Sharing More Paintings by My Mother

It dawned on me this evening that I have failed to follow up with something that I had wanted to do for a while. Earlier this month, I posted photos of some of my mother’s paintings so that Richard (RVPAINTER) could see the kind of work she had done. I had really intended on getting more photos of the paintings posted, but alas, I got off on political stuff. So, let me lighten up the mood of the blog for a bit.

As of today, June 27, Richard claims to be allergic to winter, yet he painted a winter scene today. So, since he is SO not into that season, let me heap more of the snowy season upon him. By the way, Richard’s blog is at this link:

http://rvpainter.blogspot.com/

Right off the bat, let’s give him one with a dreary, snow covered landscape. It is a little hard to tell, but I think Mother painted this one in 1978.

Then we need to go all the way back to 1974 in order to get another snowy scene.

Like many other artists, Mother kind of went through “periods” where one theme might have been a little more prevalent than others. For instance, there were a few years where she had the opportunity to “sponsor” others on trips to the Holy Lands, and she got to make several trips there.

An uncle of mine, Mother’s brother-in-law, helped her get started. The way the “sponsoring” worked is that if one was able to recruit others that paid their own way to the Middle East, the “sponsor” would have their traveling expenses paid and would only be responsible for transportation to an airport in the U.S. and for their own “personal” expenses such as extra meals or souvenirs.

After making those trips, she had a period where Middle Eastern scenes were worked into her paintings. While a large number of my family wasn’t really impressed with them, I did have an interest. After all, part of my military service was in Pakistan, so the culture still interested me. Following are a couple of her paintings of the Middle East.

Now, this one I have absolutely no explanation for as to why she painted it. In the past, I’ve mentioned that Mother could not do faces. And, anything in the way of an animal had to be first applied to the canvas by tracing onto tracing paper and then traced again onto the canvas. As you can see, she did do some faces. But, why a Conquistador, I have no idea. She did have an interest in the West and the cultures and way of living there. Those paintings will have to wait for another posting.

There is one last painting for this posting. In my mind, it has the title of “Forever Unfinished.” Back several years ago, in traveling over Raton Pass between Raton, New Mexico and Trinidad, Colorado, one could watch and get the opportunity to see an old Spanish mission church. It was small and was kind of up the mountain quite a ways. On a couple of times, I stopped and took pictures of that church.

It had an appeal to me and I had the idea of finding my way to the roads to go up to and take closer pictures of it, but in all the trips we made, we were always pulling a camper, thus I was limited in time and the space to maneuver around. So, I never got the close-ups done. Now, the mission is falling into ruin and will never be the same except perhaps in photos and in my mind.

The Mission was the subject of my one attempt to dabble with oil painting. As I’ve stated before, I have zilch, zero, nada talent with painting. This painting was largely painted by Mother with it being my job to put in the Mission itself. As you can see, it ain’t a pretty sight. But, it was the one painting that Mother and I collaborated with in an attempt to paint what I had photographed. Because of that, and because it is a small painting, it hangs on the wall in the living room or our Mobile Suites.  And, with no talent for painting on my own part, it is “forever unfinished.”

Now that I’ve made everyone sick with my feeble attempt at painting, I’ll let you go lie down.