Mother’s Day, 1994
Art is the child of nature in whom we trace the features of the mothers face.
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I realize that Longfellow was referring to Art being the child of Mother Nature, that nature is written in the DNA of all art. For myself, I also read it as being about the influence of artists’ mothers on their art. That’s probably not anywhere near Longfellow’s original intent but it works for my mother and my art. I know that my mom played a role in me becoming an artist if only for the fact that she never discouraged me from following any particular path and always gave all the encouragement she could.
This year marks 30 years since my mom passed away. Though 30 Mother’s Days have come and gone without her, it seems like it was just a year or so back in time. I wish she had lived long enough to see that things worked out okay for me and my work. There was certainly no indication that it would when she was alive.
She never saw my paintings hanging in a gallery or museum nor would she know that I would end up making art as my livelihood. She only saw my earliest work in its formative state, like the piece at the top that I gave to her on Mother’s Day in 1994, nearly a year before I began showing my work publicly. It now hangs in my studio to remind me of her.
Looking around the studio at the work assembled for my show in June, I think she would be very happy with it. I am not saying she would love the work itself. I can never really know that. But she would love the fact that I did it and that there were people out there who enjoyed it and found something in it for themselves. I know that this would be enough, that it would be a source of great pride for her.
And that makes me happy.
Maybe that’s what Longfellow was referring to with his words.
I don’t know. Just going to take some time today to remember my mom, though a day seldom goes by without some trace of her coming through to me, somewhat echoing Longfellow’s words.
I am grateful to have those memories of her. Like the song says: they can’t take those away from me.
For this Mother’s Day Sunday musical selection, here’s a recording of that classic George and Ira Gershwin tune done by Billie Holiday at a later stage of her career, in 1957. I love this performance with Ben Webster on sax and Barney Kessel on guitar. Here’s They Can’t Take That Away From Me.
This is a reworked post from 2021. Happy Mother’s Day.
We may never never meet again, on that bumpy road to love
Redtree Times 