Families logo

Buried, Forgotten, Remembered

A journey of ancestral creativity, trauma, and healing.

By HeidiPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
1

I grew up attending elegant symphonies, wearing my nicest Spanish dress with the black lace, meeting the orchestra members after the show. I awkwardly shake their hands and admire how black their dresses are compared to my faded Spanish lace. They’re playing my great-great-grandfathers music—a famous composer from Switzerland. As a Jew, he fled his country during the war and came to the United States. Agate Beach, Oregon in fact. I was raised not too far from where my great-great-grandfather wrote some of his most prolific pieces. I spent my most formative years in a house filled with photos taken by my great-aunt, a close friend of Frida Kahlo who took many of the most personal snapshots of Kahlo in existence. Another great-aunt, who my mother was named after, was one of the founders of the Lute Society of America in the 70’s. During a violin class, it is noted she told Albert Einstein off for not being able to count to the rhythm properly.

Juxtaposed amongst the confident, rich creatives in our lineage is my mother. She’s six and full of life and she’s being abused by her father’s second wife. Wife number two drags my mother on her errands, and makes my mother watch them glue plastic to the wife’s nailbeds. Later that night, those nails make my mother bleed. I’m not allowed to wear acrylic nails when I grow up and I don’t understand why. My mother grows up to be quiet, reserved, doubtful. She marries my father, an Australian with an accent that sounds like honey, three months after meeting in a bar. She falls pregnant with me before realizing he’s a drunk. She leaves him and meets my stepdad, an engineer who builds her a Taj Mahal out in the country like she’s always dreamed of having.

In our new home my mother discovers she enjoys creating beautiful dishes and photographing flowers, but she keeps her passions right where they belong—hobbies in a small neat box on a shelf in the attic collecting dust, only to be taken out when necessary. I’m nine years old and even I can see her photos and compositions are stunning. When I asked why she didn’t pursue photography, she responds, “there’s already too many photographers in the world, and I have nothing new to say.” I’m sitting at the kitchen table, making a floral landscape on a post-it note with Crayola markers.

I’m twelve, and my grandfather is married to wife number four now. She is a lovely warm woman who wears 750 kiss-me-coral lipstick. She encourages me to follow my dreams. She tells me I need to listen carefully to my heart and pay attention close to when it beats faster. She encourages me to learn about my family’s history, even though it isn’t her own. She takes me to an art store and buys me my first set of acrylic paints, a canvas, soft brushes, orange scissors, and a plastic box to keep my new treasures safe in. Unlike my mothers’, my box is kept in my room, it's open all the time and is covered in paint. I paint floral landscapes with colours I never even knew existed.

I'm eighteen and I work at a bank. I am good at my job and learn how to input numbers faster than anyone I work with. When the days are slow, I doodle on the back of deposit slips. I draw the sun and the moon and all the constellations I can remember with a ballpoint pen until a customer interrupts me.

I’m twenty-eight and something inside me snaps. I quit my marketing job because something in my blood is screaming at me to paint something bigger than whatever pathetic scraps are left for me after forty hours a week. I want to throw paint through the air and scream as it smacks against the canvas. I want to destroy something in the name of creativity. I need to find my voice. I want my art to be naïve. I want it to be sophisticated. I want to make art I hate. I don’t want to be just another artist in the world, taking up space. I want to have something to say. I have something to say.

I spend my first day off cleaning out the big shed out back. It’s full of heavy dusty furniture and forgotten hobbies. The sun is shining, and the dust is all around me, glowing. Under the rubble and ash, I find a plastic box covered in paint with treasures safe inside. I paint a floral landscape with 16 year old paint, it's sticky and globs up and looks like a murky underwater scene. Under some cracked tubes of paint, I can see some old orange scissors at the bottom of the box. I cut up the canvas in squares and strips and rearrange it. It's abstract. I stand back and admire the mess I've made. I like the way it makes me feel. I think I found my voice.

art
1

About the Creator

Heidi

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.