Michael John Kelly and Dr. Mark Magleby, Art History and Curatorial Studies
This past summer I made art in Innsbruck Austria, the city where my mother grew up. When I planned the trip I intended to make art that would help me to better understand my heritage. I wanted to learn more about my mother’s childhood; I wanted to know why she loved that country so much. Rafaela Dallapozza moved to America so that she could marry my father. Shortly after Leukemia took her life in 1992, my father told me that she missed Austria every day of her life. Growing up as an American, I never learned to speak German with her. I had only been to Austria as a small child. She died before I had the chance to learn who she really was. I wanted to visit the places she lived, her schools, and the places she played. I thought that by making art; spending time with her mother and sisters in her hometown, I could establish a closer relationship with her. I thought that I could find her there. The night before I left Provo, the weight of what I was undertaking hit me so hard that I broke down in tears. How could I possibly do justice to my mother with my base artistic abilities? These feelings sat in my heart as I flew across the ocean and traveled by train from Zurich Switzerland to Innsbruck through the Austrian Alps. My aunt showed me her schools, the family restaurant where she waitressed, the parks where she played. My mom wasn’t there. I saw the Nordkette Range of the Alps framed by the sky and city’s buildings. I have never seen anything
so majestic and green before in my life. I saw painted canvases of green in my mind. But my mother wasn’t in them either. I asked her sister if it was true that Rafaela missed Austria everyday. “No,” she said, “she was in America because she loved you all so much, and that is where your family was supposed to be. She loved her life.” My mother isn’t in Austria. She’s with me. She’s with my siblings. Still, I get so lonely sometimes, and I long to have her physically there, to see my work; talk to me about my life. These paintings are less about her childhood in Austria, than they are about her sacrifices for us; her fight against cancer for every last minute with us. They are about my knowledge that we will all be together again. On that day I will speak German with her.