Mother: The Update
So Sunday afternoon I visited my mother. I wanted to see her last month and I hadn't been able to do so, and she was looking well. She surprised the hell out of me by leaving the house. That might not sound like much, but my mother was, as late as two months ago, completely content in being a shut-in. "Don't you understand?" she yelled at me once. "I don't ever want to leave my house!" So her going to Jewel? It's a sign of improvement, certainly. We'll ignore the fact that she bought nothing but a peace lily and multiple boxes of cookies, damn it -- one step at a time. :: laugh ::
The most radical change seems to be her painting. Yes, she's painting again, which is a huge plus, but ... wow, where do I even begin.
My mother's style is quite influenced by impressionism -- arcrylic landscape stills of roads, trees, sun, the occasional architectural landmark. Her style had been consistent for as long as I've seen her paint, straying for a very occasional abstract. But what I saw on her canvas was remarkably different; a somewhat standard impressionist seascape, with a lighthouse on a seascape, but then there was what surrounds it, for next to the lighthouse was a VERY huge out-of-place erupting volcano, with both the volcano and the stormy sky in the background formed in broad quick rough strokes, quite the contrast of the smaller, more careful, more planned strokes elsewhere.
Was it intentional, or subliminal? I'm not sure, but it was quite a look into my mother's mind, with two very different states combatting one another on the same canvas. I think, if my mother is to ever deal with the deaths of her father, her husband, and her daughter, that she NEEDS to unleash, and I think this is a wonderful start. She NEEDS this.
The most radical change seems to be her painting. Yes, she's painting again, which is a huge plus, but ... wow, where do I even begin.
My mother's style is quite influenced by impressionism -- arcrylic landscape stills of roads, trees, sun, the occasional architectural landmark. Her style had been consistent for as long as I've seen her paint, straying for a very occasional abstract. But what I saw on her canvas was remarkably different; a somewhat standard impressionist seascape, with a lighthouse on a seascape, but then there was what surrounds it, for next to the lighthouse was a VERY huge out-of-place erupting volcano, with both the volcano and the stormy sky in the background formed in broad quick rough strokes, quite the contrast of the smaller, more careful, more planned strokes elsewhere.
Was it intentional, or subliminal? I'm not sure, but it was quite a look into my mother's mind, with two very different states combatting one another on the same canvas. I think, if my mother is to ever deal with the deaths of her father, her husband, and her daughter, that she NEEDS to unleash, and I think this is a wonderful start. She NEEDS this.