Honoring My Grandmother Through Art
I remember as a small girl walking through my grandmothers home into her studio and just being completely fascinated with the old brushes and paints. She had stacks of books from the 1950's and 1960's titled something like "How to Learn to Draw" and I would sit on the mauve carpet flicking through the aged pages wondering if I could ever draw. As I grew, I decided to enter the art scene in my new high school. I took a leap of faith and joined the theatre and art studios. My grandmother took notice and decided to give everything she had to me, from her easel to the antique paints and brushes. I was so eternally grateful. Unfortunately, my art class was not as in depth as I would have liked. Our teacher had us doing projects like tie-dye shirts and I did not find the guidance I was looking for. My grandmother was getting older everyday and about two years after I graduated, she fell and she never woke up.
Through a series of unfortunate events I had to become a breadwinner of the house and my school life was put on hold. It was not until 2016 that I had finally come into a place where I could discover my life passions again, so I enrolled back into school. I not only discovered my love for art & film, but my love for science, math, language, and music. I felt so alive to be exploring all the different wonderful paths life has to give. When I enrolled into my first art class, watercolor, I was so thrilled to see "paintbrushes" on the supply list and I knew exactly where I could find mine. I ran home and dug under my bed into all my old stuff until I found the brushes. I held them in my hand and an overwhelming feeling of unease washed over me. I started to sob there on my bedroom floor, clutching the old brushes. I had no idea that this entire time I was shying away from art not because of my families financial standing, but because the pain of my grandmothers death had been so intense.
My art then took on the form of a sort of therapy for me and I slowly began to dip my toes into more and more mediums. I was so curious! If I can paint watercolor, what else can I do?? I discovered figure drawing, metals, and now oil painting. Oil painting is the medium my grandmother used and not surprisingly it happens to be my greatest strength so far. Each painting I create is an ode to her and her love of life. She was one of the most wonderful woman I've ever known. She was a teacher for the special needs, she loved to feed all the animals in her yard, she loved to garden her yellow roses, and most of all she loved me.
This photoshoot was developed to showcase the connection between my love for her and my love for art. As I continue to grow and learn I will always have her in my heart and I wanted to share my story as it is still being written.
All photos on this site were taken by Stephen Hardy and styled by Laurel Gregory at Cro Studios in Dallas owned by Kendall Falcon.
