Josephine's mandalas: #21 of 21

7/12/91

Air Baloons
Yarmulkas
Spinning tops
Dyed Eggs

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(click on image for additional details)

Thanks to all who have followed along with this series, especially robin andrea.

I am grateful that my mother didn't destroy this series of mandalas that would have upset my father if had he been aware of them.  I am grateful to have been able to share these mandalas on my blog.

My mother's earliest creative efforts involved writing.  From childhood, she dreamed of being a writer.  If I remember correctly, in the last years of my mother's life her creative energy went into Norwegian pattern knitting.  The only writing she did in her last years, that I know of, was writing letters.

In 1966, at age 50, she had finished a poem she had begun at age 48. The original version of the poem ended with these lines:

... "What means Gethsemane?"
The Inspiration fled.  Was God its source?
So be it.
Then rich I am having felt His force.

In the final version:

... "What means Gethsemane?"
The answers rise and fall like waves.  I wait.
Then blindly stumble on towards heaven's gate.

In the years between 1966 and 1989, having lost the Inspiration, she redirected her abundant energy to creations that didn't involve words. It is occurring to me this morning that with the mandalas, she was combining words and images -- not poetry exactly but something like it. Traditional mandalas don't have words in them.  There were still words that needed to come through her, but they presented themselves to her in this process.

Who knows why she started making mandalas sometime in 1989 and stopped making them in July of 1991 and went back to working with color and pattern without words.  Who knows what turned her away from Christianity and moved her toward Judaism?  I know that she found joy and solace and meaning in her last years by celebrating Jewish holy days in secret.

This pillow was one of her many handmade gifts to me during her steady output of Norwegian pattern knitting in her last years:

My mother continued to ask questions.  I know that for sure.  She was an artist and spiritual seeker.  She lives on for me in the words she wrote and the things she made with her hands.

The Cat is Not Amused (1983-1984)

This transitional piece was painted when my mother came to visit in 1983 or 1984 and brought her watercolor books and supplies to pass on to me. We sat down at the kitchen table, and with her guidance I learned how color can be mixed on paper by applying layers of color. "The Cat is Not Amused" was the result of that session. I have not been able to adjust the colors so that they are true in this reproduction. This is as close as I can get.

My mother, born in 1916, had dreamed of being a writer since her childhood, inspired by the character, Jo, from the book, LITTLE WOMEN, by Louisa May Alcott. My mother attended the University of Minnesota for one year after graduating from high school, during which year her mother was dying of gallbladder cancer. After her mother died, my mother moved to California with her father, her older brother, her sister-in-law and their young daughter. In California, my mother went to business school and worked as a secretary until her marriage to my father.

As I understand, my mother was writing poetry and short stories from at least her early 20s until 1964, when she wrote the following sonnet:


The Inspiration came. It had its birth
Somewhere in Time - no special shining hour.
I've searched for words to dignify its worth
And find in speaking it has lost its power.
Yet something goads me on. The Hound of Heaven?
(Or selfish Pride that slyly begs applause?)
If but my thoughts would rest, like bread to leaven,
The still small Voice within might bade me pause
And quietly perform God-given tasks,
Return to Him the gifts bestowed on me,
Forgetting Self . . . . No . . . . Something strong still asks,
Repetitive, "What means Gethsemane?"
The Inspiration fled. Was God its source?
So be it.
Then rich I am for having felt His force.


In 1966, she revised the sonnet, crossing out the last three lines and writing in pencil:

The answers rise and fall like waves. I wait.
Then blindly stumble on towards heaven's gate.


Around 1964, my mother began taking watercolor classes. In 1967, she abruptly stopped going to church. In the time before her death in 1994, she created beautiful artwork by way of silkscreen, stained glass, batik and Norwegian pattern knitting. She read widely throughout her life and enjoyed writing letters but after 1966 completely stopped writing poetry and short stories, turning her creative energies to the visual arts. I am grateful for her affirmation of me as both an artist and a writer.