Day 17. History
“Stepping Back ” 6×6, oil on canvas, framed
I started painting this one with yesterday’s– very meta– putting yesterday’s painting inside today’s. When I sat down to write about it, this story about my great aunt, my first art teacher, that my grandmother told me in the hospital before she died came vividly back. I had forgotten about it entirely. I have been learning a lot lately about generational trauma– how the pain of our ancestors can imprint on our DNA. But so too can healing. So too can joy.
History
Before she died, my grandmother
told me this story:
Her father, an artist,
was painting a set for a school play
and his youngest daughter, five years old,
found it, so moved by the scene,
she decided to finish it.
He came home,
saw the work of her small hands,
looked at her beaming-with-pride face and
He praised her
Decades later that five year old took me
to her studio in the woods
where she, almost wordlessly
showed me how soft a pencil could be
how far apart two eyes are
where a nose goes and how
to build layers of shadow to call
forth the light
It’s easy to think each day
a blank canvas
eager to be painted
but every day is marked
by the ones before it,
colored by hands
we’ve never touched
Denise Hopkins
January 17, 2025
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