My husband never liked this old painting. When I asked him what it was, exactly, that he didn't like about it, he said this:
"Where shall I begin? Poor likeness. Homely subject. Poor execution. Lack of proportion."
Maybe I shouldn't have asked. I love this vintage oil painting of an old woman sitting in the window with her kitchen bowl. I bought the portrait a few years ago in a funky antique shop on Lighthouse Drive in Monterey, not far from Cannery Row. I'm sure she had hung on the wall of this shop for years, watching as customer after customer walked by with barely a glance. Most people probably saw her as my husband does — homely and poorly executed.
"Look at that big hand!" one of my friends said the first time she saw her. I hadn't even noticed.
But I love her. I imagine her as a worker in the sardine factories in the 1920s and '30s, who comes home after a long day to make dinner for her family. She takes just a moment to sit in the kitchen window. I like that she wears a necklace.
She usually hangs above the brick fireplace on my screened porch — a summer gathering place for friends and family. But I brought her inside for the winter. She's hanging in my entry hall, hidden when the front door opens wide so my husband hasn't objected too much. Besides, he knows that no matter what anybody says, I'm keeping her. And when the weather warms up, she's going outside again, back to her place of prominence.
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I love the way you made your lady real. You gave her a life, an existance, other than being dull, you gave her character and purpose, and a sense of resting for a moment, something we all working mothers wish we would take more moments to do. And I loved the way you moved her during the winter. That was character!
Well, I just love her! I have a similar piece that I recently got my hands on…I’ve made quite a tale up about Louise.