Whenever I travel back to my country, it feels like I come across a shoebox in the back of my childhood bedroom closet, full of memorabilia I didn't know were there. As soon as I open the box, an inner whisper says “I will remind you of everything.”
There is an instant rush of fond memories of the house I grew up in by the sea and of the maze-like city I moved to when I got older. But mostly, of family and friends: the people that I care for and who have always been there for me since the beginning. The ones I take for granted.
Growing up, so many of us were queer in our seaside town we joked “it must be in the water.” Some have left, many have stayed. Like everyone else, from the proud “mother” of the village who helped most of us come out, to the sentimental ones that are still hanging onto a past that is no longer there, we are struggling in our own way. Loneliness, isolation, decline. Secrets and regrets. But each one a lighthouse keeper. Strong and resilient, fragile and tender, always there to help, guiding each other through life, and reminding me of where I belong.
Leslie Sills | Artists I Have Known
While in art school in the early 1970s, I began to teach art classes to children after school: first in a housing project, then in a neighborhood art center, later in after school programs, and eventually in my studio. While my students were well educated, very few knew of any women artists. I looked for books for them but found none. Because I was also trying to exhibit my work and be a part of the feminist women’s art movement, I knew I needed to change things. While I didn't think of myself as a writer, I created a proposal for a children’s book on women artists. This was the genesis of Inspirations: Stories About Women Artists, my first book on women artists that went on to sell 30,000 copies, win numerous awards, and enter the collections of 4,000 libraries in 14 countries.
Now, as a painter, I have created Artists I Have Known, inspired by my research and sometimes meetings with well-known women artists. Everyone I researched and /or met inspired me to paint a story. Sometimes the story evolved to be humorous or enchanting. Other times they evoked fear or even anger. All were interesting and memorable allowing me to intertwine my life with theirs.
Artists I Have Known is a sampling of this confluence. These are the painting stories I needed to tell right away, but there will be more to come.
I would like to dedicate this exhibit to the memory of one of my most engaged and loving students, Liza Oppenheim of Brookline, who I met when she was five years old, grew up to be an artist, but sadly passed on in her early forties due to a liver disease.