Remembering Sarah Najjar

Sarah Najjar died today after a 4 year battle with cancer.  She leaves behind her husband, Mark, 2 young children, a large extended and devoted family, and, I'm sure, more people than she every could have imagined who are greatly saddened by her passing.  

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would one day take up painting.  Other than being able to color inside the lines, I was never was good at art in school.  My creative side was expressed through singing.  I've been painting for 18 months now.  My first painting was a 5 x 7 of a pear, grapes and a banana.  When I realized it actually looked like a pear, grapes and a banana, I was hooked.  I loved the painting process - the flow of watercolors fascinates me. ... the drawing process, not so much, but I'm beginning to trust myself more and more and even that is coming along.

From the beginning I was positive that I would never be able, nor did I even aspire, to paint portraits or scenes with people in them. However, this is what I seem to be drawn to, and the play on words is appropriate.  When I saw the photograph taken of Sarah in May of this year, wearing her beautiful hat and smiling with such joy and abandon, I knew I wanted to try to paint her like that.

I never got to meet Sarah in person.  My daughters Meridith and Emily met her when they traveled to IN for their father's memorial service.  Sarah was there with her husband, Mark.  Mark and his brother David have known Mer and Em since birth having shared crib time, bath times, and play times, and then school days until our family moved from IN to FL in '83.  I got to know Sarah through Mer and Em, and through her picture as I painted.

I've since painted another portrait or two and done some paintings with people in them.  If I didn't know the subjects personally, I felt I did when I was ready to sign my name to the painting.  As I've painted I've wondered how the breeze felt on their skin, was it blowing their hair or hat?  Was the sun was warm, the rainy day cold? What they were thinking, what they were feeling?  Did they feel grateful, safe, protected, preoccupied, vulnerable? Were they aware of their surroundings or just there?   .... And,  in Sarah's case, did she fell as beautiful as she looked in her Kentucky horse racing hat and her pink feather boa?  I so hoped that she felt beautiful and free, and I so wanted to capture that feeling with my paints.

When I put technique aside and concentrate on connecting emotionally with the person I'm painting, whether it's a portrait or I'm placing them into a scene,  and whether I know them personally or only through the painting, I'm aware that painting them is an intimate thing to do.  This intimacy provides a lovely opportunity to experience compassion,  not just for one real or imagined person, but for what that image, captured by paint and water flowing from a brush onto paper, represents .... a part of the process that is life.

Here's to Sarah's life, her beauty inside and out, and her freedom.