GENERATIONS OF BROOKLYN
This series consists of ten oil portrait paintings, and corresponding smaller works on paper of multi generational families of various ethnic groups from different Brooklyn neighborhoods. The histories of my subjects enter into the paintings. I have interviewed my subjects, and intertwined their histories into the backgrounds of their portraits.

The subjects and their families are Pakistani, Haitian, Puerto Rican, Hungarian, Guyanese, African-American, Chinese, Japanese, Polish and Czech. The selection of these families was based on an organic process, with people I already knew, whose lives fascinated me because of how their personal lives intersected with history, and how that history affects who they are today.

Verna's Story  pastel  30" x 22"

VERNA'S STORY -
From Washington DC to Red Hook, Brooklyn

"Did you see the gates over the projects?" Verna asked me."Aren't they beautiful?" I met Verna King on her seventy-second birthday, at the reception for an exhibition of her paintings at the Independence Community Bank in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The party included Verna's grown children, who congregated around their artist mother, singing songs, and celebrating her. Verna has lived in the Red Hook projects for forty years, supporting herself as an accountant, doing her art work, and raising her four children. My adolescent art students stood in line, waiting to get Verna's autograph. They spoke of Ms. King, the celebrity artist, for weeks afterwards.

As a child growing up in the recently integrated Washington DC, Verna witnessed her mother, who worked as a domestic for a white family, push a white woman on a city bus, when the woman gave Verna's mother a hard time about not sitting in the back of the bus. Verna's paternal grandfather, Charles Walter Dyer, was married to a Cherokee woman. Charles worked as an itinerant reading teacher while en route to Rockville, Maryland, from Crestfield, Virginia, where he got a teaching job at Lincoln High School. Recently, one of Verna's sons died. She is trying to get back to her art while dealing with her grief.

Bella's Constellation   oil/canvas   48" x 44"

BELLA'S CONSTELLATION -
From Dynow, Poland to Lower East Side, NYC

Bella Neger was my grandmother. She came alone, from Dynow, a small town in the Galicia section in Poland, to live in New York's lower east side in 1925, at the age of seventeen years old. Arriving through Ellis Island, Bella had very little money. When she saw a dress in a store window, and wanted to buy it, someone suggested that she sell her waist long, wavy black hair to a wig maker to earn the money to buy the dress, which she did. Bella moved in with her aunt, a single mother of four sons, into an apartment on Ludlow Street. She was able to obtain a job in a factory that made hats. After working there awhile, the manager of the factory noticed Bella's skill with the hats, and promoted her to designing them. I have two of those hats. Bella spoke of the crowded conditions in the apartment, and later joked about an expression her male cousins would say to her: "Sleep fast, I need the bed!" After living with her aunt for four years, and working in the factory, Bella met the man she decided to marry, Joseph Tolpen, who was from the same area in Poland that Bella was from. He worked as a window washer. The couple moved to the Pelham Parkway section of the Bronx, where they started their family. Bella's birthday was May, 15, 1908. A generation later, two of her grandchildren, Joshua and Sophie, were also both born in May; Joshua, May 4, 1988, and Sophie, May 25, 1990, almost exactly ten days from the midpoint of Bella's birthday.

I Could Kiss Their Feet/Serena's Story   pastel   22" x 30"

"I Could Kiss Their Feet"/SERENA'S STORY -
From Balmazuvaros, Hungary to Borough Park, Brooklyn

Serena Stamler was liberated from the Mauthausen concentration camp in Germany in 1945 by an American battalion consisting primarily of black soldiers. It was the first time that Serena had seen a black person, having been raised in pre-war Hungary, a homogeneous European society. To Serena, they were heroes. "I could kiss their feet," she said. Serena was surprised, upon coming to America after the war, how badly blacks were treated here, after her liberation by the black soldiers from the concentration camp. Serena was a single mother of eight children when she arrived in Brooklyn in 1946. She supported herself as a kosher cook in hotels. Serena lived in Borough Park with her seventy-seven year old widowed daughter. Although she lived in this country for nearly half a century, Serena spoke no English, managing with her Hungarian and Yiddish in her community. She could be found on most Sundays in Amnon's Kosher Pizza shop, where her relatives in Brooklyn visited her at her regular table. Serena died in her sleep on August 18, 2003, at the age of 107.

David's Story   oil/canvas   44" x 44"

A1837/DAVID'S STORY - From Mukachevo, Czechoslovakia to Williamsburg, Brooklyn

"My life was destroyed." After my father-in-law, David Rand was liberated from Auschwitz in 1945, the ss officers ran their Jewish prisoners through the woods, hoping to kill more of them before the American soldiers reached them to safety. It was during this run, that David's brother was shot point blank to the ground. David did not know how he could continue to run following his brother being shot, and leave him there on the ground. David fell down, hoping to be left for dead. Luckily, he was passed over. David hid in the woods for several days.

While in a d.p. camp, David met his future wife, Eva. They came to New York in 1947, and raised a family of five children. David ran a shoe store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. My husband Mark Rand, also a father of five children, ran the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington DC in October of 1994. When he came home, he cried, thinking of his father running through the woods in Germany with his Nazi captors, and realized he needed to run the marathon for joy in his father's honor.

Fran's Story   pastel   30" x 22"

FRAN'S STORY -
From Shanghangzhoi, China to Park Slope, Brooklyn

"Mom was one of the first Chinese immigrants who came to New York," Fran told me. Fran Onne is a musician, with two children, who lives in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. Fran's mother, Tih Lou, came from Shanghangzhoi, a big Chinese city located south of Shanghai. Tin Lou was a young woman when the Japanese invaded China in the early 1930's. Her family fled to their vacation home in the mountains. An image that remains with Tih Lou is of the Japanese soldiers with their bayonets, pulling a servant girl's pony tail. Miraculously, the soldiers left, leaving the family alive. Throughout the family's ordeal, Tih Lou's mother had been sick, and she nursed her mother back to health. Tih Lou was a teacher of Chinese pilot's children, whose fathers were fighting off the Japanese. Afterwards, Tih Lou traveled to Shanghai where she had her arranged marriage. Another relative of Fran's, a grand -aunt, Lily Yee, a painter of Chinese landscapes, was a strong influence on Fran. She came to New York, from Shanghai, where she had associated with Shanghai's Chinese intellectuals in the late1920's.Tih Lou arrived in New York City in 1938. She made Chinese lampshades and dresses for her husband's cousin's import/export business on 28th Street. During World War II, Tih Lou acted as a go- between, helping Chinese immigrants to get jobs in an airplane parts factory, as they got off the boats in New York, where she would meet them at the piers, and direct them to the factory. Later, Fran's parents had a grocery store, Jimmy's Grocery, in Harlem, near where Tih Lou still lives today, alone, at the age of ninety-six. Fran's children visit once a week for Chinese lessons.

Asma's Story   pastel   22" x 30"

ASMA'S STORY -
From Islamabad, Pakistan to Midwood, Brooklyn

"I come from a family of many doctors." Asma Talukder is a Pakistani, Muslim woman who came to live in Midwood with her family ten years ago. Asma is a teacher of the Koran. She comes from a family of many doctors, and although Asma is a religious woman, she is negotiating her way through American society in Brooklyn, and has plans for one of her daughters to go to medical school.

Lahiny's Story   pastel   30" x 22"

LAHINY'S STORY -
From Jacmel, Haiti to East Flatbush, Brooklyn

"You don't know who is listening… Don't say anything bad about the government parties. Even complaining to your neighbor about the price of rice can be heard as a slant against the government." Lahiny didn't go to school for a year because her grandma was afraid she would "catch a bullet," with all the shooting going on. The wife of a tonton macoute and Lahiny's mother got into a fight, and an uncle got involved. Later, the tonton macoute came after the uncle, and shot him in the stomach. He ran out of the house holding his belly together to escape to a different locale. Years later, the same tonton macoute came back to hide in the uncle's house when the tables were turned after the fall of the Duvalier regime. Bullets shot by the tonton macoutes reverberate and zig-zag in the mountainous neighborhood of Jacmel. Once a bullet went through Lahiny's neighbor's zinc roof and killed a sleeping two-year old in her crib. Meanwhile, Pagerro jeeps were given as gifts to tontons macoutes in exchange for the longest lists of traitors. Port-au-Prince became "Jeep City," with women wearing sunglasses, driving around. There was even a fancy ball where the room was frozen so that the wives of rich politicians would have an occasion to wear their furs. On February 7, 1986, a murmer "he is gone," was heard throughout the neighborhood at 5AM, when the Duvalier regime fell. The smell of burning tires necklacing the former tontons wafted in the air. Lahiny Nereus is a writer, living in East Flatbush with her family.

Misa's Story   acrylic/linen   42" x 44"

MISA'S STORY -
From Kobe, Japan to Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn

"I traveled one night by taxi, and then three hours on foot, to reach my parent's house after the earthquake in Kobe, Japan, in 1995. Thankfully, they were alive. My Fragile Art series depict photographs of plaster Statues of Liberty after being kicked and stepped on, as a symbolic representation of myself. While living in this international city of New York, a part of me has been changing because of the influences from the variety of cultures and people. I related the transformation of myself to the transfiguration of the plaster statues."

When Misa first came to New York, after the earthquake, she worked as a tour guide for Japanese tourists visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While there, she became fascinated with the fragmented statures of ancient art, which led to Misa's Fragile Art series. Misa wonders, "Will our descendants see the Lady Liberty as we see the Venus de Milo?" In 1982, Misa and her mother traveled from Kobe to Europe, by way of the Siberian railroad to meet Misa's father, Kazu Namekawa, also an artist, who was living in Perugia, Italy at the time. Misa Namekawa is an artist living in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

Daniel's Story   pastel   30" x 22"

DANIEL'S STORY -
From Rincon, Puerto Rico to Sunset Park, Brooklyn

"She was my everything," said Daniel. Placida Molet, daughter of slaves in Puerto Rico, church friend of Daniel's mother, who adopted Daniel when he was four years old after his mother died. She sang slave songs that were sung to soldiers in Puerto Rico, as they left for war. She was an independent fireball, died of natural causes in 1967 when Daniel was already married with four children. Up to the last day, Placida was dancing in the hospital, entertaining the nurses and staff.

"Dead people are all around you," they told Daniel, Wakonax torchbearer, "he who lights the way, encender. A tree from which the wood is used with torch light, he likes to help people, lead them out of darkness to help themselves." Daniel is the director of the northeast division of the organization, Taino Nation of the Antilles. Daniel says, "America has denied Taino culture and the recognition of the Native American, saying it is extinct. Not only are we alive, but our DNA is still a dominant Native American gene."

Koreen's Story   pastel   22" x 30"

KOREEN JONES -
From Demerara, Guyana to Elmhurst, Queens

The name Guyana is an Amerindian word meaning "Land of many waters." Koreen says, "We are known as the country of six people: African, Amerindian, East Indian, Chinese, Portuguese, and European." Koreen Jones' heritage is Amerindian, Chinese, Black and European; her mother, Edna Wang, is an Amerindian from Venezuela, and her father was of Chinese and European blood. Edna did domestic work. She was a woman of strong values; a hard worker. She exhumes dedication and peace. "She will give you a piece of her heart", says Koreen, of her mother. Koreen's father's heritage was African, from Barbados. He left to England when Koreen was six years old, to marry another woman. Koreen's sister, Fabiola, named after a Dutch goddess, is eighteen years Koreen's junior, and works as a quality control manager in a rum distillery, El Dorado, the famous Guyanese brand. Edna lives with Fabiola in their house in the east coast of Demerara, an industrial area. The family used to operate a beer garden and grocery from the first floor of the house. Guyana has endured years of racial conflict and political uprisings, mainly between the Blacks and Indians. When Koreen was twelve years old, she was threatened by a group of men in an Indian neighborhood that if her mother would not transfer her to another school, that they would "beat the Black out of her." Years later when Koreen's daughter was walking to school in a Black neighborhood, she was threatened by a group of Black men that they would "beat the Indian out of her."