I’ve been reading this lately. What an inspiring, unsung hero she was.
Every painting appeals to me because of her use of subject matter and colour.
She pursued her art with quiet perseverance and had great humility.
Her lifestyle resonated with me; she painted around her families needs and quickly so that she could finish. She put her painting aside for a few years in order to be a carer.
Her art and her family were intermeshed and when asked why she continued to paint flower still lives and not something more adventurous, her answer was because it was part of family life and it enabled family life to continue to happen around her painting.
She pioneered this style of still life painting, where the foreground and background become one scene as if the flowers were actually in the landscape. She was never credited for it now or then, but her influence can be seen everywhere. Think of the work of Mary Fedden, Debbie George and Sarah Bowman.
She adored colour and sought to capture light in every painting. She painted in snow light, moon light and during the dark.
To the very end of her life she continued to travel, learn from others, love fun and humour and seek to be intellectually stimulated.
I don’t often read art books, preferring to be inspired by the eye candy instead. But other people’s life stories can help us along our journeys in ways not foreseen. Winifred painted out of a compulsion to do so, not competitively but quietly and steadfastly because she wanted to, she was pursuing something she had not yet discovered. And at the heart of who she was were her family and her art.
