Chapter 16: Spring color, 2006
In March the flowers come out again. One day I got a phone call about noon. Mom needed a purple plant right away, in no less than an hour. No explanation went with this request, just an urgent plea. Well, she has aphasia. I dropped what I was doing and went to Fred Meyer. They were selling purple mums for $3, and I picked one up. When I got to her apartment, she was about to go to her watercolor class. She was pleased with my selection, thanked me, and took it with her. She wanted to do a watercolor of a purple flower, as I later saw with my own eyes.
Later I helped her plant the model for the painting by her front door.
It was now OK to paint flowers in class. Mom of course loved painting flowers, as well as the people painting them.
Another example from that time:
She also enjoyed her own flowers.
Mom had a little toy animal. One day in class she put it on the top of her watering bucket and painted that, with flowers and greenery in the background.
By the beginning of June she even produced an acrylic that looked like something.
She let her caregiver photograph her with it. I suspect that the flowers she is holding were the ones she painted. She is sitting on the bench in front of her apartment.
In May she took time out for a little trip, to see her grandson Brandon graduate from Medical School at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. I went with her on the plane, and she handled the 8 hour trip quite well. She was thrilled at being there for the various events that stretched over a long weekend. Our last day there we went to Duke’s botanical gardens. With Brandon's father John beside her, Mom went to work.
The sketch she produced somehow got a little wet. Processing the image on my computer I turned up the contrast to minimize the wrinkles. She drew a young man n a cap and gown, obviously Brandy, and wrote at the bottom "a doctor's garden--Durham N.C." It was her memorialization of the weekend.
Since January, Mom had been attending a class in Native American Culture taught at Rose Villa by a Clackamas Community College instructor who had taken the name Sprithawk. Mom had an abiding interest in all things Native American. She was a member of the Native American Council of the Portland Art Museum and attended many of their events, including ceremonies at the Siletz Reservation in Grande Ronde. She was always urging me to go to their events in Portland, and when I did, I was glad she’d told me. She took Spirithawk’s class very seriously. She made several copies of a prayer that he gave them, the Winnebago Prayer, which we put on the printed program for her Memorial Service. Spirithawk came to the Memorial and played his Native American flute in her honor. In late May Mom did a sketch of him in class. After I printed out a scan of it, she added an aura around his head.
Later I helped her plant the model for the painting by her front door.
It was now OK to paint flowers in class. Mom of course loved painting flowers, as well as the people painting them.
Another example from that time:
She also enjoyed her own flowers.
Mom had a little toy animal. One day in class she put it on the top of her watering bucket and painted that, with flowers and greenery in the background.
By the beginning of June she even produced an acrylic that looked like something.
She let her caregiver photograph her with it. I suspect that the flowers she is holding were the ones she painted. She is sitting on the bench in front of her apartment.
In May she took time out for a little trip, to see her grandson Brandon graduate from Medical School at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. I went with her on the plane, and she handled the 8 hour trip quite well. She was thrilled at being there for the various events that stretched over a long weekend. Our last day there we went to Duke’s botanical gardens. With Brandon's father John beside her, Mom went to work.
The sketch she produced somehow got a little wet. Processing the image on my computer I turned up the contrast to minimize the wrinkles. She drew a young man n a cap and gown, obviously Brandy, and wrote at the bottom "a doctor's garden--Durham N.C." It was her memorialization of the weekend.
Since January, Mom had been attending a class in Native American Culture taught at Rose Villa by a Clackamas Community College instructor who had taken the name Sprithawk. Mom had an abiding interest in all things Native American. She was a member of the Native American Council of the Portland Art Museum and attended many of their events, including ceremonies at the Siletz Reservation in Grande Ronde. She was always urging me to go to their events in Portland, and when I did, I was glad she’d told me. She took Spirithawk’s class very seriously. She made several copies of a prayer that he gave them, the Winnebago Prayer, which we put on the printed program for her Memorial Service. Spirithawk came to the Memorial and played his Native American flute in her honor. In late May Mom did a sketch of him in class. After I printed out a scan of it, she added an aura around his head.
posted by Michael S Howard at 10:14 AM
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