My Art

ELLEN

WATERCOLOR/PAPER

22"X15"

 Dr. Fernando Camacho, MD. Hematology, Medical Oncology. Director of the Community Oncology Section of Montefiore Einstein Center for Cancer Care. NY

 Fernando was a student of mine when I did training in Oncology at Montefiore Medical Center. He is the Director of Community Oncology at Montefiore. COVID-19 forced his practice into Telemedicine. He himself got COVID-19 since he was seeing his oncology patients in the outpatient setting without protection in the beginning. He was profoundly tired and febrile for 12-14 hours. The experience made him reevaluate his career and he is very much into Eastern philosophy mindfulness therapy. He used mindfulness with meditation to diminish his own apprehension of death. His wife also contracted the illness since she is the administrator of the outpatient Community Oncology unit also, but she had very few symptoms. Fernando is an expert on Buddhist Holistic Care philosophy and has been on retreats to learn more. He oversees meditation and spiritual insights at the wellness program of Montefiore, running 3 meditative sessions per week for doctors and staff. He feels that this should be a major part of medical school training. Death education is a major part of life and the Eastern tradition can teach us to accept.  https://vimeo.com/455271116

JACOB GYORI

Jacob is 21 yo and is third generation of Holocaust. Both grandparents were survivors from Auschwitz. Jacob did not know his grandfather, Tomi Gyori but he knew his father Michael’s mother, Zsuzsi. His father has written the story of his heritage and their family who came from Hungary. He remembers his grandmother fondly because at her bedside were the photos of the eight grandchildren that she honored in her prayers every night Jacob’s father is passionate about teaching the story of the Holocaust to the school district they live in. Jacob’s parents are divorced. His father is Jewish and his mother is Presbyterian and Jacob was raised Presbyterian but he did go to Israel as part of the Birthright He felt isolated from the others. However, he grew up in a heavily populated Jewish community and had been to many Bar Mitzvah celebrations. His comment of increasing Anti- Semitism is as time goes by, we see the Jews as different and forget the story of the Holocaust since it is in far past. His father’s statement in his writings about the history of the final solution and the statistic of focusing on the six million killed. He states: “They were regular people with normal everyday lives. No lesser expert in mass killing, Josef Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union whose regime killed tens of millions of his own people, said” A single death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.” 

VIDEO HERE: https://vimeo.com/378034742 

Edwin Bonilla: Edwin Bonilla Children of The Modern Family  33x43 (2017) Edwin is 6 yrs. old and his mother Suze is a single mother. She was separated from her partner and Edwin’s father when he was two Edwin sees his father and his paternal grandparents every other weekend and is in contact with his maternal grandparents as well. Suze is an academic advisor at Miami Dade collage and she has a best seller on female empowerment called “Do it Big”. She stated that when she was young she could not read until she was eight and said to herself that if ever she would have a child she would encourage reading. So she read to Edwin at an early age and he excels in reading. Edwin decided to write a book with his mother as coauthor which is entitles” EJ’S Exciting Road Trip” and he won a major contest called” The Moonbeam Award”. His second book was entitles” EJ”S Awesome adventure in Atlanta” talking about the Selma bridge walk.  Edwin meant with President Obama who signed his book. Edwin wants to be president someday so he can help people and make them feel better.

AYSUN  

Aysun is Rori’s oldest daughter. She attended FIU and found an internship in the company her mother worked for and has worked there ever since. She works for Lufthansa in maintenance and repairs. She wears the scarf at work and interacts with her coworkers. They are very protective of her in the social scene and she states that many of her Muslim friends take off the scarf in the Miami area. In Orlando, FL and Charlotte, NC the scarf is worn as a proud emblem. Watercolor/paper 35x29 2016 

ELIZABETH STUX

My story is a difficult one because I was born to two Holocaust Survivors. I have always lived with my mother's memories and have also had my bouts of survivor's guilt. The human will can be broken and controlled through severe and humiliating mistreatment. My mother's spirit never broke. Daily life in our home in Melbourne, Australia was filled with ghosts and my mother conjured up a world of starvation and death. Every piece of food was to be eaten because my mother no longer saw a little girl in front of her but rows of emaciated hollow-eyed children that looked like me. Among all the horrific images, the killing of children had the hardest impact on me. The world as I knew it had been colored by my mother's description of her experiences. My mother told me so many tales that after many years I realized that we are born into our mother’s emotions, and within these parameters we are raised. 

DAVID AND DAVID JR. KELLERMAN

David and David Jr. Kellerman : David Sr entered the Army at age 17, after high school. He became a member of the U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets) where he served for nearly 25 years. He made repeated deployments to Afghanistan from 2003 through 2006 serving on a Special Forces A-team. He was wounded in 2004 while on patrol by a grenade that hit his vehicle, but returned to service shortly thereafter. David Sr admits he struggles with some form of PTSD, but thinks it is more of a case that he misses being in the service and admits to being addicted to the "adrenaline rush" of combat. A few years after his discharge, David Sr survived a near-fatal motorcycle accident that left him possibly unable to walk. He says that overcoming the injury and making a near complete recovery helped him deal with his PTSD by giving him something else to focus on. While married, he and his former wife, who is now a nurse, had three children, all boys; he now has two grandchildren. David is currently writing a book about his experiences in Afghanistan. David Jr followed in his father's footsteps and joined the Army shortly after high school. In 2003, he deployed to Iraq several months after completing basic training. He subsequently went on to join the Special Forces, where he served in a similar capacity as David Sr. He then deployed to Afghanistan as a member of the Special Forces. He was wounded in action in Afghanistan and later made a full recovery. David Jr would not further discuss his duties as he is still serving overseas. He has a newborn daughter and says that it is a real challenge for he and his wife to raise the child given his deployments. He remains close with his mother and his brothers, who all live nearby and help his wife when he is deployed. He enjoys serving his country and has no regrets about joining the military. 

Eddie