“Ideal Housewife, 1960”

In a Life magazine from the 1960s, I found an ad for Bell Telephone (the only phone company back then) that featured the image of an ideal housewife. After altering the color of the original photo, I made her evolve. On the final abstraction I placed a symbol of the prehistoric Goddess from the Cyclades Islands.

Cycladic Goddess

“Kitchen Goddess”

I decided to dedicate “Kitchen Goddess” to my mother who, like most married women in the 1950s and 1960s, was a housewife. Problem was, she didn’t like my art very much—well, she liked some flower paintings on black velvet I did when I was twelve, but nothing much after that. However, since she was dead, why worry about whether she would approve? Well…

In 2011, a cancer began growing on Mother’s kidney. Since an operation would have meant considerable pain, disability, and possible death, her doctor advised using pain medication, coping, and living fully with the time she had left.

Ruth, age 88

When I visited Mother a few months before she died, she gave me final instructions:

“I want you dressed in a suit for my funeral,” she said.

“I’ll wear a coat, dress shirt, and tie, I promise.”

“And don’t wear underwear with holes in it.”

“Nobody can see my underwear.”

“I’ll see it.”

“You forget, if it’s your funeral, you won’t be there.”

“I’ll be there. And if your underwear has holes in it, I’ll come back, stop everything, and make you go to the store and buy a decent pair.”

I truly did not believe my mother could return from the dead to haunt me, but just in case she managed to pull it off, I made sure, on the day of her memorial celebration, that my underwear had no holes.

As her cancer progressed, Mother grew weaker but still insisted on living independently in her house. So my brother hired a woman to help cook and clean. Of course, according to Mom, the lady was inefficient and sloppy and should be fired. My brothers and I pleaded with her not to fire the lady. We told her that she couldn’t live in her house without help. That seemed to work. She continued to complain but didn’t fire the lady.

In July, 2012, Mother took a turn for the worse. After a short stay, the hospital sent her to a hospice on the other side of town. Once she regained some strength, she wanted my brother to move her to a hospice closer to her house so her friends could visit more easily. My brother made arrangements, but on the day before she was to move to the new facility, she asked him how much it would cost. The monthly fees were high, but my brother told her not to worry. There was plenty of money, and he could always sell some stock.

“I’m not wasting good money on dying,” she said.

My brother again assured her that money was no problem.

“And I can’t ever go back home? I’m stuck in a bed forever?” she asked.

“Probably so,” my brother replied.

When he returned the next day to move her to the new facility, she had fallen into a coma. She died a week later. Apparently she decided that the money she had left was for her legacy, and she wasn’t about to spend it lying in bed waiting for death.

“When you die, do it cheap,” she had told me.

“I’ll try to remember that,” I assured her.

My mother had very definite ideas about what was what. On her scale of values, underwear without holes ranked near the top. My art probably ranked near the bottom. She didn’t like it, but if it kept me out of trouble, she figured that my art served a good purpose. So most likely she wouldn’t return from the dead and denounce “Kitchen Goddess.”

One other computer print was inspired by Mother. Back in the 1950s, she went to church every Tuesday to make a novena to the Mother of Perpetual Help. Not long before she died, she told me she had been praying for help to endure her mother-in-law who harassed her to the point that in 1955, she considered leaving the marriage. I never realized this. I’m sure my father was in a quandary, not knowing how to soothe his wife or to stand up to his mother. Then Missouri Pacific Railroad offered him a promotion to General Agent if he moved from St. Louis to Birmingham, Alabama. My mother’s prayers had been answered.

The second piece of art I made in my mother’s memory featured the icon of the Mother of Perpetual Help. It’s possible Mom would have approved of this picture—maybe.

Mother of Perpetual Help