As I dressed to meet a dear friend for dinner the other night I reached into my jewelry box for a few items to accessorize. Understated, subtle and unassuming in appearance but these simple pieces represented so much more than their weight in gold. The strong women that raised me with a nod to the future would be quietly dining with us that evening.

A ballet shoe necklace first to drape around my neck. A gold pointe shoe dangled loosely on a delicate matching chain. A gift from my mother so many years ago. Reminding me of so many moments in the arts that she introduced me to but most importantly was the time we sat side by side at the Lincoln Center and watched Baryshnikov leap through the air with a strength and grace never to be witnessed again. 

Coupled around my neck was also a necklace gifted to me by my son-in-law with the gems of each granddaughter’s birth month. A gift I have no equal for and words fail me when I try to describe exactly how meaningful this beautiful gift is to me. By the time I had finished dressing the chains had intertwined around my neck as if to confirm the oneness of our family.  

At dinner my friend reached across the table to acknowledge the modest platinum ring spinning large on my right ring finger.  She had once owned a similar piece and I explained the significance of mine. It was my great grandmother’s engagement ring I said. Quietly and in my usual nervous manner when speaking about myself I quickly uttered that I was named after her. She was my namesake. My friend’s very kind eyes grew knowing and an understanding smile formed knowing that this unremarkable ring represented so much more to me than the frail worn band. 

My great grandmother Elizabeth Kent was a woman of tall stature in her younger years. A patient, kind and gentle woman.  Blind and bedridden. Crippled with arthritis and complained not. Ma, as my siblings and I called her, brought our mother up at an advanced chronological age as our maternal grandmother had died four days after giving birth. A transfusion ended her life after delivering our mother. Born in 1931 the RH Factor unfortunately wasn’t understood until 1940. 

For me, I have many physical reminders of my mother from recipes to her paintings. Her writing too. Cooking her chicken pot pie nourishes so much more on a cold winter day as it also casts me back to my early years.  I fondly remember Monday night family dinners when we were all seated around the rock maple kitchen table and chairs that now reside in my daughter’s home. When visiting their home the squeak of the chair brings me right back to the kitchen of my childhood home. I sat to the right of my sister because she was left handed and I right. Our brother across the table and our mom to my right and our dad when he was able to join us sat at the opposite end of the table from mom. The clink of the silverware drawer, pots bubbling on the stove and the fragrant waft of our mother’s cooking forever is carried with me…

The power of memories. How does one document a life?  Some people keep a journal. I paint portraits that tell a story. Moments in time. Just a glimpse into a life on any given day yet captured and formally portrayed.

Images flood my phone from my daughter.  Photos of my precious granddaughters. I often urgently find my way to a box of charcoal or a canvas to recreate the image in hopes that one day in the future they will be reminded of a moment in their life that I witnessed. 

My eldest granddaughter captured while painting on her first canvas at my easel. The youngest granddaughter in a pink tutu hugging a babydoll dressed similarly. Sisters looking at a carousel through a locked glass door on the Vineyard. Preschool art expressed on an outdoor school blackboard.

Charcoal drawings. Studies scattered around my studio. Tender moments as fragile as the charcoal image I created.  A dad with his daughter in his lap while reading to her young class. My daughter with a sleeping infant in her arms while gently kissing her head. Images on Cape Cod beaches as the girls learn to love the ocean as we do. 

While speaking to my daughter on the phone the other day after I had just finished a quick charcoal sketch of her youngest, I asked her “what will you do with all of these portraits?” Sweetly and without hesitation she responded “I will hang them up.” She understood my meaning without any exchange of the obvious. Her loving response made my heart swell. Maybe not on a ring finger or in a recipe book but I will be with them…

“You must give everything to make your life as beautiful as the dreams that dance in your imagination.”― Roman Paynejio