Mixed media on paper – February 2020
Portrait of a Loss
30’ x 22” drawing and collage on Arches paper
Last January, while sitting with my husband Irwin one afternoon, when he was already very diminished from his long illness, I drew his face. In my sketchbook. The drawing was a decent likeness. His eyes already looked “lost,” and the image felt remote. It made me wonder how he felt, how it felt from his side of his face to be failing physically and mentally. Was there a way out? Was he seeking a way out? Did he feel trapped in and by his illness? Since he couldn’t tell me about how he felt, I started imagining it from my own point of view. I copied the drawing multiple times, traced the lines with charcoal, and tore the drawings into small pieces with which to reassemble this portrait. The quote, which I carelessly did not cite, says: ”After a certain age, you’re responsible for your family, and family means crisis, family means loss.” When I stepped back as I completed the image, I felt I had captured a moment we shared, a moment in which we were losing a battle, and there was only one way out.
