My Father's Influence

July 21, 2015 was my Dad's birthday, Donald Sykes Lewis Sr.. He would have been 96. He did a lot of wonderful things in his life. Not the least being bringing up a daughter and a son who loved him very much. His love for art has enriched all our lives.

Dad brought beauty and the understanding of good design to everything he touched. He established Auslew Gallery, in 1952 in Norfolk Va. Against the better judgment of all the rest of our family. As a child I remember everyone telling him that there had never been a successful art gallery in Norfolk. Richmond was the capital and maybe he would be better there. He persevered. In the beginning he ran two businesses at once. He still maintained an adding machine business while my mother ran the newly formed art gallery. The first summer my little brother and I went to work with her so the business could get off the ground.

The Gallery became one of the largest in the southeastern states. Dad specialized in American Art. He had only a few years of College letting his older and younger brothers go in his place, but when it came to art his thirst for knowledge was insatiable. He studied books on art and read every bit of information he could get on American art. Without a degree in his field he became recognized as an authority. He could spot a great painting even under layers of old varnish and dirt. He both cleaned and restored paintings. He was good friends with local College professors Charles Sibley, artist and professor at Old Dominion , and Parker Lesley, Art History Professor and adviser to the Queen on renaissance jewelry. He was deeply respected.

Dad was also an inventive artist in his own right. He came up with something he called "cloutage". This was a process of using found metal pieces and combining them with paint to produce some wonderful pieces of art. An example of one hangs in my living room next to the large one by his grandson Lewis' large painting (1st photo).  When I was in college he had a show of his work some where on Madison Avenue in New York City. The show was successful. Leo Castelli wanted to handle his art, but told him he must do much larger pieces. His work was done on board with metal and was extremely heavy as it was. (One of his paintings is in the photo above and to the left.) My brother and I were both in the middle of our education. Dad was worried about supporting the family. After showing in New York he felt that somehow he had made it. Little did he realized what Leo Castelli could do for an artist's career.

Dad never pursued his art career any further. The Gallery thrived he bought estates of artists, one of the largest being that of Herman Herzog. He had paintings by most of America's well known Artist of the 19th and early 20th centuries. One of the last estates that he purchased was the Eliot Candee Clark estate.

At one point he sold a Renoir to the Norfolk Museum. My mother brags about having slept over Monet and Renoir. Dad had them on consignment and he worried about their safety. So, he stashed them under their bed at night. In fact, when they left for a trip my husband and I were entrusted with their keep and we also slept over both a Monet and a Renoir. We carried the Renoir around with us wrapped in our dog's blanket. Later it was put on display at the Virginia Beach Board Walk Art Show, as art having been donated by the school children of Norfolk. There was a guard and ropes to keep people back. If only they had know.

My Dad was the caretaker of our family. He was the middle child but he was the one the whole family looked up to even his older brother. Our house was where they all gathered.

Before he died he was intent on making sure that his family was taken care of. He worried particularly about me and my sons. Being a divorced mother of three sons, he worried about how we would survive without his support. He purchased the building, that houses our shop, thinking that we could have an art gallery. There were not enough paintings to fill 8,400 sq feet. But antiques and art go together. Two of my sons got their start in very good businesses from that building. How pleased he must have been. We all feel as though he is still taking care of us. Scott my middle son has his own auto repair business thanks to a loan from Dad's trust. Chris, Lewis,and I feel as though he watches out for us giving us nudges in the right direction toward finding our treasures. I personally miss being able to ask his advise, but know that somehow, with his guidance, I'll make the right choices. He spent his life teaching us.

I still feel the need to pick up my phone and call Dad to ask his advice.  I could always count on good advice.  It was not what I always wanted to hear but, never the less his advice was right on.  I see him now in my sons, Lewis in particular.  All my sons felt as if Dad was their Father too.  When I got my divorce Chris was a senior in High School,  Scott was Fifteen and Lewis was ten.  We went to live with my parents.  He was always there for the boys and myself.

The father's day before Dad died, I had the good fortune of writing him a note to tell him how much I loved and appreciated him.  After he died I found that note tucked into his things.  I realized how much it had meant to him.  I was truly lucky to have had him as my father.

Still Working on My Art

I am sustaining and continuing to work on the quick oil beginnings to my newest painting.  I did a quick sketch  of my dark tones to begin with getting tree lines and fields arranged.  This lined up my perspective and worked to begin to draw the eye back into my painting.  Gaining perspective in your art is one of the most important things in your design particularly in a landscape.

I had used muted greens and earth tones to sketch in the dark tones.  Next I began to work in the sky.  I did not want to have too much contrast  in color and tone.  The day that I am portraying was somewhat gray and overcast.  I was careful to mix my blue with my white toning it with ocher and senna tones.  I used my darkest color highest in the sky and defused this with lighter variations of  similar colors toward the horizon.  By doing this I was able to give a suggestion of  light clouds.

Next I worked with the ocher and senna toned with some white and green in the fields.  The furthest field was lighter than the closer fields.  You get glimpses of this through the trees.  I worked planes of these colors through the fields in the mid ground and in the fore ground I began to break up these same tones some what brighter and using my brush strokes to suggest grasses and weeds.  Writing about how I go about painting actually makes me clarify in my mind how I go about approaching my paintings. I'm trying to find time and energy to finish this painting.  The trees in the middle ground have only the darkest tones on them now.  I need to go back and add medium tones careful to retain my freedom of brush stroke.  In the foreground where the grasses are depicted I need to work a little more.  The final touches in a painting are always the hardest.  These need to be considered and added careful not to over do.

Back to making Art

I've written before about the difficulty I've been having about starting and even sustaining an art project.  Painting has taken me through some really tough times.  It helped me get through my divorce and raising three sons as teens alone.  Art is my Salish.  It has been my refuge from problems it has allowed me to regain what sanity I could garner in troubled times.  It has kept my calm.  To paint one does need a clear mind.  I have never before had to contend with a crowed mind.  My elderly Mother is loosing her memory and her short term memory is so bad that I am forced to think some for her.  I do this because I love her, and because she so often took care of me selflessly.  We were each others best friend and now I try to understand how she is feeling.  I see glimpses of Mom as she use to be.  Her voice echoing the past. This can misled and confuse because you could expect her to be as she once was.  This is just an illusion.  Come back to reality and accept the current reality do not expect too much.  It has taken months if not a year for me to accept our reality.  Once accepted then life does become easier and less difficult.  If this is confusing for me just think how terrifying it has to be for her.  With my somewhat hesitant acceptance of our reality comes a clearing of my mind.  I can not change reality so make the most of what you have,  live life, and love.

With my acceptance of our reality I have begun to experience some freedom of thought.  Gradually I have attempted to finish some of my paintings that I had started.  Last night I found a photo of a fall field that I had attempted to paint maybe ten years or more ago.  I had done a large painting that I was never satisfied with.  The house where I had painted this was too dark.  When your lighting is not right nothing seems to work.  Colors are off.  Once you belabor too much with a painting, you loose the freshness.  At any rate that painting did not turn out to be good.  Last night I sketched in my dark tones of this field with loose brush strokes.  This is a fall scene but fall with muted tones of greens and browns.  The interesting thing is that the hedge rows and tree lines all help to describe visual space.  I also have a beginning of atmospheric perspective in the early stages of this painting.  This is exciting and I can hardly wait to get back to my painting tonight.

I have Post Polio

Once the pronouncement has been made.  You have Post Polio.  What do you do?  The first thing that I did was to start making plans.  I had no insurance.  I was self employed.  I had an old wheel chair but it was manual.  They had told me that all my limbs were involved, that was a lot to take in.  My Dad helped me get a used handicapped van and a used jazzy wheel chair.  I don't think I could have done it without help.  My son,Chris and I were doing Antique shows.  We did the outside Brimfield Ma. Show.  We step up in a tent.  They did have outside handicap restrooms.  Thank God for little blessings.

There are some things that are easier to do from a wheel chair than walking with crutches.  This was amazing.  I could do grocery shopping on my own.  I did not need help carrying boxes.  In the past I had a lot of baskets and bags, so that I could carry things from one place to another.  Having a motorized chair and a vehicle to carry both myself and my chair actually gave me a lot more freedom.  I had to give up visiting my friends who had steps going into their homes.  We now meet for lunch or dinner out, and do our visiting there or at my house.  I've had to make charges to accommodate being in a chair.  The chairs work well unless they are not charged or something happens to them.  If the chair is disabled you are up the creek without a paddle.  Fortunately I had three sons, all of whom would help out their mom in a pickle.  Chairs can be disengaged and pushed when necessary.  I learned about this the hard way.

Shortly after having to use a chair full time I was able to get disability.  Two years later I got medicare.  This sure did help out with expenses.  I was finally able to get a chair that was right for me.  There still is no help with vehicles.  A new handicap van runs between $50,000.00 to $70,000.00.  I've been lucky finding two used vans so far.  It seems that the handicapped parts go bad before the actual van goes.  I end up fighting doors and ramps that don't want to close, and power seats that short out.  Never the less I am extremely fortunate and happy to be able to have a handicapped van even with all the frustrations.
 
I love to cook and my kitchen is at normal height.  I learned to use a kitchen work table to chop and mix on.  I have an electric fry pan that I can use on my table.  I dream of being able to design a kitchen for my needs.  I think that I would lower the cabinets and have large draws that pull out rather than shelves.  I have not been able to use the upper cabinets in my kitchen at all.  I purchased an antique Chinese cabinet for my living area that I use to store my china plates, bowls, glasses,etc.  This looks great and works well.  The table is butcher block and looks good.  I think I would like to incorporate more counter tops of this type with a shelf underneath.  I.'d like a gas counter top range at table level, a built in oven, and a lower country kitchen sink that is open underneath so I can get close to the sink with a dish washer with drawers as well. I'm not sure what I want in a refrigerator and freezer. 

I moved into a 55 and older community.  Everything is on one floor.  I had a ramp built for the entrance and a small deck with a ramp to the back yard.  I was very fortunate that my backyard was already fenced in.  So I could just let my two dogs out to do their duty.

A New Chair is on it's way.....hurrah!

Never in this world,did I  think that I would get excited over A WHAT?!  A Wheel chair, but I think they are finally getting it.  I use a chair or maybe we should say I abuse a chair.  What I really do is live my life just the way I would if I still could walk.

So Friday Robin from West Home Health Care in Richmond came to our shop with a new chair for me to try out.  It had front wheel drive!  It would drive differently from my Invacare chair.  My Invacare chair had lasted six really good years, but all  f a sudden I found that a lot of little things had started to go wrong.  If you depend on a chair, you really need one that works.

The new chair was designed in Sweden.  And much like some European cars, this seemed to be built to last.  The clincher was for me that I took it out into the back of the shop and it ran easily through our gravel drive.  We often go to outdoor antique shows such as Brimfield Ma.  A lot of the fields there were gravel and it would wear my batteries down in no time.  I would have to find a plug and sit and charge.  As you might guess I don't like to sit still a lot.  I also felt bad about imposing on people for an electric charge. Everyone, however, was nice about assisting.  I got over being embarrassed about asking for help a long time ago.

The new chair is by Permobil.  One of the harder things that I had to decided was a color.  Ok, color is not that important, except that this has mag wheels and colors like Baby Blue, Burgundy, Silver, Hot Pink, and Chili Pepper Red!  In the past I've been sedate, choosing Dark Green, and Black. Come on, everyone needs to live a little!  So, you guessed it I'm going to bite the bullet and go for CHILI PEPPER RED!  I justified this because I sometimes take my chair to work and I'll be more visible crossing RT. 3, or Main Street.  Our town is not that big, but there is a little traffic and it would be safer than say Blue, or Silver, both of which were also tempting.  What can I say, my wild side just took over. Besides, this is my version of a sport car.  Imported no less.

Getting parts was a concern, however the rep let us know that they now have an American factory in Tennessee, and that getting parts would only take a day or two once ordered.  Lewis, my youngest son and partner said it looked like a sports car in comparison to  my old chair.  Don't get me wrong there was nothing wrong with how my last chair lasted or handled.  This one is just a better choice for me.

Polio and Post Polio

I had polio at the age of four in 1948.  Today if I smell wet warm wool it takes me back to being in the hospital as a child.  They tapped my spine to find out if I had polio, and then they put me into isolation so no one else could have been affected.  In order to keep my body from contracting and hurting they put wet warm wool compresses over my body.

I remember being sick at home that July with measles and then with a strep throat.  One morning after a particularly fretful night, the doctor came to the house and asked me if I could walk.  I remember saying, "put me on the floor I can crawl."   After that my parents whisked me off to the nearest hospital mom holding me in her lap.  Mother sat by my hospital bed and read to me.  At one point they transferred me to De Paul Hospital, here the Sister's of Mercy helped with the nursing and there was a whole ward of children mostly affected with polio. There had been an outbreak of Polio in North Carolina and Norfolk Virginia was just a ways across the border.  I remember the other children our beds were lined up.  Several children were in iron lungs to keep them breathing.  Several times while I was there we had electric storms, and the electricity went off.  My father, doctors, other parents, any one who could help crank a generator to keep the iron lungs working.  Other children came into the ward too.  One girl had fallen off a horse while riding and had a steel plate in her head.  A little chinese girl came in she had been burned terribly.  I remember a little boy who had polio and his arm had been paralyzed, in later years we actually met again. 

During this time my parents would do anything they could to keep me happy, because all I wanted to do was to go home.  So they would ask me what I would like them to bring me.  I most have really upset them when I asked them to bring me a real fairy. 

That night mother went home and tried to figure out how to handle that request.  Finally she decided to make up a story for me about my own fairy, and to take a small doll and make that doll into a fairy.  Every day after that she would bring me tales of my fairy who lived in my grandparents back yard.  I was thrilled I had my own personal fairy.

I was in the Hospital for several months when I finally came home my brother was almost a year old.  My parents still took me for therapy to De Paul Hospital.  Dr. John Vann was my doctor he had had polio himself as a boy and he became an orthopedic surgent. He sent me to Warm Springs Georgia, where Franklin Roosevelt had his Little White House.  The doctors there were some of those that had worked with President Roosevelt.  After examing me they sent me home saying that Dr. Vann was one of the best. 

Now what was left for me to do was to live my life as normal as possible.  In the beginning I had a brace on both legs and a corset to hold my back straight.  I used crutches to walk with.  Eventually they did away with the right leg brace and the corset.  It was not until fifty years later that I knew the true extent of my paralysis.  Mother had told me that I had been paralysised from my sholdiers down.  Silly me I never realized that my arms were included in that area.  I used and abused my arms.  After all I used my arms rather than my legs to walk with.

When I reached Fifty, forty five years after coming down with polio, I began to experience some weakness.  Going up and down steps had become more difficult.  My arms had begun to ach sometimes.  I put this all up to aging. Actually several years before when I was working out at the "Y" I felt some weakness in my arms after swimming for a long time.  I register this, but tucked this worry away refusing to think about it until another time.

Around fifty five I really started to worry.  The term Post Polio had been batted about.  Did I have Post Polio?  I neede to know.  I began to be fearful, and a little depressed.  I needed to know.  I also needed to get disability.  I was afraid to go places without a son or a friend for fear of falling.  I needed help getting around, a scooter maybe?  How could I make a living if I was dependent on others to get me places? 

So I took matters into my own hands and made a appointment to be evaluated for post polio.  The die was cast,  there was no turning back now.  My son, Chris, took me up to Richmond Virginia to the Sheltering Arms Hospital to see Dr Wooten.  She specialized in Post Polio.  They ran me through a battory of test.  The result was yes I did indeed have post polio. Both legs were involved and both my arms.  MY ARMS!!!  I never really knew that my arms had been affected.  She said it would be best if I did not over use my muscles.  I needed to use a wheel chair.  She said I should get an electric wheelchair,  that my regular one was too much for my arms.  This was a relief in a way.  But I had no insurance and how could I afford an automatic chair. Once you use a Scooter or automatic wheel chair how do you get around?  All of a sudden I had a whole new set of worries.

I did notice after that somethings had become a little more difficult. I tended to ignore and go on.  I did start sitting some in my old wheel chair just so I would not burn myself out.  Eventually you do have to retrospect and look at what is happening in life

So What is Handicapped?

If you would ask me if I was handicapped, I probably would say that I am not.  I came down with polio as a four year old.  I do remember being able to walk without crutches or a brace, but now being in a power chair is my reality.  My parents did an amazing job of not spoiling me.  I'd sure that it would have been much easier to pick me up when I fell rather than watch me try to figure out how to get up on my own.

My brother was a baby when I contracted polio. As I was learning to walk again, he was learning to walk on his own.  When I would fall down he would come over a let me lean on him in order to help me up.  We had a symbiotic relationship, I would translate what he was trying to say.  Unfortunately this was not as good for him.  He started talking in sentences, and I was the only one who could understand him.  My parents made me stop.

Walking with crutches seemed like an adventure, especially when I discovered that with crutches I could swing my legs and jump way far off the curbs.  Off course this was not the proper way to use crutches, but it was fun.  I don't think that I ever really learned " the proper way to walk".  I walked with crutches in my own way for a very long time.  I carried my book bag to school sometimes filled with books.  Eventually I walked across campus at Old Dominion  College with books etc.  I lived my life like any other child, teen, young adult with no excuses.

I had several operations to keep by body straight.  I have never thought of myself as handicap.  I remember being offended when someone referred to me as paralyzed.  I never thought of myself that way.
I think this was probably easy for me to feel this way, because I was so young.  Having a handicap happen to you as an older person must be more difficult to accept, to a child life is an adventure.

Sometimes I think now what my life would have been like if I had not had polio.  I'm afraid that I would not have met my husband. I  would not have had the same children.  I might not have had the insight that I like to think that I have on life, and that I would not have done as much with my life or my art. Sometimes adversities that happen in life are a blessing.  I think that I am somewhat fatalistic.  I feel that there was a plan for my life that I need to fulfill.  I have been thrust into the public, not nationally but locally.  I have run businesses with the help of first my husband and then my sons.  Years ago in 1980 I was awarded handicap Professional woman of the year by the Pilots Club in Williamsburg, Virginia.  I feel that people who see me realize that people, who have handicaps are just like them.  Needless to say that I have never dwell on being handicapped.  It's just the way my life is and I have always tried to live life to the fullest.