Original Drawings & Model Commentaries:

AIA Drawing # 24
(17 inches X 23 inches)





 

Ben & Dora Piersma                                                            Grand Haven,  Michigan
 

Copyright  © 1992 - 2006  Jim Branscum Art Studio
All Rights Reserved

The subject of this drawing is Ben Piersma,  the young man second from the right in the family portrait that fills the upper left hand background of this portrait of his father and mother,  Ben and Dora Piersma.  The boy in the family portrait is now a man,  only a few years my senior.  He sought me out after learning of the Aging in America project and expressed a desire to sponsor three of the project's thirty-six original drawings.   Ben requested  that I include his parents,  who were deceased,  in one of his three drawings.  As I looked over the many photographs of his parents Ben had assembled for me,  I saw that Ben Senior and Junior shared each other's images as well as their name;  the man before me  looked much like the photograph of his father in the drawing's family portrait.  I wondered if the father looked the same as his son at the same age he is depicted in the family portrait?  The image of my father at 21 years of age wearing a hat much like the one I now wear came to mine.  At 21 years of age,  my father and I looked the same.  Except for clothing styles,   the image of my father could be passed as me at the same age.  The universal family connections gave me the theme for this drawing.

The number twenty-four drawing of the Aging in America series,  Ben and Dora Piersma,  is more than a simple portrait of Ben,  his father,  mother,  and siblings.  It is about families.  It is through the sacrifices and contributions of Ben's and my father's generation that our generation has the freedoms to build for succeeding generations.   The family is the thread that binds America together and family is the core of our free society.  This project was created to honor the contributions of our fathers, mothers and the generations before them.

The family of Ben and Dora Piersma have made a positive impression in the pages of Michigan's business community and history.  The ideals and work ethics bestowed on their children created a family determined to make a positive impact in their community,  state and country.  In turn,  Ben,  his sisters and brother have all raised families of their own who now bear the responsibility of building for the next generations;  and so it goes....  

This drawing reveals one of the aspects of this project I have not addressed,  those of us who now have elder parents should well consider that in less than half the time we have lived,  we "will be our parents age and face all the indifference and difficulties they now face.   Boomers wake up!  We have very little time to change our individual and   public attitudes and policies that today's elders face.  We can only ask for our humanity and dignity to continue to be recognized in our "old age" if we are willing to recognize the humanity and dignity of today's aging citizens.  The change must begin with each of us.  Remember this,  you are going to get old or die.   Simple.

I am grateful to Ben Piersma for offering his family to represent all American families.