photograph was different. Each suggested slightly different tones although the originals were straight sepia or, in several instances, simple black and white.

I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I have enjoyed painting them. I will have succeeded if sense the emotion or feel the vitality of these lovely people.