The Power of Art

My mother is in her late 80's. She has always enjoyed the art pieces that she that used to decorate her home and now adorn the walls at her small assisted living apartment. The white walls are covered with art collected from her early days of marriage to more recent pieces, but mostly it's art my brother, Brian Thayne has painted as he is a professional artist. 

Just like many in their declining years, she is very forgetful. As she often says from the forehead down she is doing very well. She can seldom tell you what she did the day before and often the hour before. She remains though the lovely person she has always been, content, cheerful, intelligent, and grateful. 

A few months ago, my brother was a part of a large art show at Zion's Bank in Provo. This is a huge affair with 4 floors of art and lots of amazing food that servers offer to you every few minutes. I Well at the art show, she fell in love with a painting that was next to my brother's work. This is it. It's by Jeremy Winborg from Cache Valley. 

My mother honestly couldn't stop staring at the painting. We walked slowly from floor to floor. Mom talked to many of the artists and told them what she liked about their work. She has a great eye for composition and knows what she likes. But when she made it back to where this painting was hanging she told me she wanted to talk to the artist. He was usually talking to someone, but when he was free, I told him how much my mother loved his work and especially this painting and that she wanted to talk to him. He said she'd already told him. See she'd forgotten that she'd already talked to him, but he was gracious and told her he'd love to sell it to her, but that it was already sold. Besides it was large, an original and very expensive. So I talked to Jeremy and he gave me his card and said that he can do a print of any of his work. These days artists don't have to do a huge run of say 500 prints like they used to have to do. They can do one at a time. I contacted Jeremy and had him do a small print for Mom. When I went to pick it up from Jeremy's studio, he said, "I hope your mother enjoys it." I told him, that I was sure my mother would not remember the painting, but that she would fall in love with it all over again. I knew that if she loved it once, she'd love it the second time she saw it. 

But boy was I wrong. The print of the painting was given to my mom at our family reunion as a gift from me and my brothers. When she opened it, she immediately got tears in her eyes. She could hardly talk at first until she recovered, but then she said something like, "I saw this at the Zion's Art Show, but didn't know that I could have a print of it. The reason I love this so much is her eyes. She's looking forward at the future. It doesn't matter what your background is," at this she pointed at the background. "It doesn't matter what your past is, but it's where you're looking. It's about the future. I don't know what the name of the painting is, but I'll call it ''future." 

Somehow this beautiful painting reached through the cloudiness of mom's mind and embedded itself there. And a month later, she remembered every bit of the painting. She remembered the "native flower girl's" eyes. She remembered how the painting made her feel. She remembered where she'd seen it and hadn't forgotten it. Not a bit. That is the power of art.