Provenance 101

To my nephews Martin, Angelo, Rico, Marco, Adrian and Paul and my nieces Aya, Marianne and Anne Marie

 

This personal blog is lovingly dedicated to and intended for you and those who will come after you.  You were all born after your grandfather's death and your experiences with your grandmother have been, for the most part, confined to the years when she was already ill.  I wish for you to know your forebears, the stories they told, those told about them, the places they came from and other material information which, I'm afraid, will be lost to memory if I don't tell you about them.  The bits and pieces I will post may be disjointed on the surface, but I am confident that you will be able to discern from them something coherent and whole.

A word about the choice of blog name and dashboard design. The word provenance is variously understood to mean place of origin or derivation.  From the French verb provenir, i.e., to come from, it is also used to denote the history or record of the ownership of a work of art. The word, standing alone, was not available for blog use so I added the number 101 which, you'll discover when you reach college, is usually added to indicate the introductory nature of a course in a syllabus.  As this is an account of sorts of your family tree – at least on your Atutubo side – I also thought of using the image of a tree on the dashboard.  Both as a matter of personal preference and because of the various interpretations it has been given, I used details from a Gustav Klimt painting called "The Tree of Life".

I trust that you will get to know yourselves more by getting to know your forebears and, in so doing, that you will strive to honor their memory even in the small decisions you make.  You will learn, soon enough, that what we usually consider inconsequential eventually comprise the greater portion of the lives we are all allotted in this mortal coil.  I speak from experience when I tell you that there will come a time in your lives when you will be confronted by a sense of isolation of a degree that would even make you question the meaning and purpose of life.  I hope this blog will assure you that you are, and never will be, alone.