Grant Wood's America

As a little girl in Alaska I wasn't exactly exposed to fine art. I don't even remember an art museum. My dad was faithful to take us to the latest Warren Miller ski movie each year.  http://www.skinet.com/warrenmiller/
His true art appreciation phase was later in his life, after he retired from milking cows twice a day.

But one image I vividly remember is a Grant Wood print at our friend's house. The wife was a consummate homemaker.  All the Alaskan women seemed to excel at something and Betty was the one who grew humongous begonias, made all her own clothes from complicated, elegant Vogue patterns and decorated her house with midcentury modern furniture.  Well, it wasn't all that many years past the midcentury but it was sleek and chic compared to our dairy farm utilitarian decor.  My mother, God bless her, only had a school teacher's brief summer to fuss with her home decor.

When our families gathered for dinners or holidays at Betty's home,  I would stand and gaze at her small German windup music box. The box was just the base for a tiny scene- children and tiny clothes on lines and bunches of flowers. Sweet and romantic and delicate. These images and faint tinkle of mechanical music still tickle my memory and  again I am a small child, gazing the eye level at the tiny scene.  And above the long, low cabinet where the music boxes lived, was a Grant Wood print. Rolling hills of greens and yellows.  Rows of perfectly planted corn.  Peace, order, harmony.

"Young Corn"
http://bjws.blogspot.com/2012/10/1930s-americas-great-depression_12.html

http://www.grantwoodartgallery.org/grantwood.htm


Grant Wood's America is not real life, nor was it then.  He is more known for his iconic "American Gothic"

"American Gothic"

but his image of idyllic rural life touched something deep in me.  Perhaps the rough, not quite finished atmosphere of Alaska gave me a longing for the apparent permanence of a Midwest townscape.  My front yard faced the same looming mountains that Betty's did.  But her house reflected orderly, Midwestern roots and that contrast must have spoken something to my young soul.


So this week as I drove across the rolling hills of the Midwest, I was back in a Grant Wood painting. The light was terrible and the trees were only hinting of their fall colors but the same impression was there.  Fresh cut edges of stubble outlined the even lines of golden corn. Crops smoothly moved over the rounded hills.  Apple orchards had produce stands and I munched on a carmel apple of a variety I've never heard of.  Amish buggies occasionally shared the road with cars and trucks.  Farmsteads were tidy and a variety of barns begged to be photographed.

In my South Dakota life I see barns that tell the tales of failed attempts to conquer the land. Empty house slant into the wind, black windows are sightless eyes staring without life.  Spent and conquered, the farm will eventually crumble into the wildness of prairie.

But here in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin, man has won over the land. Or at least here are scenes of cooperation and productivity, established patterns of crops, orchards and gardens.  Like a Grant Wood painting.

All that musing as I drove came from a print from my childhood. It was a small journey back into a formative memory.  And I wondered- what children who come to my house see? Are there images in my home that will spark a lifelong  longing for beauty or order or the Creator?  I love to create a visual feast for just my eyes to enjoy but this trip across an image of my childhood reminded me- you never know what visual memory you are creating for others. Especially the children of your world. It's not the same as a tour of a fine art museum.... or perhaps it is.

Beauty will save the world.  What's my part in creating that beauty? Not just for my own soul, but for the other people, large and small. who share my world.