I’d mentioned a while back (in my post about my ‘button
tree’) that my great grandfather was an artist.
After retiring from owning a music store, he and my step great
grandmother bought a vacation home in the Smokey Mountains of North
Carolina.
In their seventies, one summer they signed up for arts
classes… he took a lapidary class (NC is full of gem stone mines) and she took
an oil painting class.
And they hated them.
So they swapped classes!
And each found a new hobby that nourished their creative souls.
Their mountain cabin looked down thru a valley at Mt.
Mitchell. Inspired by that view,
Grand-dad painted en plein air from the deck.
More Impressionist in style, he painted what he wished to view that day.
Sometimes it was a quiet church.
And sometimes it was a pristine lake.
Other times he worked in his studio; painting flowers my
great grandmother grew around the yard. I
love the heavy palette knife work he did on this one.
And sometimes he was inspired by stories he read, such as
the Greek mythologies.
I have inherited his desire to create. He is my inspiration to always keep learning
and growing and trying new things.
Floyd Davis
I think the thing I remember most about grandad is that when we went back to the "cabin" in NC years after the deaths of grandad and Mae, the new owner was there, he took us thru the original house, nothing had changed, except they improved the kitchen, (they have many children) this was almost like a museum, it was almost difficult to see, I expected that grandad and Mae would greet us, anyway on the tour around the yard, it too was the same, grandad was everywhere, nothing was changed, I mentioned this to the man, he said,"You know your grandfather was a genius don't you?" yes, he was, so many memories !!
ReplyDeleteHey Mom, I wish I had been able to know Grand-dad and Mae as an adult. But my childhood memories are sweet too.
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