My Grandma

I was so glad to have the opportunity to paint my sweet grandma for this week's Spoken Word! It was about interviewing the ancestors who are still living as part of your family history research. I have felt strongly about this with my grandmother, and I spent a lot of time with her a few years ago, while she was still so talkative that we sometimes wished we could get her to stop. She repeated the same stories over and over, so you could recite them word for word while you listened. I'm glad she pounded them in our heads then, because now she doesn't speak. She doesn't know who we are or where she is. I am so grateful that I know the stories of her life that are the most important to her, and need to write them down so that others will know them as well.

For this painting, although the room, the chair, and my niece Megan were all photographed on location, I had to find older photos of my grandma actually interacting, smiling, raising a hand, etc. Nowadays she just sits.

I love and miss my grandma. I hope she's happy inside her mind.