Art Makes Art

Is your legacy a brand, book, building, or bank account, or is it an unsolvable mystery you leave behind for others to solve?

When my father died at 85, he didn’t tie up his life neatly by selling a company, writing a book, putting his name on a building, or filling a bank account for future generations, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t leave a legacy.

In 1973, at the age of 38, my father made a painting called That’s Life. In the painting, he depicts two upheavals life takes us through: one, he states in a newspaper article, occurs during adolescence, when our values disintegrate, and we break out of the family mould in search of our identity. The second upheaval is the mystery; he never explains it, he hasn’t lived it. This is the legacy he left, one I have chosen to keep alive by trying to solve.

This mystery is the foundation ofthe book I am writing, The Search For The Good Morning House, that I hope one day reveals a new mystery, my legacy that someone will take upon themselves to solve.

As for the second upheaval, here is what I have so far: it is the coming to terms with who we are when midlife breaks the societal mould we have spent the past 20-30 years pouring ourselves into, and we go searching for our identity again.

What would my dad say about this: Well, Cath, you know art makes art. I would agree and whisper to myself, legacy makes legacy.