Isn't it funny how little nuggets of inspiration appear from out of nowhere? We are entering our fourth year downtown Alpine, bakery and fine arts gallery and now we chuckle in gratitude. Sure enough, she has sold several original oils and quite a number of giclees. What is even more lovely is the fact so many people get to delight in her craft, her life's work.
Mom has been painting and drawing all her life. Born in 1941, Wichita Falls, Texas, daughter to a small town preacher and his wife, the church pianist and organist. Mom always loved running around outside and was way more a tomboy than her mother would have preferred. She had a way of picking up every pretty rock that caught her attention, and still does! Mom sees more deeply into nature than some, perhaps because she actually pauses to take it all in. I think seeing nature is a part of her spiritual practice, as is her continued work of playing the piano, at home and at her church.
Mom works in oils on linen. Occasionally watercolor and pastel. She has been recognized both regionally and nationally, through Oil Panters of America, Contemporary Masters and others. She has a big pile of medals and ribbons and writeups. Which is impressive on its own. I see things through a different lens.
Mom always had a studio, wherever we lived. Daddy would see to that. While we girls would be rustling up dinner in the kitchen, riding horses, doing homework, she would be out there painting away. Sometimes she would go down to Big Bend in an RV with her boxer and paint on location for weeks at a time. The church ladies at home were a bit perplexed, wondering if Fran and John were getting a divorce! No! Their marriage was strong and endured richly because Dad recognized how desperately Mom needed to be in nature to get paint on a canvas.
August, 1997, my parents and sister were involved in a head on collision with a drunk driver. Mom was in the hospital for weeks. Every bone in her foot was crushed. She had breaks in her legs, a head injury, was told she would never walk again. We worked to help her adjust to wheel chair life in the hard long journey of recovery. She couldn't remember how to paint. Depression set in.
Here is where my mom went from average amazing artist and great mom to super hero status in my book. She decided she would completely disregard the prediction of the doctors and began the even longer and harder journey to freedom from the wheelchair.
Mom was able to painfully get around with a cane and on a whim I suggested she and I make a road trip down to Big Bend National Park. Her healing place. Her heart's desire.
Bound and determined, grasping her cane and my arm, tears running down our faces because of the agony, she lifted one foot. And then the other. Many minutes to cover a few feet, breathing in the mountain air, with the Chisos leaning over us like a giant friend. That short walk in the spring of 2000 was perhaps the longest, most painful journey of our lives. And the most victorious, empowering moment as well.
Twenty years later, Mom still endures chronic pain from her injuries and we have lost count of the many surgeries. But she never gives up. Bound and determined. With a fierce need to do whatever it takes to get paint on canvas. She wishes to bear witness to the natural beauty she sees in the piles of rocks, the clouds, the looming canyon walls. Many take notice of the way she captures movement and light. Mom will tell anyone she paints as an act of worship. It is a spiritual practice for her, same as playing the piano in church.
All I know is her journey is inspirational to me. Her courage and resilience heroic. Being able to share her work in our bakery/fine arts gallery is a dream come true.
3 comments:
I was thinking about your mom today and did a search. You see a decade ago I found a painting at a yard sale for a resounding $20 but I could tell it was of Big Bend, my happy place, the place I find my soul. It had minor damage so I began trying to find the artist and get it repaired. And that's how I meet your mom and she loving restored one of her paintings for me and we visited for hours. I still.tjonk about her and want to give her a big hug!
Sorry, I didn't know it was made as anonymous, lol!
I am a proud owner of one of your mother's paintings, which has graced my living room wall wherever I have been for about 40 years now. Sometime in the mid to late 1980s when I was a pre-teen, my father saw a lovely painting of some ducks for sale randomly at an art sale on the side of the road in Baltimore, Maryland. I raised Pekin ducks at the time and had just suffered an awfully traumatic event where a neighbour's dog entered our backyard and killed all of my ducks. Needless to say, I was despondent. When my father saw the painting, he immediately realised the quality (which was far greater than anything else at the sale - most were badly painted Bob Ross knock-offs and paintings on velvet). Because I missed my ducks so badly, he came home and told my mother that he'd like to go back and buy the painting for me, even though it was a bit expensive for us. We all travelled to the sale (which was set up in front of a gas station!) and upon seeing the painting, I fell in love with it because a couple of the ducks were white like my Pekins. I always wondered about Fran Rowe - who she was and where she lived - and how this wonderful painting ended up at a roadside art sale, when it is obvious how talented the artist was! It wasn't the typical thing you'd see at these types of sales!! Thanks to the magic of Google, I found your blog and a little bit of the mystery is solved! I have always wanted to thank your mother for that painting - it brought me comfort in those dark days after I lost my ducks, and it now brings me such joy to see it every day on my wall. Please send her my warmest regards and tell her how much I have loved her ducks painting! Also, though I'm now living in the UK, I used to work for the National Park Service in Arizona, so seeing her landscapes - especially those of Big Bend - also brings me joy!
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