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 Grandpa’s Razor

Oil on cradled wood panel, framed in a shadowbox frame
20.32 × 25.4 cm (8 × 10 in)

The early morning ritual is no longer performed. The calloused hands laid down the edge one final time. What remains is the quiet evidence of repetition, a task done daily without notice or audience. Face and mirror, water and steel, the same movements carried out until one morning they were not.

Note:

My grandfather came to Canada in April 1912 from Ukraine. He was a shoemaker and was given a plot of land, which he likely did not know how to farm. His first home was a sod house built partly underground, the walls formed from the earth he removed. This was his first homestead.