My Father was a painter. His father, an engineer. His father, a draftsman. My oldest brother is a painter. I am a painter. Many artists focus on the art history which preceded them and while I am conscious of that past, my family history is at the forefront of my mind.
I inherited a box of Kodachrome slides taken by my Paternal Great Grandfather, Fred Hubbard. He numbered every slide in the top right hand corner and then typed a corresponding index detailing where every picture was taken during the 1940s and 1950s.
While the photographs capture his movements through the Ohio countryside, to European cities, to family gatherings, the slides also archive the intimate movements of his hand simply writing with a ballpoint pen.
Experiencing my Great Grandfather’s handwriting, no matter how mundane or utilitarian, unearths something deeply familiar in me. The history of these paintings form a story as traceable as Fred Hubbard’s handwriting itself.
