I never had the privilege of meeting my grandpa Ron. However, I always felt as though I knew him. I felt as though I knew him through his artwork that my childhood home was littered with. As a child I remember getting lost in his artwork on the walls wondering what he was like and how I might relate to him now if he were still with us.
Unfortunately, my grandpa Ron took his own life when my mom was just a teenager, he suffered from a few different mental illnesses. Knowing this about my grandpa made his life and his artwork even more mysterious to me. “What was he going through? What was he thinking when he made this piece” I would wonder as I stared at his artwork in the dining room.
I never considered myself much of an artist in the traditional way, but as a kid that didn’t keep me from trying. I have many memories going through my grandpa’s art pages looking for one that didn’t look too complicated, hoping I could replicate it. Needless to say, it never came out right. I even recall going through a tracing phase — I would tape an art piece to my lamp shade and lay a piece of loose leaf paper over it and trace as the light from the lamp peered through the paper revealing my grandpa’s strokes. My tracing still didn’t measure up. I remember thinking “This artistic gene has to be somewhere in our family!”
Now many years later as an adult I have found that my artistic ability is not found on a canvas but through words. I have always been intrigued by poetry and in the last several years I began writing. To my surprise my poetry isn’t half bad. I have come to realize that maybe I do have a bit of my grandpa’s artistic gene. When I put this artistic gene into practice I feel as though I knew my grandpa. Now having discovered a little artistic gene in me, I’d like to think that my grandpa and I would have a lot in common and that we’d be pretty close if he were still with us today.
What you hold in your hand is my grandpa’s artwork that I have turned into a greeting card. The pictured art is his and the “word” art is mine. This is my attempt at adding words to my grandpa’s drawings and paintings. As I once again stare at his art wondering what he was going through at the moment of creating, I write what maybe could have been his thoughts.
— Drew Waeckerle, Grandson
