Laura Nelke Cattails and Flowers Entry...

In the southern Mexican state of Chiapas clumps of white calla lilies grow wild, clinging precariously to steep, red, highland slopes.  Rural women, descendants of the proud and ancient Mayans, harvest the elegant callas by the armfuls to sell in the city’s marketplace.  The marginal existence of these indigenous women often seems as precarious as that of the blooms they depend upon for their livelihood.  Born on their sturdy stems these heart-shaped blooms are perfect visual metaphors for the people of Chiapas--great-hearted in their generosity; imbued with dignity and resilience of spirit.  Upon visiting my daughter in San Cristóbal she gave me a magnificent ‘welcome’ bouquet of these elegant calla lilies. 

My artistic challenge was to paint white callas, but to do it in such a way as to celebrate the riotous colors of Mexico:  lush tropical greens; the sunflower-cement walls of my bedroom; the terracotta-rose of sinuous window grills; gregarious magenta and fuchsia bougainvillea. Ultimately this painting is visual expression of gratitude.  It is both a thank you note to my gracious Chiapan hosts and a love letter to my daughter. 

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I love winter.  Like other forms of hardship, it forces people into community—“hang together and survive” is the message.  The subject of cattails seems the perfect vehicle for my wintry contemplations.  Who in Wisconsin hasn’t negotiated our snow-covered roads and observed the dried, brown clumps of cattails in our roadside ditches?  Standing tall in culverts they withstand the passing insults of snow plows.  Unrelenting Canadian winds snap the brittle leaves and accompanying weeds, but the sturdy cattail stalks prevail and resolutely await spring’s thaw.  In that regard they are much like the tough, mid-westerners who are their neighbors!

A frosty mid-winter afternoon lies at the heart of some of nature’s most glorious contradictions:  the shortest days are marked by the longest shadows; a cold, icy world is bathed in the irrationally warm light of a low-hanging sun.  This painting attempts to capture winter’s beauty and celebrate its contradictions.