To My Favorite G.I.
collage, acrylic, charcoal on panel
24 x 24
During World War II, my father wrote more than 500 letters to my mother while fighting in the Pacific Theater. Two works from my Between the Lines series—”To My Favorite G.I.” and “Left Behind”—focus on the women and girls whose lives unfolded in the shadow of those letters and events.
“To My Favorite G.I.” incorporates original correspondence and photographs my mother received from overseas. Her image became a lifeline—proof that love, beauty, and constancy still existed amid chaos. On the back of one small photograph she wrote, “To my favorite G.I.” The term “G.I.” was not anonymous to her; it was intimate. A coded declaration of belonging, resilience, and hope. This work honors the countless young women who stayed behind to wait, work, worry, and believe.
“Left Behind” turns to the quieter, often overlooked experience of children shaped by war. Lorraine stands suspended between innocence and fear, forced into emotional adulthood by absence. Her story reflects generations of young girls whose lives were irrevocably altered by conflicts they did not choose.
Together, these paintings bear witness to longing, faith, and endurance carried by the women and girls who held families, memories, and futures together while history unfolded around them.
In creating these works, I sought to capture what could not always be spoken—the quiet strength, unresolved longing, and inner faith that sustained those at home. Through layered imagery, fragmented text, and partial concealment, the paintings mirror how memory, love, and absence coexist, shaping lives long after the war has ended.
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