(I have posted below my dad's thoughts about my painting that I dedicated to my aunt Pat, my dad's sister).
"Within" is a really good painting, Ashley. The painting conceptually fits Pat perfectly in several ways. When I first looked at it, there were two immediate visual impressions that related to Aunt Pat. One, of a stained glass window in a church. And two, The thin slivers felt like fiberous lesions in the body, a likeness to the anatomical pictures of exposed tissue one might see hanging on the wall of a doctors office. The church Pat attended and dearly loved (St. Stephens Anglican, Montreal) has beautiful stained glass windows (a sanctuary Pat loved to sit in). The taut fiberous feeling reflects the tension within Pat's body in fighting her disease. So both of those initial visual impressions reflect my sister Pat. As for the content of the painting, you already refered to the heart within (and Pat had the most clear and pure heart imaginable). But also, the hands struck me. They cover the heart protectively reflecting the large degree to which your Aunt Pat kept titanic spiritual struggles and her immeasurable standard of honesty private. But for me (and most vividly of all), the hands also are stretching towards each other, not quite touching, never quite clasping together in a union. This image reveals a major theme in Aunt Pat's life both outwardly and inwardly. She embraced an eclectic group of friends whose social circles were dichotomous. On the surface, her life was not integrated. But deep 'Within' it was unified by a powerful thread of love winding through her every act. She was francophone and anglophone though her french and english friends did not mix. She carefully maintained a simple and innocent faith in Christ despite her advanced education as a linguistic anthropologist (and accepted her discipline's methodology). Her christian faith and deep relationships with christians were balanced with intimate friendships with Jews, Muslims, and atheists. Pat was a strong christian yet struggled with basic tenets of the bible. She enjoyed going to the horse track and betting on races just as much as attending a bible study. She loved numbers and technical analysis (and made a living as an accountant) but many of her closest friends were out to lunch wacky artists (painters and musicians). She was neat and tidy in her personal environment but adorned her living space with abstract art (much of it neo-cubist). She was a connoisseur of fine wine whose palette was equally happy gorging on a mountain of fries in the greasy spoon on the corner of Sherbrooke and Avenue Draper. In her last years, Aunt Pat appeared delicate belying the indomitable will to persevere through her suffering. But most of all, in contrast to her enormous brain power and insatiable desire to understand, she modestly accepted the essential unknowableness of things with a unique grace. The composition and content of your painting "Within" reflects well your Aunt Pat's life. It is a beautiful and fitting gesture to dedicate it to her.
