 The Stories We Tell, 2014 – Michaela Harlow - Pastel on Coldpress, Deckle-Edge Paper, 20″ x 16″
S O L D Â – Â A R C H I V A L Â P R I N T S Â A V A I L A B L E
My family’s big events are heavily weighted in October. Today is my parents’ sixtieth wedding anniversary. They met in Germany in the early 50s, married when they were both quite young, and were together for decades before my sister and I were born. My parents could, in fact, easily be my grandparents. In many ways, the story of their marriage is a mystery to me. I’m an intimate witness to less than a third of their years together; when we all lived under the same roof. The first chapter of their history exists for me as a collection of stories. Those early years of their dating and marriage —in the 1950s and 1960s— fascinate me. Sometimes I catch myself gazing upon their wedding photos, wondering who they were then, and who they are now, before and after their children.
Our lives are often so different from the stories we tell.
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2 Comments
I’ve been thinking and thinking about the fact that your parents were married for twenty years before they had children. Twenty years!
This piece is lovely. That blue and those warm hues contrast and play with each other so well. Glad to see you’re back in the studio, creating.
I spent this evening celebrating their anniversary, and I kept looking at them, thinking that there are so many marriages within every marriage. If you stay with your partner, I think you have many different kinds of relationships; both with yourself and with each other.
Thank you for commenting. I’m really happy with this piece.
xx M