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These blogs are a way to share my thoughts and insights with you. Feel free to comment and share.

A gift to me

7/8/2013

9 Comments

 
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I was happily home alone on a steamy July morning sitting in front of the fan, when the doorbell unexpectedly rang. I answered the door to John Daniels, who was kind enough to deliver my newly framed paintings on my birthday.

A week earlier, I gave John five paintings to be framed. I asked him to use his years of experience and sense of design to pre-select a few frames and matts for each painting. I would make a final choice after we looked at the different options. This was my first experience talking to a master framer about framing paintings.

My late mother painted furiously in her last 20 years. If she agreed with my father that a painting was good (and he thought they were all great), he would measure and cut the matt, glass and ½ inch moulding, paint the moulding and frame her paintings.  Without his frames, her canvases would lie stacked around their home rather than on the walls.

The day my favorite painting fell off my hallway wall and crashed to the floor, I said to myself, “it’s time to reframe a few of her paintings.” 

I brought John two canvases I had rescued from under my mother's bed, before I sold their house, and three others my father had framed.

John took off the wrapping paper from each painting. One at a time he set each on the side table and leaned them against the wall for my approval. I stood a few feet back.

Great emotion bubbled up as I looked upon my mother's work with new eyes. “These are masterpieces, real works of art," I said to John.

“I believe my mother would be secretly delighted to know I had these professionally framed. At least I hope so," I said.  "On the other hand, she might be reprimanding me for spending so much money when they were good enough with my father's frames."
I felt the twins of joy and sorrow beat at my heart:
  • for all her paintings that hadn’t had the benefit of such beautiful frames;
  • for my father's championing of my mother's paintings and the love and care he put into framing;
  • for replacing my father's frames;
  • for finally framing these paintings; and
  • for having received them on my birthday.

Keep you posted,

Coach Minda
9 Comments
charliecat
7/8/2013 09:09:53 am

Dear Coach Minda, thank you for maintaining this blog, which is always full of surprises, intriguing thoughts, and visual delights.I agree that your mother's work is wonderful. The example you posted is exquisite. Does it have a title? There is something quite disturbing about it--disturbing in the sense of provocative and fascinating. In one Rorschach-like take, for example, organic, fleshy, sensorial forms seem to be orbiting around an easel, but the feeling is multi-directional, vertiginous. . . are these living forms coming into being, emerging from the void? Or are we witnessing a state of mind in which life seems to be dissolving, disappearing, perhaps, into a chaos that seems vaguely frightening? I hope you will show us some more of your mother's paintings.

Reply
Coach Minda
7/8/2013 09:38:53 am

Hello Charliecat and thank you for your thoughtful post. How nice that you appreciate the painting and the blogs.

This photo unfortunately doesn't do justice to the painting or frame. It’s far more mysterious, watery, warm, muted and lovely than we can see here. This is truly one of my favorite paintings and not characteristic at all of her work. She was mostly a landscape artist. I wanted her to experiment with more abstract work and we used to discuss how she felt “stuck” and wasn’t sure how. So, this painting was a breakthrough. No titles for any of her paintings!

I will try to post others, much thanks.

Reply
Allan L.Ferman
7/8/2013 12:08:37 pm

Dear Coach "M"
I am proud to say that I have Two of your mother's paintings(Professionally framed) hanging in my livingroom for 40+ years and look at them every day, They are from the period when she was studying under a fellow with a name like A.Y.jackson , who was supposed to be one of the last members of what was called *the Groop of Seven*. He did lovely landscapes in wonderful detail just like your mom did . we do not do comparisons like that in our house. Too bad you did not check under all the beds...Who Knows how much news one of her originals may eventually prompt.?
I send this with a great deal of love

Reply
Minda
9/8/2013 04:21:35 am

The story I heard was that A.Y. Jackson bought a painting my mother did when she was a young girl of perhaps 13 years old. A few months back I was at the Ontario Art Gallery and saw the group of seven up close. Really magnificent to finally see the real paintings and not the ones in art books. I had a good cry.

Reply
Susan M
9/8/2013 12:37:51 am

I have also always admired your Mom's work.
Your father framed the paintings as a labor of love and there is a particular sort of bittersweet pain in being, in the next generation, able to improve on what our parents did with such love and good intentions. As we mature we become able to see and understand that our parents had some limitations that they struggled with, as well as the talents and capacities that we admire. I believe that good parents try to bring their childen up in hopes that they will not be limited in the same ways
To be able to surpass them at least in some ways is part of the unfolding of the generations...as is our ability to treasure what they accomplished.

Reply
Minda
9/8/2013 04:25:44 am

So well said Susan M!

Reply
Maila Shanks
10/8/2013 07:04:13 pm

This sample of your Mom's work is absolutely wonderful. I think you honor both your folks with your appreciation & care...
BTW, is this particular piece mixed media (watercolor/ink)?
Look forward to seeing this & others live one of these days...

Reply
Minda
11/8/2013 02:48:21 am

Maila, thank you. Yes, watercolor and not ink. If I can find a way to photograph and upload them I will. It's a bit of a challenge - light, shadow, reflections all popping up in the photo.

Reply
toni
15/8/2013 05:54:06 am

I find this painting must have come from within her as a new way of expressing her views and feelings in a way that was not easy for her. Therefore so much more precious. She knew that I used to push her a bit to try, to do, to dare. And she didn't mind. Both of us would smile and keep going. Harold and she will always be a part of our memories and the good times we had together.
Enjoy
love












w

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