An Anquished Young Man Portrait of My Student by Joan Myerson Shrager

From the artist Joan Myerson Shrager:

An Anguished Young Man….

A teacher who will never be the same…

I co-direct the after-school art program, The Stained Glass Project: Windows That Open Doors.

That day was like any other. I had not seen my student since he left the program after having graduated from high school. He came to the Rec Center for a visit and asked if we might have a private talk in the hall.

He wanted advice about college courses. We had a productive conversation. He went back into class while I headed for the bathroom, feeling so good that he had come specifically to ask for my input about his next steps into the adult world. It made me smile.

When I returned to class, I was shocked to see him on one knee, leaning against a chair, doubled over and sobbing. My immediate reaction was to think somehow that what I had thought was a good conversation was not. Had I unknowingly said something hurtful? What did I do?

And then I learned why this fully grown young man had fallen to the ground, devastated.

He had just received a call from his mother informing him of the murder of his friend, a neighbor, shot directly across the street from his home.

“See, that’s why I never sit outside,” she said.

He’s never recovered. How does one? It continues to haunt me.

From the curator: This particular portrait is different from the others in that it is more a portrait of feelings; a portrait of grief and despair. Our mission is to focus on the lives lived before the gun violence and to celebrate and memorialize those lives, but this work, from the very first edition of the project, illustrates the far reaching impact of gun violence. In the crosshatched environment that these figures inhabit, there is a glimmer of sun in the upper right corner. If we continue to bring the message to our viewers that gun violence has an absolutely devastating, alarmingly far reaching effect on communities we will gain in numbers of people who are willing to work to change the systems in place that make this violence possible. The sun will shine on a peaceful world one day.

An Anguished Young Man Portrait of My Student by Joan Myerson Shrager digital painting on canvas 20” x 30” 2017