Statuary:
the first project
The white-haired lady in the picture is Pa’s wife,
the Elder from whom i learned about the Green Kingdom
and much, much more … her grandchildren called her "Gram" and so did i ... even though we weren't related to me she embodied "Grandmother" wise and healing, and gently formidable, and i wanted to be part of that ...
a Lithuanian Catholic she had a deep Marian devotion
which she lovingly expressed each May 1st (weather willing) when Our Lady of Grace, a greytone cement garden statue, would be enthroned on a carpet of myriad silk flowers, to be replaced sometime in May, as soon as Gram's flowers burst through the new england Earth in abundant glory (Gram could plant a dead stick and grow a rose bush)
the day the picture at right was taken in the late 70s,
was the last time we would see each other... adventure ahead called to me, and i was leaving the next day - little did i know then that my journey would be a years long, a 27,000 mile road trip around the country to keep ahead of truant officers because i would be homeschooling my children at a time when it was quite illegal to do so...
but the day this picture was taken, i knew none of that, only that my heart was heavy to leave Gram. I wanted to present her with something unforgettable to both of us, something to join us together for all time.
Suddenly i had a thought. “Gram,” i said, “can you still actually see Mary?”
“Don’ call her dat,” she ‘scolded’ in her wonderful broken English. “She don’ like dat” -
meaning, such familiarity was disrespectful to the Blessed Mother and to be avoided ...
i apologized immediately, then brought the conversation back to my question, and as expected,
my perseverance was met by a disapproving grunt from Gram, but i pressed on stubbornly; and finally she confessed my suspicion was correct – to vision over 8 decades old, the cement statue's details were more memory to her than eyesight anymore.
that’s when i knew what i had to do – i might not be able to draw but i could certainly paint a statue ...
and that's how i painted life into Grandmother's beloved Blessed Mother so that Gram could see her once again clearly from the kitchen window.
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