Understanding

'My mother's shoes' monotype print 8 x10"

As we were cleaning out my mom's apartment after her death, we found letters under her pillow. 

What a surprise!

Love letters between my parents.

Letters written between my mom's mom and my mom, 

after she came back to Hungary from a Russian work camp in 1945.

The love letters we burned and put into my mom's and dad's grave together with her ashes. 

The other letters I kept. 

I was touched deeply, I felt I was holding something very precious.

Holding thoughts of my mom, having heard the stories of heart-ship all my life,

 how my mom worked her way from Hungary to meet her mom in Germany, 

where my grandmother had been deported to.

The longing from both to meet again.

My mom could never understand, how I could have moved so far away from her, 

where it had been such a struggle for her to reconnect with her mother. 

How I could not want to be that girl, she wanted to be so desperately when she was crawling into the coal mine seams somewhere in Russia. 

Wearing girlish clothes, wanting nothing more than being with and like my family.

How she must have struggled all through her life in trying to understand me. 

I know I struggled to understand her.

However, holding these letter in my hand made me understand a little better.

So, I created this piece remembering my mom and her longing for being a girl, 

being a teenager with beautiful clothes,

 not cooking soup out of potato peeling and wondering if she ever will see her mom again.

Using the red shoes as a symbol for her lost youth, 

for dreams that became nightmares, for a connection we never had. 

This monotype print is printed on one of the letters written between my mom and her mom  describing the joy my mom found when her mom sent her a dress. She was released from the work camp, however, she was working on farms in Austria in order to afford the boarder crossing 

to Germany to reunite with her mother.

I am very pleased that after being selected by a jury for the Nonesuch Art of Paper, the image of 'My mom's shoes' appears on the cover of the catalog and is traveling after this summers showing in Parrsboro to Montreal.

Below is the event page if someone is in Montreal  from Dec. 1 - Dec. 16,

 the show is amazing, go and see it! 

 https://www.facebook.com/events/291694191234672/