Standing in front of Norman Rockwell's painting "Freedom From Want," I was taken back to my days of sitting at the kids table and an older cousin picking pellets out of my piece of pheasant. Some people see in Rockwell's painting a family having a Thanksgiving dinner. Some see how talented Mr. Rockwell was. Everyone brings something to a work of art. For me it was the ping of small pellets hitting a white china plate.
Auntie Maria's house is packed with family, Uncles in stuffed chairs, some sleeping and others reminiscing about an old Ford car. Aunts in a tiny kitchen heating up casseroles and carving up rabbits and pheasants. Others are on the mud porch, attending electric roasters. Cousins are rough housing on the living room floor, a few begin to cry followed by a call from the kitchen for someone to see what has happened. Grandma rushing in to kiss a cheek and assure the wounded one that they will be just fine. Out the window of this tiny farmhouse Uncle Henry and Uncle Paul are burning the feathers and fur in an old rusty barrel. Uncle John returns with a case of orange crush strapped to the back of his Indian Motorcycle. He tosses a candy wrapper into the fire and asks if the hunt was a success or if it will be an all-casserole dinner. Uncle Adolf is reminding those in the house of last year's pumpkin pie with the birdshot in it… You always check for birdshot, an apple pie last summer had one lone pellet in it, and we never heard the last of that one.
In the summer, these family gatherings were held out under the giant Cottonwoods. Usually there were motorcycle rides through the fields, and once, pony rides. The clanging of horseshoes hitting metal stakes sounded in my ears as I looked at another artist’s painting.
Art is a memory, a sound, a smell and sometimes a painful remembrance. Colors and care are how we form our poems and tell stories. We compliment people by asking them to pose. We see wisdom in crows feet creeping from eyes and worry splitting once smooth brows. Untold stories remain silent, hidden in leathered and worn faces. Sometimes young beauty is our subject, but as we grow as artists our eyes and minds see what real beauty is. With brushes we pry and pull in search of ourselves. Youth gives us hope and age gives us peace.
