How do I write a pithy description of my husband and the father of my child, who died too young with too many things left undone? I’m a writer, yet it seems undoable. So here is what Frank wrote about himself:

I believe that being creative and engaging in an artistic endeavor is difficult, rewarding, and important. Excellence is something that you achieve because of your habits and choices.

These are the choices I have made on my quest to learning to draw and paint:
I moved to Madrid and spent two years copying paintings at the Prado Museum and drawing at the Circulo de Bellas Artes, a cultural center in downtown Madrid devoted to the arts. I lived in New York for three years and studied part-time at the Grand Central Atelier and the Art’s Student League of New York. I lived in Paris for a year where I drew from statutes and studied drawings in the Louvre’s drawing department.

In 2014 I was determined to learn to paint plein air paintings and I spent five months in Beijing where the constant pollution and hazy days meant that painting outside was often impossible or dangerous.

Most recently I took a six week trip to Nicaragua where I painted in different regions of my native country.

My work is in the realist tradition of art. In this tradition there is beauty in abstract qualities of line, form and color. But the moment of inspiration that leads to all the work in creating a drawing or a painting is grounded in a lived experience. My hope is that some of these moments will inspire you. I believe the more we think about and experience beauty the more likely we are to be inspired to create beauty in our own life.

Frank died in March of 2016, at age 43.