Writing a love letter to myself
each February
began years ago in 2008
when I first put paint brush to altered book..
It is a tradition that I look forward to each year..
writing about the things that I do, say and think
that
I really appreciate..
This year however..
I had a new twist to journal about..
I have always identified with being Italian American..
because I was so close to my father's family..
and because my mother and I had been estranged for so may years..
not uncommon in families with
alcoholism..
My Mother always claimed to be Irish..
She even gave her youngest son an Irish name..
and well she was beautiful,
with red hair, freckles and blue eyes..
fast forward
to Ancestry and DNA testing..
and suddenly
I am not half Irish, but German and English
What a surprise..
not an Irish scalawag in the lot..
I knew I had an English grandfather that I never met..
(lots of secrets on that side of the family..
that we won't go into here today..)
but I was too young to remember my maternal great grandmother..
My Mother..
sigh..
I can understand her changing her heritage during WW2..
I get that part, it would have made high school very difficult..
and small town living,
atrocious..
but to keep the story going all those years later..
that is so my
MOTHER..
However..
No matter where my DNA originated..
I am happy to be the woman that I am..
So I gessoed and painted and painted some more
and scrubbed back the layers to reveal the orange paint underneath.. to show the past..
and used the letters...
to emphasize
the power of the written word..
to manifest what we truly want to create..
Ingredients: Stitched Mono Prints, threads, acrylic paint, colored pencils, pencil, paper ephemera, antique envelopes, wrapping papers, pen.
So gentle reader,
I will have the second half of that
Mono Printing video for you on Friday..
we will be printing on large cloth,
canvas
and boards..
so I will see you then
dear ones..
xox
