Every Face Has A Story

Before 2006, I could not have believed that my orange handled Fiskars scissors would become my sword in the fight to raise awareness of human rights.

December 13th, 2006 was a balmy, sunny day in east Texas. There was nothing in the breeze that day that could have predicted the events that would change our lives forever. Prior to this, I did not have a full understanding of what domestic violence was. My fear let me believe that domestic violence happened to other people. Certainly, it would never happen in my life. But on that day in Texas, domestic violence came up the driveway of my lifelong, best friend’s home; arriving in the form of an obsessed and estranged boyfriend. In a storm of heated anger,domestic violence took the beautiful life of Tina Marie Ekre.

We have all heard the statement that lightning does not strike twice in the same place. Safe in this knowledge, I went forward in life, heavily grieving the tremendous loss of my friend.

Unfortunately, those old words of wisdom are not always right, and lightning did strike again. In March of 2011 just as the people of Minnesota were thawing out from yet another frigid winter and starting to look forward to spring; domestic violence showed up again. This time; in the form of an out of control, fierce, estranged husband. In a brief, thunderous fit of rage, domestic violence took the beautiful life of my loving, wonderful cousin; Dawn Sanquist Anderson.

As the years passed and we moved through our grief; the one thing I did notice is that friends and family were reluctant to mention these two wonderful people. I am sure it was out of fear and pain, also concern that they would cause more harm in talking about their memories. I realized that domestic violence is a thief that just keeps taking. I was determined to not let it rob me of the memories I had.

Having been a professional artist my entire adult life, I decided that maybe a good way to honor Tina and Dawn’s memory would be to paint their portrait. I had never been a portrait artist, but I really felt passionate about using this form of art to keep their memory alive. Not sure how this would be received, I went online in January 2015 and asked a few of my friends and family what they thought of this creative idea. The response to this was enormous! Nothing could have prepared me for the numbers of people who had heard of this and started writing to me. Hundreds of people writing to me to share their story of losing a loved one to domestic violence. They asked if I would paint a portrait of their loved one too.

With the humble start of simply wanting to paint two portraits to honor the memories of Tina and Dawn, this has turned into an international initiative.

We now have portraits to paint from all over the world! In 2020, our portrait of Debbie Levey from East Aishling, Chichester, England, was chosen as a selection to travel with the North Dakota Human Rights Art Festival. That portrait traveled to all the major museums with the art festival that year, representing domestic violence victims everywhere.

Filled with passion for this idea, I founded a nonprofit 501(c) (3) called, “The Beautiful Life Portraits”. We can be found on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheBeautifulLifePortraits.

At The Beautiful Life Portraits; we paint portraits of people who have died from domestic violence. With these portraits we give a face to a statistic and a voice to a victim that says, “I was here, I mattered, I had a beautiful life”. We use art to raise awareness of domestic violence while upholding the belief that freedom from domestic violence is a fundamental human right.

Being a small nonprofit means that we have a tiny budget. Because of this, we hand-make all our canvas frames and cut and stretch our own canvas. We buy our pine locally and custom cut it to the 30”x 40”size that all our portraits are painted on. Then, we purchase huge rolls of canvas. Canvas is a thick, coarse fabric. This is where our Fiskars scissors becomes our main tool. Fiskars scissors are able to stay sharp and keep an edge while cutting the hundreds of yards of canvas we need to keep making the portraits that we paint.

This process of making the frames, stretching the canvas and painting the portraits is where I find my creative happiness.

My orange handled Fiskars scissors is my sword in the fight to raise awareness of domestic violence and uphold the belief that freedom from domestic violence is a fundamental human right.