ESSAY/ARTWORK:My Sister-In-Law's Art

I have a Birthday Twin, bestowed upon me as an extra gift from my husband when we married and I took his name 15 years ago. She is Peggy, my sister-in-law. We are married to brothers, John and Dayton, singular and distinctive each, an Ogden tendency, as I was to learn.

Now, a Birthday Twin is someone who is born on the same day as you, but our Twinship has a few extra features, which amuse, please, and cause us to marvel, no matter that one doesn’t comment on Fate, lest he knows we’re gossiping about him.  Besides the same day coincidence, we were born in the same year, and each of us has a beloved first child born on the same day.  And we are both artists, drawing, sculpting, loving nature, families, animals, travel, children, concerned about the world and our grandchildrens’ future.

 We discovered that the use of our middle initial, “R”, gave us the same signature for our artwork - “PRO” .  Now, when I sign an artwork, I always think of the other PRO and wonder what new work she is creating or finishing, wishing a little blessing for her and it. In her houses I feel such a familiar comfort; filled with heritage and charm, they satisfy much of my East Coast shelter/residency fantasy.  

These years have gone by fast, and we’ve got timely mileage now, resonant with the shared perspective of our generation, family ties, and similar energies, concerns, and sensitivities.  

We went back to the East Coast for an over-due visit last weekend, and what was she doing but painting stones and little rocks!  

I thought about all the artists in time who’ve sought out stone. They all will talk someday,on a single Heavenly cloud, about what they see animate in the closed form, what they release from the rounded volumes.  From Lascaux to Michelangelo to suiseki, the enduring material, so shaped by the powerful universe, holds some child-like wonder, like cloud-gazing, intuitive, and self-reflective at once; and the magic happens each time one walks a beach or trail, wades in a stream or hikes among erratic boulders or climbs a mountainside.  

And sometimes, truth be told, we take away a stone. The impulse to collect, cherish, and remember, so powerful that we carry it away and keep it.  What becomes of it, each only knows. 

A woman who is passionate about animals, the spirits she sees in the stones are revealed by her paintbrush: the humour, sweetness, vulnerability.  Here is her menagerie:

I think that each stone must have a voice that only those who are listening can hear as they walk.  And this is what they have become.  I’m smiling.