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JOURNALING FOR SELF-REFLECTION AND PERSONAL GROWTH
It’s apt that today is Grandma Moses Day. It stung when the Daily Zeitgeist admitted to not knowing who she was or bothering to look her up, but Miles Gray couldn’t have known.
A farm wife who found joy in painting, she grew so famous that John F. Kennedy memorialized her. She appeared on the cover of Time in 1953. She was friends with Norman Rockwell and appears in Christmas Homecoming. She brought turn-of-the-century New England to the world. It’s sad that she’s been forgotten now.
I don’t admire Grandma Moses for her accolades. I admire her for her portrait of Santa Claus that I would stare at on the upstairs landing of my house every day, flipping to the back of our copy of The Night Before Christmas to see the picture of this tiny old woman. This was the only woman I had in my life as a child who was doing something she loved without being mocked for her body. (Even as a child I knew that what my dad said about Dolly Parton, whom I adored, was not something I wanted to be said about me.)
“There emanates from her paintings a light-hearted optimism; the world she shows us is beautiful and it is good. You feel at home in all these pictures, and you know their meaning. The unrest and the neurotic insecurity of the present day make us inclined to enjoy the simple and affirmative outlook of Grandma Moses.” — A German fan, quoted in Wikipedia
I would look at these paintings and feel a sense of pride that someone could make something so wonderful but so outside of what everyone else considered beautiful.
Unfortunately, her work isn’t in the public domain, and most of it does not seem to be digitized. You can see what Bennington has here (this search is only for items with images) or peruse the illegal towels and sheets of a certain company that doesn’t much care for copyright. I really think every home that celebrates Christmas should have her copy of The Night Before Christmas, but I recognize that I’m biased.
I admire Grandma Moses for living a dream she had in childhood when she reached her 70s. She was someone I could aspire to be.
Most importantly, for a girl who was afraid to grow old and turn into her grandparents, Grandma Moses was a shining example of life continuing well into old age. And, as a (very) small town New Englander she showed me how far it was possible for me to go.
Now, in my 40s, I often get the feeling that my life is basically over; that because I haven’t become something already, it’s too late to start. Grandma Moses continues to show me that it’s possible.
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