Retrospective: Mara On Sunday

Oil on Canvas: Mara On Sunday

This is a painting of my sister, Mara Lee.  I adore her.  I always have, always will.  She is the third in our large family (I’m the oldest).  With my feisty sister Leah between us, it was natural that Mara Lee and I would be allies, if an ally happened to be needed (Leah was either our best friend or worst enemy).   When we were children, Mara Lee seemed vulnerable to me. Large blue eyes, quiet voice, easy pace (my daughter Maurya reminds me of her). I loved to mother her (when it occurred to me; children can be pretty self absorbed).  Even when we were teenagers, hoeing in wheat fields for my dad or meeting strangers, I instinctively shielded her.

When I came home from my first year of college, I could see that Mara Lee was coming into her own.   She had her own sense of style, her own sense of social fairness.  A unique taste for great music and literature (tangent: for awhile, I remember she was a fan of “The Dead Poet Society”, which I never saw).  And though she was still soft spoken, she was strong willed. Direct, quick (flashes of irrevocable, stunning lightning).   She even argued with my dad, something none of us—not even Leah and certainly not I— had dared try before.  I was very impressed.  She became a point of reference for me when I was shopping for clothes, looking for perfume, listening to music, mustering courage, embracing new ideas.  Looking back, I am totally comfortable with how much she influenced me.   My admiration has never waned.

Even though she distanced herself for a long while after I married Frank.   Painful, but.   I still adored her, still longed for connection (and forged a beautiful one with my sister Leah in the interim—Leah and I haven’t had a moment’s rivalry since).

“Mara On Sunday” is painted from a photo taken one Thanksgiving (not a Sunday, after all) when we were all in Leah’s kitchen cooking together (Family holiday tradition: we make everything from scratch, we make a lot of it, and we make it together…total mayhem).  She was still distant then, and I was still wistful.

However, by the time I was painting Mara Lee a couple years after that Thanksgiving, our relationship had experienced a renaissance (“Sister Song”).  Life is full of departures and renewals. We were connected again, and I was celebrating that as  I painted.  As usual, I was frustrated at first that my hand couldn’t communicate what was in my head.  But at some point, I let go, got lost in my right brain, and let the painting unfold.  Stopped fixating on perfection (and literal representation) and fell in love with the process.  To this day, it is my favorite.

The painting is largish (36″ X 24″), finished about ten years ago (2003? 2004?). Before I painted, I applied (glued) lace, thread, and bits of fabric to the canvas with acrylic gesso…making a sort of foundational collage, over which I painted with oils. I liked the resulting texture and dimension. And the color saturation. I’d like to try this again, the scale, texture, saturation…and the intimacy of a candid gaze.