22/12/2021
getting us all into the collage spirit! ✂️ a beautiful piece about her beautiful heritage 🖤
Heritage: Machuta & Vidmantas.
Winter, 2021.
Handcut analog collage, measuring 17x14 inches.
My great grandmother, or “Machuta” as we called her, was born in 1903 in Lithuania. She lived there until she and her family were uprooted by the end of World War II and the beginning of the USSR - which engulfed nearly all of Eastern Europe for decades. As a displaced person, Machuta found herself living in the ruins of Europe for many years before the family found some refuge in Halifax, England. There her only daughter was married and her first grandson, Vidmantas, was born. Mere months later, the entire family sailed across the Atlantic to America, where they settled in East Chicago, Indiana due to the abundance of jobs available in the steel mills nearby and the burgeoning Lithuanian community. She remained in that community until her death at more than 100 years old.
“Machuta” was how I knew her. The word means grandmother in Lithuanian, and she played that role to so many throughout her life in the United States. To me, she was a strong presence in my younger years when we would visit my father’s family more often. She was smart and kind, and she would slip twenty dollar bills in my hand at holidays when she was convinced no one was watching. We didn’t speak the same language, but her always calm demeanor despite the uneasy and sometime chaotic nature of the family gatherings relayed so much to me of her character. I know she was my father’s favorite person in his life, and I have strong inklings of why from his countless stories and my own memories.
