Charcoal drawings have been a form of expression these past few weeks. I've always loved it, how freeing it was, how messy it can be, and the images you can create with one color by smudging, using heavy or light strokes. It's the paradox between light and dark, or maybe the mood I've been in. The mood of missing my mother and father, a lot.
The process in getting to these shadowy figures came from pages and pages of trying to replicate photos of my mom and dad and I kept starting over, as I started over I'd smudged them all across creating these shadow-like figures. I quickly turned page after page and created figures with no face or distinct body features, just smudges, almost like distant memories.
As I stared at them even more, I began to see myself in them. In that middle drawing, I texted my daughter right away and said you can almost see "my mom" on the left looking at "me" on the right with my head held down low. I felt like that in that drawing "she" was telling me, I will be alright. "It's okay annako, I'm always with you..."