As our children and grandchildren continue to grow older, it becomes increasingly difficult to get all of us in the same place at the same time. While we see them often, we wanted to capture them on a canvas that my husband and I could look at daily. I had heard it through the grapevine that Tanya was a photographer, so I asked her if she would take our picture. What we discovered in 2020 was that Tanya is not just a photographer, but a gifted artist who has a innate ability to capture people at the exact right moment. Out of the many pictures she took, our family chose two–one with all of us and one with my husband and me surrounded by our grandchildren and youngest son.
Last year, 2023, was an eventful year for us. In January, Tanya documented our third oldest grandson’s wedding, followed in May with the wedding of our oldest grandson. In addition, our fourth oldest grandson’s graduation pictures became part of her portfolio. While all of these events were important, the most important moment of our summer was captured in July as she documented the signing of papers as we legally adopted our youngest son into our family, the son who appeared in those original portraits taken in 2020. All of these portraits are beautiful canvases hanging on our livingroom wall, canvases that I look at daily, reminders of the immense blessing my husband and I have been given–the blessing of our family.
As our family has grown, with the addition of two new daughters and three more grandchildren, we hope that this year we can add another canvas to our wall:)
-Judy Simerl