Changing Perspective

Several years ago my mom got a print of the painting Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth and gave it to Shannon for her apartment. I really liked it, and in a yard-sale gift from the universe, my mom found another framed print of it and gave it to me. I'm not sure exactly how, but Leiah also ended up with the print.
Christina's World is like an artwork thread that keeps us all connected. I can't help but think of my mom and my sisters when I look at it, but I also like it because it reminds me of being at my Grandma Scott's house growing up, looking back at her farmhouse from the distance, a tether to safety. In the suburbs you couldn't get too far away without losing sight of your home base, but in the country, especially the flat fields that make up the country in Indiana, you can wander far away and still feel like you're in the front yard. Leiah said it reminds her of the times we used spend afternoons laying in corn fields trying to trick the buzzards into circling us, being out in the middle of nowhere, trying to maintain the same stillness that Christina mastered for the painting.

Turns out, we're both clueless.

Dr. Mack came home the other day and schooled me on the painting. Apparently, as his teacher told it and as I later confirmed on Wikipedia, Christina is not looking back on her home in quiet reflection. She has not tried to run away and is lurking on the perimeter to see if anyone notices. She is not trying to trick the buzzards.

She is paralyzed on the lower half of her body due to an undiagnosed muscular deterioration and she is dragging herself across the field to get home. Because that's how she gets around. By dragging herself.

Wyeth, whose summer home was across the field from the house you see in the painting, was friendly with the real life Christina and her brother and used them as inspiration for many paintings.

It's kind of cool to know the truth behind the painting, the one that hangs in our bedroom, but it's also kind of a bummer. I mean, the fact that it has a twisted secret matches our artwork tendencies pretty well -- I was recently told some of my favorite pieces are "morose" and "bleak" -- but I actually liked that it wasn't as cryptic as my other stuff.

For instance, Christina's World does not have a single stick figure in it, something Mack claims is in most of the artwork I buy. And it's of a girl who has clothes on. And there's no blood or obvious anguish. And there is a natural space just waiting to be planted with thoughts. And it, technically, could qualify as a landscape, and I actually don't like landscapes in art all that much (I much prefer the real things).

But I guess it's just not meant to be. If something really was all sunshine and rainbows, I probably wouldn't like it. Unless it was an UMBRELLA.