The power of painting

The following painting by Melissa was done in the first class of Painting your relationship to your parents.

Excerpts from Melissa’s letter to her Dad

I stood in front of a blank canvas yesterday, and connected with your spirit.  I let you move through me.  And I finally felt you.  I finally felt you: a man of so few words, who I struggled to know when you were physically alive; and whose absences I’ve struggled to fathom since your death.  

And as you revealed more of what you’d been carrying – what felt like the wisps of smoldering grief, explosive streaks of red, and the unfolding of what felt like muddled flower buds – I realized just how familiar these shapes and gestures were.  These were mirrors of what I had been carrying.