In The Journal, Theresa Bernstein, with the trained eye of the observer, painter, writer, at last comments on her own life. With the same courage that has inspired her to paint steadfastly through wildly fluctuating times, she shares her life as a twentieth-century painter. So clearly down the corridors of time does she see that this master of images seen and spoken is perhaps our truest link to our collective past.

Bernstein's reputation as a painter has continued to grow. Art connoisseurs treasure her life-filled paintings, historians her memories, and many her portrayals of life in its infinite variety. Her love for people, occasions, and places - expressed in the fine details of her paintings, drawings, and poems - continues to sustain her creative life.

In the glowing yellows, pinks, and reds of her paintings she has captured the glitter of the Metropolitan Opera, the timelessness of sandy beaches, and the movement of city streets.

The Journal presents Theresa Bernstein the child, the young woman, the artist, the wife of artist William Meyerowitz, the witness and recorder of great moments and the excitement of political and artistic events, and the traveler to Europe and Israel. The element of time is a constant in Bernstein's artistic consciousness: "Now is all we have."