 I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to work with our veterans, made possible by the Utah Museum of Fine Arts and Laura Wilson. This experience continues to be profound. These men are so close to the end of life. Every visit feels like it could be the last, which makes everything they say carry extra weight. I don’t know if they consciously feel how near they are to death. Maybe none of us truly do, no matter our age. But I feel it when I’m with them — and that awareness makes every story, every small moment, feel sacred. Most of them had never painted before, yet they show up each week willing to try something new. That courage is incredibly inspiring. Today, one resident named Joe stopped me in my tracks. For seven weeks we’ve been using Utah landscapes as inspiration, but Joe keeps turning every painting into the desert of his Arizona home. Painting home. A quiet yearning for home. It choked me up. I almost cried right there in the studio.      Comments are closed.
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