MY MOTHER WAS A GIRL

I’ve named this page after the moving short story My Mother Was a Girl written by Sheldon Kranz, Aesthetic Realism Consultant, Writer, and Poet (1919-1980). The story has the deeply respectful, compassionate understanding of people that Aesthetic Realism makes possible—and for the good effect it will have on your life, I highly recommend that you click on this link to read it.

Studying Aesthetic Realism has changed the way I see humanity, including my mother. Some of the large gratitude I have for that change, is in the image below, and what I write about it.

I found an old photograph in warm sepia tones, of a young woman formally attired for her high school graduation day, around 1930, and joined it with one I made of a landscape in cool tones in 2008. One of the ways I did this, technically, was I made the old photograph semi translucent where there were clouds in the studio background, and they became continuous with the clouds in the landscape.

The young woman in this combination print accents repose as she hovers peacefully above silver light on the horizon, in proximity to still waters and dark promontories. However, we can imagine that, like ourselves, she could also be turbulent, with thoughts and feelings that were heavy and light, dark and bright, like the clouds above.

 This image has special meaning for me because the woman in it is my mother, Helen Bernstein. Once, I didn’t see her as having feelings like my own, and when I thought about her, it wasn’t in relation to other people or the wide world. I only saw her as my mother. What I learned from Aesthetic Realism enabled me to know her better, to have more wonder about her life, and this is something I’ll always be thankful for.—Len Bernstein