Life With Ferris: More Grace Than I Deserve

My mother is an artist and I have a whole lot of paintings and portraits of “myself.” I love them all, of course, even though she tells me every painting of a woman is of me, and she tells my sister each is of her. My sister and I just shrug our shoulders and appreciate the art, no matter who the subject is.

There is one piece I know for a fact is of me. It hangs in my bedroom over my bed, and I remember her painting it like it was yesterday. We were on a family vacation at Litchfield Beach, and I was irritated at everybody. I flounced down to the beach, ignoring whoever the object of my irritation was, and plopped down in a chair with my book. (I would love to take creative license and say I was very young had barely learned to read but I was fully grown and definitely knew better than having a hissy fit when some miniscule thing did not go my way.)

My mother always traveled with her paints, brushes, empty jelly jars and a canvas. She took advantage of the long stretches of afternoons during which her disagreeable subjects were in the ocean and out of her hair.

In her makeshift studio on the porch overlooking the ocean, my mother had a perfect view of a bad-tempered girl reading a book with the sea and sky behind her.

Every time I look at this painting, I am transported to that afternoon decades ago. And I remember scowling up at her fiercely when I realized she was not listening to my complaints at all. She was totally absorbed in her work and paying no attention to my theatrics. I’m guessing the sound of the waves crashing on the beach helped drown out my vocal tirade.

I only told my husband about my memory of this painting the other day. It’s hung in each of our houses over the past almost-40 years. But I’d never shared these details.

“Huh,” he said. “You don’t look mad in the painting.”

I wanted to say that I was just a subject, a body with a head. Shoulders that slump one way or another and hands that hold certain shadows when they are still. My siblings, father, neighbors and I were used to serving as live models, turning our heads just so when ordered and flexing or pointing our feet, depending. Really not many of her paintings end up being portraits of us, most just vaguely similar.

But for this one, the one of the girl reading by the ocean, I know it is me. And like she always has, my mother brushed over my disagreeable, difficult and demanding side. And painted my portrait, giving me the benefit of grace. Much more grace than I deserve.

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Ferris Robinson is the author of three children’s books, “The Queen Who Banished Bugs,” “The Queen Who Accidentally Banished Birds,” and “Call Me Arthropod” in her pollinator series “If Bugs Are Banished.” “Making Arrangements” is her first novel and is available in paperback and on Kindle. “Dogs and Love - Stories of Fidelity” is a collection of true tales about man’s best friend. She is the editor of The Lookout Mountain Mirror and The Signal Mountain Mirror.