Barbara Lewin

07/27/2026

Untitled, oil on canvas, 24" x 24". Almost there.

07/05/2026

Classroom, Ellis Island.

We arrived around 5:30am and stayed through the golden hour. The resilience of these survivors. The children. My grandfather came from Poland after my grandmother and her family had already arrived here. In 1920 she was pregnant with my father. My grandfather was over quota by one person and was sent back to Europe. He was persistent and managed to come back on another boat. He had already lost all his brothers on the Russian front and many other family members in pogroms. How did these refugees keep their minds intact? Sometimes they didn't, of course. I am strangely comforted by the muted colors in the picture. Layers of soft paint and a golden darkness that is somehow calming. How many children sat in these chairs?

06/23/2026

6:00 a.m., June 2026. Ordinary beauty after a morning rain. Sound effects would be a Carolina wren and a grey catbird floofing around in the mock orange.

05/30/2026

05/26/2026

Buster. May 2026.

05/04/2026

I brought flowers, 2025.