Art in the House

One of the things that was important to me right away after the diagnosis was to get art in the house. There was one print, particularly, that I wanted to get framed. Then a friend who is a letterpress artist and whose class did a letterpress project with my stories from Habits, Rachel Melis, sent me a few broadsides. Interestingly, Rachel is a fellow Grinnell alumnus and also her grandparents lived on our farm.

Right away I also knew I wanted art from my niece Sophia. Sophia grew up on the farm and began painting at a young age. She went to the Rhode Island School of Design for her B.F.A. and then came back to the farm for a year to concentrate on her painting. After some experimenting with abstraction, she settled in on a monthly series of large paintings based on landscapes that are a combination of elements on the farm and a soaring vision of the natural world. She claims Grandma Moses primitivism as one influence, but these are mythical and realistic at the same time, and textured with materials like plants and seeds and fibers from the farm itself.

I knew which one I wanted to borrow– “February,” a winter scene that included a view of our house and the gardens. I don’t think I remembered that it included the whole farm and all its buildings, and the tree nursery, and a cross country skier, too. It struck me that Sophia’s house is really in the middle of things– the tree nursery to the west and our house to the east and the buildings with all that action directly north, the large skating pond directly south. She grew up seeing all of it. Sophia immediately agreed to loan the painting to me, and we’ve decided to switch it out every 6 weeks– 3 paintings over my chemo journey. Next will be “May,” and then “July.”

On Sunday afternoon, Annie (her mother) and Sophia (accompanied by Ellie the dog) carried the painting across the commons and up into my bedroom. It almost immediately began working on my imagination. That night, I wrote a poem about it. I hope to write more about it in the six weeks, but here is a start.

“February”
on a painting by Sophia Heymans

The painting is carried across the field to live with you.
In it you recognize everything except the perspective.
There’s nowhere you can stand to see that much,
not even on your porch, not even your roof.
Not where you can see every crooked nursery tree
and your own garden and the pig barns, too,
and the Kluesner grove, and all three houses,
and even your husband’s foot track to his shop,
and there, look—someone skiing the perimeter.

You have to be a child of this farm, one who can fly
above it all and see beyond the windbreaks,
one who can hover in the cold winter sky
for all the days needed to capture it.

photo of painting copyright Sophia Heymans.

To see more of Sophia’s paintings, including this entire series, go to: sophiaheymans.com.

To see a music video made by Steve’s daughter Catherine Orchard for Paul Spring’s song “Conversation of Mass” that features Sophia (and boyfriend Paul) at Saint John’s and in our neighborhood, including Sophia painting, click here.  This farm is a wonderful, creative place inspiring art in all its forms.