My first art post blog. I'll start with this drawing.

This is a charcoal drawing I did of my mother-in-law when she was about the age of seven.  She was a small girl in war-torn Europe when her family was forced into cattle cars and had to leave their homes forever. These were German Christians living in Yugoslavia.  One evening, Allied bombers attacked, and people ran screaming for their lives from the rail cars. This little girl witnessed people dead and dying--and was severely traumatized 

to this very day. 

For her last birthday, instead of giving her a conventional present, I presented her with this drawing, which I had matted and framed.  I included in the gift, a typewriter and a big notebook and plenty of paper.

She had been threatening to write her memoirs of this and other experiences of being of war refugee for years.  Now in her seventies, with lots of time on her hands, I figured what better time than now. AND she is DOING it...  (After bottling it up for over 65 years---the emotions are still raw.)