Small Paintings

Small Paintings

The Small Paintings series started in response to the death of my long-time husband, Frank. He was an unstoppably creative person, loving, compassionate, irreverent, intelligent and able to face even his own death generously. During the last summer of his life with Lewy Body Disease, a terrifying form of dementia, he would say to me, “Don’t miss me too much.”

I took his message to heart, but was not able to comply. I missed him too much. About two months after his death I started making small paintings based on photos from the places we had been during our 34 years together. For months I painted one painting each night. The intense involvement in the details, structure and variety of images kept me distracted from my overwhelming sadness. They are small enough to hold in my hand while painting. It became a soothing daily habit. Making this series has helped me to move on. I still make these paintings, although not daily. My creative explorations are again more diversified, as they used to be.

Shown here are selections from the stages and thematic focuses that evolved as I went along. It is more or less chronological.
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Sizes are mostly 10″hX8″w or 9″hX12″w.