09/01/2026
“Ancestors in Transit” has its own history. It began as a reaction to my grief at the passing of a dear relative. The painting expanded as her children came to visit and accepted the invitation to add their own marks and symbols to express their feelings about their mother.
Though the painting meant a great deal to me, I felt it was unfinished. I began to add more layers, more shapes, and began to see figures emerge from my paint strokes…and kept adding figures. The figures looked like they were on a form of public transport which linked to thoughts I often have about the long line of generations that have come before me….who I will never know, but are a part of me. I wonder about their lives, their stories, how they felt, how they lived their lives. I added my own finger prints in oil paint, dabbing in distant figures, so far in the past that no one now knows them.
We all think about our mortality, and one of the ways I cope with that anxiety is to imagine my life in the great swath of history, both human and geological. Many have come before, many will come after. All in transit through time. Humans and rocks. From dust to dust.
