For the Dead / Oil on linen / 40” x 80” / 2023

LWC: Strategizing this painting, I imagined a generational portrait - the audience embodying an ancestor’s spirit passing through, observing the artist working in her home studio and her daughter in the bedroom beyond.

Most known as a public works artist in San Francisco, Wendy Ackrell recently painted a series of vessels, held together by the golden cracks of Japanese Kintsugi. The one here is called “Portrait of a Mid-Life Woman.” I noticed that Wendy’s daughter had made her own version; her interpretation of imperfect beauty houses a thriving plant and I appreciated that this remarkable child had internalized her mother’s message.

Meanwhile, as we spent time together, Wendy went out of her way to show me her grandmother’s jewelry. I took photographs of it and later wondered why it was important. So I started wearing my own grandmother’s jewelry, in particular, a charm bracelet given to her by my grandfather on their 20th wedding anniversary. It features a charm for her birth, another for her love of music, and many more for all the jobs she held before their marriage; then two tiny gold baby diapers for the births of my mother and aunt, followed by nothing - as if children were the end of her significance. Then I remember the stories: as a woman, she flew airplanes in the 1930s; she had moxie. As I wear the bracelet, I feel her dissatisfaction cheering me on, telling me to be courageous.

Wendy handed me wisdom that I didn’t understand until I lived it. So, this painting is about the passage of female knowledge and about channeling strength from the people we love, alive or dead.