Art and loss

This is a hard post to write. Recently my grandmother passed away and she was by far one of my favorite people. She was an integral part of me becoming an artist, simply because she told me I could do whatever I wanted to do with my life. While a student, I showed her my drawings from a life drawing class and she said they were wonderful and she was happy for me. She told me I could do it.

Art impressed my grandmother. That fact alone made it worth doing. She told me about the emotion in Michelangelo’s Pieta, especially the one he created later in his life. She told me it is a much better Pieta than the one he created earlier in his life. I suppose it’s because life experiences accumulate and we eventually learn what it means to feel pain and loss. Perhaps later in life artists figure out what is worth expressing.

I don’t really know how to end this post. Events and loss can rattle you in unexpected ways. I guess the only thing there is to do is to keep making art, even if it’s with a little more sorrow.

My grandma Erazmus