The life inside us
If you’re of a certain age, you might remember Maud Lewis, an unlikely folk artist from Nova Scotia, Canada. The humblest of women, she defines resolve for me, on those days when taking out the trash seems like a job too difficult to conquer.
Maud was born in 1901. I don’t know how I learned about her, as she died in 1970 when I was still in junior high. A bit of research reveals that a figure from the Nixon White House ordered two of her paintings near the time of her death. Do I recall that from a current events presentation in my seventh-grade classroom? Or some unit in art? Maybe.
Maud was famous long before then, though she still lived in poverty in a tiny roadside house in Nova Scotia, where she sold her paintings to passersby. Critics have called her the Grandma Moses of Canada. I call her a quiet miracle.
Though it wasn’t documented at the time, experts now believe she was born with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Along with other congenital issues, her physical appearance made her childhood difficult. She first began painting by helping her mother create Christmas cards to sell door-to-door.
When she lost her parents, and eventually the care afforded by an older brother, Maud accepted support from a maternal aunt. A short time later, she answered an ad posted in a local store by a fish peddler named Everett. He was seeking a woman to “live-in or keep house” at his tiny 13x14-foot dwelling in the village of Marshalltown. Maud became his wife and lived in that house for the rest of her days.
Not the straightest line to international fame.
When I look at pictures of Maud, her hands are so affected by arthritis that I wonder how she even held a brush. But her smile in those pictures, and the radiance in her eyes, testify to the life inside her. Though her body was limited by pain and frailty, her spirit soared wide open.
She painted from the late 1930s until her death. She started by creating holiday cards to earn extra money, as she had with her mother. Then she painted pictures on wooden slabs and sea shells and cookie sheets. Everett sold them on his fish-peddler’s route, and later from the roadside at their front door.
Her paintings feature bright scenes of village and coastal life in the days when horses and oxen were replaced by trucks and tractors. She created colorful treatments of ships at harbor and her husband’s Model T.
Over time, benefactors championed Maud’s work. Newspaper and TV journalists featured her efforts. She still refused to raise her prices, and the paintings that would one day bring tens of thousands at auction sold for $5 or $10 at her doorstep.
When interviewers asked how she managed work with all her physical ailments, she said, “As long as I’ve got a brush in front of me, I’m all right.” Did I mention her resolve?
So I purchased a print of Maud’s. I bought it in honor of a dear friend who recently passed, a beautiful woman also defines resolve for me.
In joyous effusion, Maud covered every paintable surface of her tiny home with bright tulips, forget-me-nots, butterflies and other lovely designs. My friend was like that. Everything she touched became a testament to the joyous way in which she viewed the world and the people around her. She made us all more beautiful.
On the days when Maud couldn’t paint, she confided that she looked out her window instead: “I love a window. A bird, whizzin’ by. Bumblebee. The whole of life. The whole of life already framed. Right there.”
I’m looking out my window now. The whole of life, already framed. Right there. I’m renewing my resolve to carry out my own humble life in the best way I can, to honor my friend. And all the women like her.