Molly

Molly was a painter who had a wonderful eye for composition, especially when creating collages of unusual materials. She loved the Native American culture of the Southwest, asiago cheese, nature and Francesco.

One of her paintings hangs on my wall. It’s an abstract work of Yosemite that combines old clothing patterns, canvas, and oil paint. At first I thought it was of pine trees in a snowstorm, with circles and shards of green objects scattered about. Now I see the light of creation coming through the mist and the sacred hoop of the Great Spirit, renewing the life of animals, people, and coyotes. Today I realized that the inspiration for the painting could have come one day when she was in Yosemite, looked up at the sun shining above the clouds and sending through beams of light, before the clouds thickened and took the sun away.

She was struggling with a brain tumor then. How she faced her struggles taught me the importance of living in the moment and celebrating what is good today, even if other matters are going wrong. She left this vision in her painting to remind me.

Five years ago this month, Molly died at age 41.