It was a week filled but sadly not with art. Concern about our son’s partner’s pregnancy made me tired. Concern about the planet, our country and our own struggles left me anxious with the desire to do something mindless to turn off the brain. The Fires are still burning. The President of the United States and many around him have CoVid-19. We are on the verge of a civil war.I still find myself revisiting my parent’s wedding slides and had planned to do a drawing about my father looking at himself in the mirror hoping to incorporate some of the trees and line work from last week. But as I worked the drawing shifted and I added my mother do the drawing and drawing myself over and over looking burnt out. As I worked on these drawings I kept thinking how much has changed since the 50s when they were married. The world seemed so full of potential with a sleek shiny silver future. My husband and I are fortunate to still have all four of our parents. That is rare among our peers. Our parents are in their 80s and each is struggling in their own way with this new reality. My own parents want to pretend it will all go back to normal. I mention the climate emergency and they can not fully grasp the magnitude and how it will impact their great grandchildren. They imagine their great grandchildren not as future soldiers in the war to save humanity but growing up to the same world they lived in for most of their lives. A world where each generation had a future that was brighter than the one before. Most of the time my efforts to collaborate with our 2 year old granddaughter end up as a page covered in MUD colored watery paint. The drawing rarely stops when I want it to as toddlers and preschoolers are the masters at embracing process. Our granddaughter is obsessed with pumpkins and so together we draw and paint. I am not sure why I like this drawing so much
