Many moons ago I was part of a year-long study group with Brugh Joy, an amazing spiritual teacher.  We were given an exercise to get to know our ancestors and family, and write about it.  I painted it.  I painted portraits of family members long gone, and  people I had never met — my paternal grandparents and dad.  On the people I had never met I was to meditate to find what I knew about them, petition my dreams, and in my case, sketch.  I learned a lot about those that were dead.  When my mom saw the paintings of the people I had not met or didn’t know hardly at all, after I explained some of the symbols I used, she said I had caught them.  Possibly I heard stories unconsciously; who knows?

At the time I was only painting about a year, but I already loved painting BIG.  These were created on canvases that were 30×36-inches.

As it relates to this post, I created portraits of my siblings.

I like painting a series; your paintings tell a story.  Mine tells the story of my crazy California family, colorful characters all, and many creatives!  I always wished that the images could have been seen altogether in a gallery or even at my home by everyone living, but that was impossible.  Most were eventually given to the family member.

Below are the four canvases I painted of my brothers and I.

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A version of this was originally published in my blog zenkatwrites.