My mother painted peace. With gentle hands she sketched pastoral valleys nesting amid tall majestic mountains. Cool, placid waters flowed from her fingers and the snows of her mountain landscapes were confined only to mountaintops.
Peace is not just the absence of conflict any more than white is the absence of color. Peace embodies a true harmony of human and personal relations, a calmness of mind and heart. Mother’s paintings reflect that harmony as a blend of color and balance that conveys tranquility. Several of her paintings were displayed in doctor’s offices in the same way that light green paint is used in hospital settings—to calm the troubled minds of the patients.
One of Mother’s earliest paintings, a night camp, shows her love of the outdoors. It also demonstrates in a delicate way, Mother’s faith that even in the absence of the sun, God sends light to reflect his love.
“There is too much conflict in the world,” Mother once told me when I complained that her paintings were all the same. “I want to do in my paintings what I can’t do in life. I want to smooth off all the sharp edges and paint over life’s distortions. I try to capture peace and serenity on my canvases, not violence and suffering. I try to concentrate on the good and ignore the rest.”
Mother’s paintings reflected her personality—she was a delicate, soft-spoken woman who radiated a serenity that is rare in today’s high-decibel world. Neither the hardships of the Great Depression, nor the atrocities of World War II seemed to have marred her sweet amity.
Mother’s last two paintings, however, were a dramatic departure from the rest of her paintings. Rather than using the shades of blue and green that are so prevalent in all her other paintings, she used vibrant orange, brown and grey hues. Rather than pristine mountains and placid meadows, these show the stark landscape of southern Utah, an area that she felt lacked beauty.
Rather than calm, carefree summer, these were the only winter scenes that Mother painted. Yet, despite the barren trees, frozen snow and sullen skies, her signature serenity shows through the paintings.
Do these paintings reflect Mother’s tremendous suffering from cancer in her final years? In embracing and painting the Utah Canyonlands that she had disliked so intensely, did she accept the pain and agony of the cancer that destroyed her physical body, but elevated her spirit? Were these paintings self-portraits of a bared and defenseless soul?
Peace is not just the absence of conflict any more than white is the absence of color. Peace embodies a true harmony of human and personal relations, a calmness of mind and heart. Mother’s paintings reflect that harmony as a blend of color and balance that conveys tranquility. Several of her paintings were displayed in doctor’s offices in the same way that light green paint is used in hospital settings—to calm the troubled minds of the patients.
One of Mother’s earliest paintings, a night camp, shows her love of the outdoors. It also demonstrates in a delicate way, Mother’s faith that even in the absence of the sun, God sends light to reflect his love.
“There is too much conflict in the world,” Mother once told me when I complained that her paintings were all the same. “I want to do in my paintings what I can’t do in life. I want to smooth off all the sharp edges and paint over life’s distortions. I try to capture peace and serenity on my canvases, not violence and suffering. I try to concentrate on the good and ignore the rest.”
Mother’s paintings reflected her personality—she was a delicate, soft-spoken woman who radiated a serenity that is rare in today’s high-decibel world. Neither the hardships of the Great Depression, nor the atrocities of World War II seemed to have marred her sweet amity.Mother’s last two paintings, however, were a dramatic departure from the rest of her paintings. Rather than using the shades of blue and green that are so prevalent in all her other paintings, she used vibrant orange, brown and grey hues. Rather than pristine mountains and placid meadows, these show the stark landscape of southern Utah, an area that she felt lacked beauty.
Rather than calm, carefree summer, these were the only winter scenes that Mother painted. Yet, despite the barren trees, frozen snow and sullen skies, her signature serenity shows through the paintings.
Do these paintings reflect Mother’s tremendous suffering from cancer in her final years? In embracing and painting the Utah Canyonlands that she had disliked so intensely, did she accept the pain and agony of the cancer that destroyed her physical body, but elevated her spirit? Were these paintings self-portraits of a bared and defenseless soul?
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