XIII Generations of Forbearance

XIII Generations of Forbearance   ©1991 David Keating - original lost or stolen from private collection - shoji lamp with projected text from rotating insert. Kodalith images at sides and center.

My grandmother — born Anne Pierson — was fixated on lineage. She claimed to have found a connection between our family and the Bourbon kings of France, but my 23 and Me results show no Continental genetics and hence no relation to that crazy lot.

My grandmother’s actual ancestry is scarcely a consolation. Her 1600s forbear Rev. Abram Pierson was the lawmaker and scribe for the Southampton colonists on Long Island, and the text of one of his edicts rotates across the faces of me, my father, my grandmother and her father in this piece:

Rebellious Children, whether they continue in Riot or Drunkennesse, after due correction from parents, or whether they curse or Smite their parents, Are to be put to death.

I presume the existence (Piersonhood?) of Abram’s descendants attests to their good behavior — or that this fanatical law was used more as disincentive than actual check. I still took pause when I first showed this piece to my father — Pierson Keating — and in all seriousness he spoke the following caution:

Take care to accord truthful honor to your parents.