Last conversation . . .

My mother announced that she was starting  a knitting club at her new home, an assisted living apartment in my home town back in Ohio.  She did not know how to knit. She excitedly told me how all she did was put up a piece of paper in the elevator in her own handwriting.  Wednesday at 1:30 in the second floor lounge. Twenty five ladies and a couple of men came.  They agreed they would teach her how to knit.  

Growing up, I knew my mother was a social being; PTA president, girl scout leader, manager of the nursery at church, secretary for four chiefs of police in my very small home town. She mostly knew everyone in town.  I viewed trips to the grocery store as a minefield of other ladies who knew her and wanted to "talk".  It was torture in aisle 3.

I returned to my hometown to stay with my mother when she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. After a few weeks, I had a solo  exhibition coming up in Amsterdam and was scheduled to travel to the opening, returning to Ohio from there, I had very mixed feelings about traveling to the other side of the globe , but she was absolutely insistent that I go.  The night before I left she had gone to bed early and I laid down next to her and said “Mom I want to say some things. “ I couldn't leave without telling her how grateful I was and how much I loved her and appreciated her support of me all of these years.  At first she tried to shut me down. She knew these were the ending kind of conversation, but I kept going.  She kept going too. She let the walls down and we talked about her life and eventually revealed about her regret in life .  She said, "Amy, there were only three choices for me after high school.  I could become a nurse, a teacher or a secretary and I had no money for an education so I became a secretary.” Her true dream was to go into politics, to be involved in ways that she thought would made change for the better.  

I was not shocked, knowing her interest in world affairs, reading 3 newspapers daily, keeping up with local and national politics and knowing her volunteer history in various campaigns through the years.  In that moment, I realized how much of her life was written by a system which worked for its own best interest.  For most of her generation the message was clear. They belonged at home and did not dare give credence to their own dreams. She did what she could with her own passions and found ways to contribute, but somehow at the end the disappointment lingered.

On the night of my opening I received a call that she had unexpectedly fallen into a coma and was taken to the hospice. I got on the next plane and about 30 hours later walked into her room. I sat down next to her and she opened her eyes. She could not speak but I felt she wanted to hear about Amsterdam. I spent about ten minutes giving her the highlights, she closed her eyes and returned to a coma state. She took her last breath within 24 hours. I was grateful to be with her in those last moments and most grateful that she waited for me. Soon after, I wrote the poem, “Laundry Day” not only for her but to honor generations of women past who perhaps had similar dreams and disappointments, but making the most of creating lives of note and importance.

Laundry Day

She looked behind her and saw

her future,

the passions of her youth,

slowly simmered,

tempered by unspoken contracts

signed.

Somehow the whole wide world

ahead, became

pink and green floral wallpaper,

dinner on the table by five,

laundry on the line on Tuesdays,

pressed pillow cases and

stacks of neatly folded diapers.

Ever so slowly,

the requisites of life,

took their place,

Her dreams, like leaves fell gently,

so quietly and calmly,

that not even she noticed

when they fell to the ground.

The Gift I didn't Know I Needed

Recently, I have had a moment, well several weeks, to reflect and the question which came to front was "Why put one more painting into the world."  As my sister noted, "You paint dead people."  and strange as it sounds I had never thought of these women as that, but something much more personal. I have watched the arc of my work go from bringing my simple color and line approach to painting flowers to a reaching for my voice and a purposeful intention of what I put into the world.  

My first painting was created from a utilitarian need to decorate our  very tiny rental house that my son and I had just moved into. I was a full time teacher and newly single mom. What followed, was a long series the brightest florals marked by opaque color and heavy black line. They felt in direct competition with a dark and a most challenging part of my life. Looking back, it was exactly what the moment called for.  I just painted, but felt no real purpose, apart from helping me pay the rent. 

I got up at 4:30 am during the week, went to the basement and painted until it was time to get my son and myself ready for school.  My first exhibition was at the back of my classroom and I did the hard part of just cold call asking if I could show my work at alternative venues. I found a warm reception at places like C'est La Vie and Scott's in Edmonds.  I found out useful things like work sold regularly if hung in a bar compared to the restaurant and too much of my earnings went to some really cute coats at C'est La Vie. I inadvertently tied my art to transaction and left my voice aside. I happily painted flowers and more flowers.

That all changed as a few years passed and life unfolded as it does.  I found myself in the confusing juxtaposition of raising children while caring for my terminally ill mom, suddenly and uncomfortably facing  generational transition, witnessing the theoretical ground itself in reality. Life was changing and my Art with it. 

One afternoon my mother  set  a stack of black albums, frayed along the edges and filled with black and white photos, all posted with the tiny black corners with names and dates written in white on the black pages.  These were her albums, full of her friends from long ago. This was not the family album but somehow felt more personal. All afternoon she went through each photograph, name, specific date and story.  I admit that when she gifted me those albums I listened somewhat impatiently and did not understand how important they would become and how much they would influence my work. 

During her illness.  I spent six months living with her in her assisted living apartment, stepping into her life for a time. Sleeping on the floor, eating dinner every night with her friends in the dining room, participating in the knitting club, entering conversations rooted in the past as if it was the present, witnessing first hand the funny and poignant community of those who know  the last chapter is being written. There It was a time with no regrets, I appreciated the ever fleeting moments and for  her presence and was so grateful I could be there for her last moments.

After she passed and I returned home I made a place for the albums in my studio. Many times since that day, I have looked through them through the lens of loss, knowing I could never ask questions again, noticing the revenant stories hidden beneath the surface. The clues were  in a look, a gesture, their posture, or a hint of feelings towards others in the frame.  

I started to paint the women in these albums and I haven't stopped yet. I moved beyond the known and visited the local flea markets and thrift shops when I visited my hometown in Ohio looking for discarded black and white photographs.  In these women I see a strength and resilience that I know my mother possessed.  Since her passing I have realized that this particular generation of women had secrets to keep and heartaches to hide and triumphs that no one celebrated.

They had their own time, just as we do now, but we also have much that we share as women.  A new perspective comes when our own children are grown and we have the space and breath to look at those who came before and to look at our mothers with new eyes. These paintings reflect a moment reclaimed, an acknowledgment of those who were  overlooked,, a final animation in recognition of their legacy.  

Shadowlands

Waiting in the shadows, 

standing in

the penumbra: 

the outer edge,

of shadows 

life so readily provided.  

Wired from the beginning 

to accommodate others 

before herself. 

The crooked path

to her own dreams, 

littered with 

deferments 

and 

annulments.

The kids are grown

They are less interested

in her than she 

imagined. 

She picks up her

heart and 

steps 

into the 

sun..

amy pleasant

copyright2026

The Language of Flowers

Widow’s Tears

Achimenes “Such Worth is Rare”

I have never been a widow.  

During a rather dark period in the middle of a heart wrenching divorce I remember having a remarkably inappropriate thought, “It must be easier for widows. No need to explain, defend or clarify the most calamitous and painful time of my life.”

That wrong headed  notion rattling around in my head took place before I watched my mother become a widow. I became an intimate witness to her profound loss. The indelible mark of fifty years of marriage ran deep. 

Their pragmatic match was one of opposites, my father, deeply private  provided a balance to the energetic outside world my mother revealed in. Growing up I saw that they were opposite in most ways, however, I was never too young to notice a genuine love between the two and a spark of romance which never seemed to fade.

I grew up often finding my parents dancing to songs playing endlessly from the radio in the kitchen.They spent their Friday nights before children at the Moonlight Ballroom at Myers Lake, so this just made sense to me as a kid. They were having fun, getting better at dancing.  I ignored them, going about my business hunting for snacks in the cupboard, sneaking a dirty dish into the sink. The faster the song the less attention paid to my covert activities. I would often wait for a fast tempo song to enter the kitchen when they were dancing. Benny Goodman was my friend.

In my teen years I must admit, I became slightly embarrassed for them as I picked up the looks, the hold, the evidence of a still lit passion. I soon stayed out of the kitchen when they were dancing. Looking back, I realize that they never fell out of love.  The dance became slower over the years, but they danced until the end.  It took his death, a foreseeable release after years of physical pain and suffering, to appreciate the depth of their love. The mixture of relief that he was no longer in misery, yet at the same moment devastated at the catastrophic loss.

My mother was left without her dance partner.  Grief overtakes for a time. Friends and family watch and wait for any small signs that the grief is reorganizing itself from all consuming front of life to the adjacent walking companion.  I was witness to my  mother’s realignment to this new life which I would describe as a metamorphosis. Grief can be the fire in the furnace transforming a base metal into gold. 

 I witnessed my mother become a wholly independent woman, having the physical and mental strength to sort through the accouterments of her life spent in the same house since 1954. She moved across the country, built a new life with new friends in a strange city and helped me, a single mother trying to raise my son. She became active in local politics, helped provide infant clothes for mothers at the day shelter and finally navigated her own terminal illness with grace and strength.  In the end her example has stayed with me, a gift from mother to daughter.

FAir ISle studio residency & adventure

(Photo Gallery below)

My residency at Fair Isle Studio got off to a bit of a rocky start.  After traveling to Glasgow and waiting for 2 days for the fog to lift to fly to the Shetland Mainland, we got stuck in Sumburgh on the southern tip of the island because of high winds and canceled flights. Our only choice was a 2 ½ hour ride on a fishing trawler (Fair Island Ferry) across the North Sea in 25-30 foot swells. My first clue of what was ahead were the seatbelts attached to the seats and stacks of little white bags on the seats. Once out of the bay it only took a few minutes to watch the porthole bob up to the sky straight down many feet below into the sea, fully feeling the back and forth as well as the up and down pitch of the boat.  I spent the trip with eyes tightly closed and hands clutching the sides of the seats, counting down the minutes. My oft repeated mantra taught  to students reverberating in my head, “I can do hard things.” with visions of “Deadliest Catch” interrupting every now and then. We arrived safely.  Many of the islanders were waiting as the boat brings supplies, mail and of course, Amazon packages. I learned that the ferry is avoided this time of year and they were impressed with our commitment to get to the island.  That sailing was the last for the winter.

Storm Ashley arrived the day after arriving with powerful winds and rains, swept across the treeless landscapes, pushed from the seas.   For a time we lost electricity and heat which were both powered by a windmill, but even the speed of the winds were too much for it.  Our traditional croft, built in the mid 1800’s kept us dry and was eerily quiet thanks to the 2 foot thick walls of the house. After those initial days the storm passed to reveal an island marked by a stunning landscape, with gentle green pastures and whitewashed cottages with spectacular views of the tallest of cliffs and stacks in the mighty deep blue sea, still stirred by the storms.  All of this magic just beyond the croft, in full view from the studio window

I found myself going outside many times during the day, standing on the porch observing the angry sea, sometimes walking down the hill to photograph the movement and shadows of the waves.  I have never been an artist who had any desire to capture water, but I simply became obsessed.  I dumped my original plans and started doing study after study of the rocks and the sea. They are dark and they are without resolution, an attempt at catching the movement and the mystery.  I also had the challenge of having one paintbrush and a small set of acrylic paints, both of which had been thankfully left behind by a former residency artist since all of my supplies got stuck in customs.  I quickly let go of the disappointment of this particular circumstance and embraced the limitations. Good things can come out of things being shaken up a bit.  

The island is 3 miles long and a mile and a half miles wide. It is owned by the National Trust of Scotland and is inhabited by about 50 people and many more sheep.  The people were absolutely lovely and  I made friends with the sheep on the property and learned so much from observing them.  (I am mulling over an idea for a children’s book.)  My husband was able to help out with the sheep and did a fair amount of repairing and putting up new fencing and helping one of the crofters vaccinate the flock.  There was also a shepherd dog who would accompany me when I went out for walks. He would silently join me and run ahead, turn and wait for me, walk closely and then run ahead and wait again, always returning to his farm at the end.  It was moments like these which added to the enchantment of this very special place. Taking a break from the conveniences, technology, traffic, crowds, even if for a bit, was refreshing and having the opportunity of doing Art in this place was simply good for the soul. 

Bloedel Notes . .

The year unfolded predictably, yet the acceleration towards the end has surprised me, as it always does. Sadly, it signals the end of my residency at Bloedel Reserve. I was granted full access since last December and was witness to the slow and steady turning of the seasons; starting with the barrenness of winter, the magical burst of spring, the long days of summer followed by the fading beauty and contraction of Autumn.

My initial intentions for the residency was gathering knowledge and on site experience in the rich and varied botanical world that Bloedel provided. I began a sketchbook that included one ink drawing of each plant and a more abstracted sketchbook entry. I realized there was so much I was missing so I began to photograph plants and their context finishing with over 300 to complete my catalog and provide a rich resource for future paintings, including an important series I will be beginning in 2025.

The secondary plan, unexpectedly, provided the perfect set up for a joyful focused observation of nature. I was challenged to find a way to apply my visual language to traditional plein air painting. Oh, there absolutely were some disasters, but I also experienced incremental and major breakthroughs, which resulted in a growing fluidity with each painting. I completed 15 sessions, each lasting 2 ½ to 3 hours on site and then another 2 hours in the studio to finish. I learned to translate the landscape to my own visual language; marked by saturated color, skewed perspective and blocks of color with little regard for value or tone. In the end, I am always interested in the feeling of the thing, while I am standing in the presence of the magical essence of nature, rather than the thing itself.

I am so incredibly grateful to Bloedel Reserve for this opportunity as a Community Creative. I entered this experience with a small idea of what I wanted to accomplish and I came away with that and so much more. I do residencies, not only for the amazing experience, but to push and expand my own practice. In teacher terms, its my professional development training. With this residency I was so fortunate to embed myself in this lushness and richness of Pacific Northwest habitat and observe, learn and apply in my own way. I look forward to see how the work that I have done will embed its way into my future work.

Watch my IG account for the work I did. I will be posting images over the next month.

The Furniture Moves Every Day

I was painting and teaching during the Pandemic.  Personally and collectively we have tried to put memories of that  first year of the pandemic behind us.  Ask any woman who has given birth to confirm that we all possess the ability to quietly push the truly uncomfortable far from our consciousness. In the field of education, that first year nearly broke us, the students, the parents, the teachers.  

I was teaching sixth grade at the time and it was March, that sweet spot of the academic year when students were feeling their own progress, finding their footing in the good habits built up over the year as they prepared to head off to middle school the next fall. 

At the beginning, no one (I’m speaking of the administrators) knew what to do.  We were told not to reach out to students, so of course, I started making short videos and putting them up on you tube and linking those to my site daily.  I loved teaching and felt just as strong about  my students and needed to find some way to help them through this time of incredible uncertainty. I talked with them, read to them, curated fun educational shorts, just to remind them that I was there and they are still a class, a kind of family. 

After we received direction from the district the fun stopped.  Each teacher had to take a curriculum area for our grade level and make videos. Sure, make instructional videos tied to our curriculum for everything we would have covered in class.  My first took 10 hours, as did every other teacher’s.  I cleaned out my art supplies from my home studio and set up my virtual classroom and my days became a repetition of the one before;  shower, commute across the hall,, teach, have virtual office hours to answer questions and talk with parents.  Each day finished with preparing for the next day which was no small feat since we were building from scratch.  My work day started at 7 am and ended at 10pm most days. There were no virtual substitutes so you just showed up whatever state you were in, however sick you were. 

The district announced that students were allowed to turn their cameras off. Unfortunately,, as one did, the others eventually followed. I did talk them into just putting their camera on the ceiling so at least I knew when they stood up and left the room.  Teaching to a box of disembodied voices was demoralizing and not what I  signed up for.  I did anything I could to get them to turn their camera on.  I came up with some pretty silly ideas, including the most popular which was blanket fort days.  Students were excited to show their creations to each other and I would put them in groups so they could engage with each other.  I did the same and was quite stiff those days but it was so worth it. 

September 2020 April 2020

On one wall of my defunct studio/new classroom I purposely left a cart full of paint and a 48x60 piece of raw canvas hung on wall.  I knew somehow I needed to stll create, although I had no idea what would appear. At night, before bed I watched my share of you tube shorts and ran across a longer video with a story about changing the furniture in the room and how unsettling it could be. Growing up my mother was a serial furniture mover.  Some days, I came home from school to find the living room furniture in a new or previously repeated configuration.  I never really liked it when she did that because I think many of us don’t truly appreciate and embrace change, even the simplest kind.  I immediately hooked on to this as a metaphor for how I was feeling about life during the pandemic. I dug out  a black and white photo of my parent’s 1949 apartment on Greenfield Ave. in Canton, Ohio to use as inspiration. I painted “The Furniture Moves Everyday” over the course of six months on weekends, over breaks, sometimes in the middle of the night if I couldn’t sleep.  This painting saved me.  It became a great source of joy, tethering me through the rough waters. It's one of my favorites as I look at it in hindsight with its crazy perspective, the weaving of real and figurative and it's sherbert on steroids color palette all combine to infer the uncertain, askew, sideways yet . . . joyful nature of life.

The Visitor

After moving to a rural area last year, having lived in the city all of my life, the differences were obvious, there is a unique rhythm couched on either side by the rising and setting of the sun.  Morning brought the song of finches and robins, the sharp crow of the rooster, a distant neighing of the herd of horses down the lane and the soft hum of the bees swarming the lavender.  The evening was quieter with the solitary hoot of the owl and far distant howl of one or two coyotes.  But, in the evening, just as dusk settled in, the deer would come. Every evening they come to graze, a few at a time, taking their turns over the unfolding of the evening.  

I really did not pay too much attention, just looking out of the corner of my eye as they appeared beyond the windows, until my dog passed. Buddy was the best dog.  He had been with me through raising three kids, a extended illness, spending his days keeping me company in my studio. He enriched our family’s life with unconditional love in that way that  dogs have shown themselves to be far superior to humans.  

After he was gone, that empty spot, that sense that there is another being quietly sharing your space was so pronounced, but I realized something one day.  I was paying attention to the deer.  When they came I stopped what I was doing and just watched them.  Sometimes I waved to them or went out on to the porch to talk with them.  They stopped being startled at my presence and shared their space with me, ignoring me or sometimes just making eye contact. 

Among these visitors was a young buck. He was the only one who would sit and stay sometimes for 3-4 hours.  He watched me as I had learned to watch the others.  One evening he followed me from window to window as I would walk through the house.  It was magic and reminded me of the gift of a creature’s presence.  The next day I started this painting.  This seemed like the right response to my gratitude to these majestic ones and my faithful and loving pup for their gifts to us.

Winter Days: Beginnings and Endings

I usually experiment and produce studies which serve as important building blocks for final paintings. This time I completed one painting with an idea in mind and then returned to the idea itself by going back to the most basic elements of the darkest darks and lightest lights; a taking apart, so to speak so that I may start to build back. We will see how it goes. See the video below.

Tulips!

I love the shape of tulips, been painting them in my sketchbook for years. I went a little abstract last week. I’m sure there will be more to come. They are all 22 x 30 on paper.

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DEADLOCKED and Loaded @ ArtRage Gallery Syracuse, NY

I am so happy to be included in the collarborative exhibition: Deadlocked and Loaded_Disarming America (Artrage Gallery, Community Folk Center, Point of Contact Gallery, University of Syracuse) I painted this after my experiences on lock downs and lock down drills.

FUTURE UNFOLDING: Flak Jacket Required

Before becoming a full time working artist, I spent several years as an elementary and middle school teacher.  Last year, I returned to the classroom in a one year teaching position at an elementary school. I found that the lockdown drills that I had previously done with students were laced with an urgency and sense of importance that was not  felt in years past.  In 2019 there were 45 school shootings.  This awareness hung in the air as I approached our first lockdown of the year. 

The next day was our twice yearly lockdown and active shooting drill and I knew we needed a thoughtful conversation and practice for this practice.  I asked my students to show me where they would go?  They all lined up along the wall. In a year of 45 school shootings, I immediately thought of the article I had read the night before that said students sitting or standing in a line assures that all will be killed at the same time. I started over, "I want you to go the place you feel most safe in the classroom." They easily split themselves up, went with a friend and choose  their own hiding places in cubbies, under desks, in closets, behind the steel laptop cart.  A few lingered until I made sure the doors were locked and blinds were pulled and settled with me between a desk and bookcase. It was silent.

Students take these drills seriously and they become a source of high anxiety for many.  I try to prepare them and also contact their parents so they can reassure them at home.  I always include a conversation to hear their perspective and invariably someone suggests wearing flak jackets to school, "We can make them pretty with pictures and different colors."  This usually leads to "Why don't we have bullet proof backpacks or special shields at school. Let that sink in. These are the thoughts of children trying to keep themselves safe. 

I have been in two lock downs which were not drills, including fitting an entire class of young children in a windowless closet knee to knee.  These are experiences no child should ever have.  Surely, this society can agree to a solution for the most vulnerable, for the future of our children and the future of our nation.  I have always felt that if the decision makers could spend a day with us during a lockdown drill the politics may give way to a  a stronger yearning for real solutions so that our children can be children. 

Amy Pleasant