(soft ambient music) - [Wil] One year, for Father's Day, I did like, a helicopter, and there was a cloud above the helicopter and lightning bolts hitting the helicopter, and my mom framed it and gave it to my dad.

That was this moment where I realized that creating art was something I could do, and it was valuable, not just to me, but other people.

God only knows what that is, but (sighs) it looks dangerous.

I was, I guess, a doodler my entire life.

I mean, just constantly drawing.

"Right Brain" shoe.

'93, so that would mean 12.

I took AP Art in high school, and it really was to just have another AP class on my resume.

Art was not a focus, at that point, for me.

Prehistoric creatures.

Various objects that I was probably forced to draw.

Made a good friend, took a trip to South America, and we walked by this art gallery every day.

There was this beautiful painting, just really resonated with me, and went into the gallery, asked the guy how much it was.

He said, "250 bucks."

I was like, "Wrap it up."

So I started collecting.

It was the evolution of going from buying art, appreciating that product, and then eventually got to like, "Oh, I can just do this."

I was the only child, so all this stuff was a testament to how loved I was, in a lot of ways.

The circumstances that brought me back to Williamsburg were not ideal, obviously, but I think it is a kind of silver lining.

(soft acoustic music) Before my mother passed, she'd been battling dementia for about 10 years.

My dad was her primary caretaker.

In 2021, she fell down some stairs and got a call from the hospital.

It was the doctor who was caring for my dad, so I called back, and then she told me that my dad had a heart attack in the waiting room and died.

The crazy thing is, his dad, at the same age, had a heart attack going to see his wife, and so, this thing had repeated itself.

My mom's care was then the priority, so we moved back.

Grief and loss is a difficult thing to manage when you're talking your parents, but I think, in some ways, it's helped, being here.

We have so many pictures and heirlooms that came with the house.

I knew my parents well, but it's like putting a puzzle together.

Pretty interesting, getting to know them after their death.

I gotta find the piece she did, but it's a picture of her painting this piece that I really like, and I found it the other day.

It was was like, "Oh, that is source photo."

My mom would always take art seminars and classes in the neighborhood.

I can definitely see the influence she had in the work I do now.

There it is.

She was very shy about her work.

Never really showed it.

Never had any shows, but it was soulful.

This is a piece I found.

I'm looking at it now and seeing things that I hadn't seen before.

This is my favorite one of hers.

This cow looks just amazing.

It's beautiful.

I started working on this right after she passed.

She had the most amazing handwriting.

This is a letter.

It's talking about how bad I was at school and how I was not listening and misbehaving.

This is a picture of her when she met my dad, who was on R&R during Vietnam.

They met in Hawaii.

I wanted to capture her and her essence.

Absolutely love it.

This was my interpretation of dementia, Alzheimer's, and what it does to you, but as horrible as it is and was, it doesn't define her.

I wanted to make sure that she knew that, and she was remembered for the beautiful person she was.

"P.S.

I LOVE YOU", name of the piece, her initials, P.S., Penny Swank, The past, present, and future are all right here.

I love you most in the world, and daddy too," and that's something that, every night, going to bed, she would say to me.

I love you most in the world, and daddy too.

My dad was a lieutenant in the army.

He did one tour in Vietnam.

He told me the story that always stuck with me.

One night, a guy from their own company threw a grenade into their tent and killed the other lieutenant.

If it was the next night or the night before, my dad would've been dead, and I would not be here.

I just started working on a mural-type piece of my dad.

He had these green duffle bags.

Then I cut it apart, deconstructed it, and it says J.M.

Cannon.

Jim Cannon was his older brother.

My uncle Jim took this bag to Vietnam, got back, and then my dad took it to Vietnam, so it's got a lot of history to it, to say at least.

It has value to me, but does it have value to anybody else?

Probably not.

So some of the places I've gone artistically is to take that stuff and make it valuable to a more universal audience.

When you lose somebody, there's a lot of regret.

Would I have changed something or done something differently?

Probably.

Yeah.

So, it's a way for me to continue that experience with them.

I guess it's part of my complex healing process.

Living in the house that I grew up in where my parents lived is like, the ultimate way to pay homage to them and their life, and I think they probably wouldn't want it any other way.

I could never see myself selling the house.

It's a part of me, it's part of my family, and it's part of my parents' legacy, so it's important that I cherish it and make it fulfill its potential.

I've thought about getting to this point for a long time, being able to have the work I want in my house, what that would be like, and I feel so lucky that I'm able to do that.

That makes me proud, and I know it'd make my parents proud, a hundred percent.

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