My Personal Story behind the Family Series
As a young girl, growing up in a large Italian, Irish family with 3 boys and little old me, family has been, and will always be, number one with me! My great grandfather Salvatori Cancilla, always said, in Italian of course, “Blood is thicker than water.”
My dad would recite this as a poetic point of Family Love. Unlike a lot of my friends, we were & are a kissy, huggie type family, and if you didn’t kiss your 13 Aunts and Uncles when you walked in the room, even if you couldn’t remember their names, it was a sign of disrespect & in the Italian culture, this was unacceptable! Perhaps, this is why it is one of my most favorite cultures. So full of life and emotion!
Using paint and color to creatively compose and express the spiritual connections, as both unique individuals and as one team, is my way of celebrating the family unit.
I have a HUGE family, my three beautiful children, my three brothers, their wives and all my nieces and nephews, cousins. . . I mean, it is HUGE! Bless my mother’s heart, for years she has held the torch in her untiring attempt to get all these people together to take family vacations together and have occasional get-togethers.
What is really cool is that I live next door to my mom & dad, and my oldest brother & his wife live next door to them on the other side. This is a dream come true and every day I count my blessings, that I get to have coffee with my Mama every day, I get to hear my daddy play the piano, we hang out in the back yard for hours having dinner and wine! WE ARE SO lucky!
For me, “Family” means standing by each other, in thick and thin, no matter what and to do whatever it takes to keep the family unity alive and together! I believe it is the strongest bond on earth and worth fighting for!
Breathe love energy into it, take time to play together, enjoy precious moments, show appreciation & affection, plan a simple game night, do whatever it takes, it is a rough world out there and having a family is a very precious gift!
