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Reunion
 The portrait is Jennifer's
gift to her mother, Gloria, and an honouring of her maternal grandmother, Dolly,
recently deceased. The
initial planning begins with tea and a table covered with
photographs. Jennifer and Gloria, in a blending of tears and
laughter, allow memories to come to life and the stories start to
flow. In the end, we all agree that Dolly, fittiingly, will
occupy the background, that she will be fully present, subtly
separate, utterly connected. I come out of this meeting with
the central theme on which the painting will be composed.
Dolly crowns a time-line
of beautiful women, three generations whose roots are in Acadia, whose
traditions -- basket weaving and quilting -- emerge as metaphor for the
women themselves: tactile, substantial, and purposeful. The quilting
functions as framework, speaks to the theme of Time, not as it is measured
by the clock but by love, patience, connection and completion that characterize
the making of an heirloom. It suggests the proverbial "stitch in
time" that creates the warm and colourful whole from chosen pieces.
The clock, in deference to
Dolly, reads "almost midnight" -- the witching hour. Time, both concrete
and imagined -- the click of the clock, the click of the camera, the moment
before, the moment beyond -- takes place. Dolly connects both to
the moving curtains and to her daughter's shoulder, ethereal as the air,
and as concrete as her manicured fingers.
The big basket of pink flowers
dominates the foreground. The flowers are informal, a lively, generous
and spontaneous femininity, an explosion that, like the women's laughter,
is irresistibly life affirming. (To hear them laugh is to experience
a burst that calls for celebration.)
The women invite us to enter
an interior world in which a joyful imagination is at play. Intimate,
material and fully occupied, this world is far from static. Soon
Jennifer and Gloria will get up from the table. Will they set it
then for an impromptu midnight feast or will they grab their coats and
set out for some planned, late-night revelry? Either way, as both
artist and viewer, I want to join them.
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