Discovering Grandmother Ila

Grandmother Ila lived before my time. Her second son, my dad, was born during WWI; by the time I was born, the United States had survived the Korean Conflict, and was about to enter the Vietnam War. Wed to the Postmaster of Washington, DC, Grandmother Ila was a full time parent to three. While I know very little about her, I imagine she valued art, literature, and music. After all, my parents were both highly literate (their home library housed works in English, French, German, and Japanese), and my dad grew up singing in a choir. That his parents sent him off to study at the Saint Albans Choir School for Boys, of the National Cathedral, speaks to their appreciation for the arts.

When preparing my parents' home for sale, in 2008, I unearthed a twine-wrapped package that had evidently
been in the drafty old farm house's library closet since my parents had arrived in 1956. A torn brown paper bag bore a pencilled note in my father's hand indicating that the package contained paintings by his mother--one in the manner of C.C. Cotton, and one a river scene that was possibly unfinished. The photos accompanying this post document both canvasses as well as the material used to separate each canvas.

I had no idea that my grandmother had such artistic talents. Not only did she paint with a mastery far beyond what I might dream of accomplishing, but also she developed sewing patterns. The package separators were pieces of a pattern she had produced--directions for sewing a stuffed giraffe that she labeled "Hi-Boy: An Ilabeestie, copyright 1926." The label leads me to suspect that she had developed other stuffed animal patterns, in addition to Hi-Boy. The whimsical giraffe brought a smile to my face and I had to piece the pattern together and photograph it before such evidence of her talents vanished entirely.

The river scene, while well detailed, is not signed (which is why I believe it to be unfinished, that and my dad's note), and is very dark. The colors show up better in the digital image than they do on the actual canvas. Unless the paints darkened over time, I can only assume that she was very depressed when she painted this scene. (It's a reasonable conclusion considering the high incidence of mental illness on that side of my family tree.)

But it's the copy of C.C. Cotton's painting that impresses me the most. The painting shows some signs of age and wear. What first appeared to me to be a flower beside the subject's face is in fact two streaks of white canvas where the paint has fallen away. Even so, the painting is evocative of our current life, where the farm surrounds us in natural beauty. Several days before opening this package, I, too, had been wandering in a field and picking goldenrod, among other flowers, for the house. In my grandmother's painting, I see the remnants of a story I was never told about a talented, accomplished woman, who lived in a time when women wore skirts and bonnets out into the fields when picking flowers.

My housemate has decreed that this canvas will be hung over the mantelpiece, and I am quite pleased with that decision.