My mother is an artist with a capital A. Last year she kept talking about an idea she had to recycle pieces of plastic and combine them with a painting on canvas. I just didn’t get it until she showed me what she was up to.
She meticulously cut pieces of clear plastic into elements of her beach scene and then used a knife to cut slits into her canvas to insert her figures. My mom grew up in Palos Verdes California during the golden age of surfing. She was 13 in 1957 and came of age in the era depicted by the movie American Graffiti.
Her brother Harry was a greaser with a 57 Chevy and her brother Roy was a renowned surfer who ended up living in Australia building surfboards after serving in Vietnam.
So much of their childhood was spent at Redondo and Cabrillo beaches along with exclusive neighborhood beaches like the Royal Palms and Portuguese Bend. Southern California was an oasis that had yet to become too crowded.
My early childhood consisted of my dad being hard at work in his camera repair business and my mother taking my brother and sister and me to the beach in our 1976 Chevy Vega station wagon. Redondo was my favorite. I cherish the fact that my mother painted the surfboard on the beach the same color as the one my uncle made and gifted us on one of his visits back to the states.
I still can feel the cold water of the garden hose my mother used to spray off all the sand on us before we were allowed into the house when we got home.
I still love to travel down to southern California and visit these childhood haunts. I spent five days last winter cruising around with a buddy.
Surfing is the hardest thing I have ever tried to do. When I was a kid I was legally blind so I couldn’t venture far out into the ocean. 20 years ago I had lasik eye surgery and a colleague from work immediately signed us up to go take surfing lessons together on the Oregon coast. It was amazing. Many years later I realized a dream of surfing with my brother with my son and his kids at Redondo beach while my sister and mother watched from the comfort of a beach chair.
Anyway, back to this painting. When I saw what my mother had done I realized she had created an entire story in a single canvas. I took my mothers iPhone and started making photos of her painting to show her what I saw. The depth and dimension was amazing.
Yesterday I finally got around to setting up her painting and using my macro lens to make a series of photos for a children’s book project. I think it will be fun to share this with my 4 year old grandson. We just need to come up with the text.
She is currently working on another canvas based upon old photos of my uncle’s surf shop in Australia. I think when she get’s that one done we will have a really nice volume of images to work with for a children’s picture book.
