Half-Finished Paintings in the Attic

Mya

Five years later I returned to Hamburg again. After the death of the father, the mother lived alone in our old home - a quiet lamp on the street of Rathenburga, where the shadow shade and the plain wooden houses are only cool. I'm busy with my life, career in Berlin then.

When he came back, the surprise of me - the door of the old attic on the roof of the house is half open. But I never went that attic. Dad never let go, Mao was quiet. It is as if there are any forbidden memories above.

The next evening the electricity went away. I went to find the candle and got up. The old stairs of the wood sounded. A brown cloth hanging from the roof was removed and a little light in the window.

Look at that light - rows of rows of canvas. Half drawn, some just drawn lines in the pencil, the impression of color on something. I see an unfinished image to remove the dust lining - mother and father are sitting together, a tree next to it. But the father's face is empty, just drawing two eyes.

A short date behind the canvas: "September 28, Freiburg" - the year I was born.

I got an album in the picture. No pictures

"Didn't look at me today and me. But I saw the sun from the window."

"That evening of Dysden - he didn't talk, I painted."

"What is not the words that have not been said, is its color white?"

Understand, they are writing. He spoke in color without understanding the language of his father's silence.

That night I asked my mother - Why did you keep these canvas?

The mother said slowly, "Because these were not to say, you had to feel. Your father was quietly man. He loved, but did not publish. I called him in color.

He knew you drew them?

"You knew," the mother said. "But didn't say anything. One day just said - 'The way you speak in color, I build the walls that way.'

Every day I would bring down the canvas from the attic. At one point I saw our family on a camping trip - mother smiling, I'm playing. But the father's face is empty again.

Another picture is just the window, the rain outside. Writing on the side:-

"That evening in Headelberg - she didn't return from the office. I just reckon the window rain."

The yellow bike on the other, the little boy on the side - me. The father stood behind the distance. There is no expression on his face, only one vision.

Then I thought something should be done with these canvas. The mother did not agree at first.

These are the words of us. If you express it will lose the noise.

But these silent words are many more stories.

Finally, the mother said, But on one condition - the exhibition will be 'Die Geschichte in Farben' - the story written in color.

We kept the exhibition in a small gallery in Munich. The canvas are arranged with their writings.

An elderly woman said, This picture should talk about my husband. I spent twenty -five years quietly.

A young woman wiped her eyes and said, "My mother was colorful, and my father was the opposite. I grew up in the middle of those two colors.

These canvas are not just my parents' relationships, but also mine. I realized that what my father didn't say made me. And whatever color the mother said, it gave me the language of feelings.

I started drawing something myself. The first picture - a white house, a baby standing in the middle. He has a color palette in his hand, but a huge canvas in front.

I understand - this is my future.



Mother doesn't draw anymore. But every morning you sit in that attic for a while.

Your father's silence taught me to hear me. And my color taught you," he said.

We are two generations of people. But an attic and some half -finished pictures have added the story of the three of us.

An old attic in Germany, some unfinished canvas, and the love hidden in silence - this story is not just a family. This is a reflection of every silent relationship. Where the absence of words speaks in color, and the stories are not immortalized in the figure.