The Holocaust Portfolio

In 1942, my mother, Lavern Dubois--against better advice--went on to perform the Mendelssohn E minor violin concerto in occupied Paris.

She fled to Switzerland that night, just minutes before the Gestapo arrived pounding on her door. The stories that she would tell my brothers and me about the Nazi occupation were very chilling. Even though I was not witness to this horror, the stories my mom would tell me left me with some secondary wounds. This portfolio is dedicated to the memory of those musicians and artists who disappeared during this horrific period.

It is a very personal body of work that I have worked on for 30+ years, on and off; because of the heart-wrenching subject matter, I would take frequent and sometimes long-term sabbaticals from the work. Spending hours in the dark room for this project made me focus on this very painful and tragic period. I think of all the musical treasures, works of art and literature that were lost or destroyed, of the lives disrupted or worse--it is beyond my comprehension. I think of the Mozarts, Picassos and Mendelssohns lost from civilization, of the possible cures for heart disease and cancer.

This is my way of keeping the remembrance of that tragic era with us, praying that it will never be repeated.

This body of work to me is somewhat like a series of Bach variations on a central theme, where I explore the subject matter through a series of variations.

If my art has in any way the effect on the viewer that it has had on me, then I think it has some worth.