Yesterday my wife helped me hang “Jobs from A to Z” which will be in the 2nd floor gallery at @DaytonMetroLibrary until November 5th.
I started this series because the memory loss of my father-in-law Wally Willaman was making our time together difficult. I hoped that we could avoid discussions of the past by having fun working on a project in the present. It worked. We had a ball.
I told Wally that when we finished our art would be in an exhibition, thinking that would keep him interested in the project. But I knew it was likely that we never would make it to the end. Wally is 101, and I knew the project would take at least six months.
Well six months later we’ve made it all the way to “Z is for Zookeeper” and Wally’s still going strong. And the work will be exhibited twice. Michigan Medicine in Ann Arbor has an active arts in healthcare program. They will display “Jobs from A to Z” from March 11 to May 31, 2024 in a gallery where thousands of people will walk by it each day.
But Ann Arbor is too far for Wally to travel, so Jayne Klose, the library’s Community Engagement Manager, helped us out. She invited us to exhibit at Dayton Metro Library.
Wally and I hope people have as much fun viewing this art as we did making it.
