Painting white lilies on new years day. Lilies for transformation. Lilies for purity. Lilies for my grandmother Lily, who painted flowers, her hands crippled up with arthritis. Why am I so attracted to painting lilies now? Is it to remember her? Is she my ancestor guide now?
I think she was 76 that year, that January when I brought my new husband and new baby to stay with her and grampa for a couple of months. Bill was just out of the Navy and we needed a place to land while we figured out civilian life, married life, and parenthood. Now I'm 76, it's January, that husband is long gone and the baby grown up. And I am painting Lilies, remembering my grandmother.
Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. — Henry Ward Beecher —
I think Lily started painting when she and Amos sold the farm and retired to the beach. Their beach house was just a block or so from the Pacific Ocean on the Oregon Coast. I could hear the ocean roar in the black night, as I held my baby to my breast for his 2 am feeding, sitting in the old wooden rocker and trying to be quiet so that I didn't wake anyone.
It was a peaceful house, my grandparents' house. Styled like a chalet with a wide roof, it had a dining/living area across the front, with windows facing west, toward the sea. Stairs wrapped around the big stone fireplace and continued up to the bedroom I shared with Bill and our baby. Behind the fireplace on the first floor was my grandparents' bedroom. The bathroom and kitchen took up the rest of the house. When I helped Lily cook, I could look across the kitchen counter into the dining area, where the wooden table was set for dinner. Lily told me she always had the table set when they were on the farm so that when Amos came in from milking the cows, he would know dinner was on its way. I thought that was manipulative, but perhaps I should have taken her example to heart. Perhaps if I had shown that kind of care for him, Bill would not have left....but that was a few years later.
Lily was a farmers wife. On the farm, she did all the things a farmers wife does, even though her hands were crippled since she was 35 years old, and even though she had wanted to be a school teacher instead. On the farm, her garden boasted tall gladiolus in yellow, white, red, and pink, along with the carrots and potatoes she grew to feed her family. Her basement shelves were stacked with the green beans and tomatoes she canned. She organized her cupboards so that the dishes had to be stacked just so, or they wouldn't fit. That part drove me crazy, stacking the dishes just so at the beach house.
It didn't take Bill long to find work at a gas station. Still, it was a couple of months before we could afford a place of our own. Meanwhile being a new mom occupied most of my time and mind. Daytimes, I often walked to the beach with my baby, bundled up against the January wind, to the edge of the cliff where the long wooden staircase led down to the golden sand. Or I would read one of the books in the book shelf on the stair landing back in the house. Amos and his family immigrated from England when he was eleven, so I think he still felt ties to that country. His shelves had books like one on the succession of English kings, or about the little princes who were murdered in the tower of London.
It was quiet in the beach house. Amos took long walks around the neighborhood or sat in his big wooden chair with a cup of tea on one of it's wide flat arms, reading the his well worn bible. Lily stood by her easel painting a few steps away, by the north window. It was a big thing in those days to paint by light from the north; it was supposed to be truer, more consistent. She painted flowers, beach scenes, and the big red barn on the farm. Mostly she painted in oils; I still have her palette in my studio, and her painting of a purple iris with the light shining on it hangs in my bedroom.
I wonder, did Lily feel about painting the way I do, as a way to experience the light of heaven? Was it a spiritual practice for her as it is for me? The way she painted the light on the iris makes me think perhaps she did, though I doubt she would have said so.
Of course I’m full of ambition. I will paint every day, I will work out 3 x a week at the athletic club which I just rejoined. I will quit sugar. I will write a book to go with my classes. I will…. I will tidy my studio. The year started out well; I started a painting on New Years day and have finished it already. It came out well, I think. I took down the sold paintings from Anu Rana’s on Vashon and put up new ones.
Lily painting in progress
Now is time to focus on my classes. I have 3 in person classes scheduled:
Art Journaling at the Senior Center on Vashon Island, on the first and third thursdays from 2-4 pm. Here is a sample journal page:
Seven Pillars for a Vibrant Life, and Connecting to Spirit Through Art, at Synergy on Vashon Island.
It surprised me to discover, while journaling, connections between my love of painting lilies and my grandmother Lily. What connections with ancestors might you discover when you look at your life and activities a little differently?
Beginning an art Journal, from ArtfulHaven
Why learn about our ancestors? from Planet Spark
Book of the week I am reading:
Meeting the Muse After Midlife by Sally Jean Fox
Yes, I remember the story of my dad telling Lily and Amos that they had a girl for their son! It was amazing that that they did marry! Good memories!
I remember how kind they were and so good to us. I remember they put us on a horse and led it around! So exciting! We just had fun and we called them Uncle Amos and Aunt Lily, even those we were not related!.. They were good friends of my parents. I think they had met when they were all young people, but not sure. Shirley has a better memory than me!