Innocence Lost

This time of year seems to have most of us reminiscing the past and contemplating the future, so I think it’s fitting to begin the year on a bit of a philosophical note. While digging through the Fraser family archives, I unearthed a heavy load of childhood memories. I came across some old photographs from my mother’s baby shower; it’s strange to think of your unborn self, to see the image of your expectant parent, and to experience a time and place that was about you, but happening before you truly existed. Oddly enough, the thing that struck me the most was seeing my favorite childhood stuffy “Henry Dog” in all of his sweet and shiny newness.

Here is “Henry Dog” on the shower gift table in 1973:



And here he is represented in my 2002 painting “Innocence Lost”:



I still have “Henry Dog”. He’s worn and tattered, packed away, but not forgotten. Like childhood I guess; it’s still with us, even as we eagerly push it aside to become adults. Why are we in such a hurry to grow up? What drives each of us an individual? How do the people, places, objects and conditions of our lives shape who we are and who we will become? At what point, which events and circumstance, lead to our Innocence Lost? Is it just something we can find again, packed away in a box?