Tuesday, November 10, 2009

early atomic age, 1950's


"lemon grove" this is the painting that took second place in the recent san diego county regional show at escondido arts partnership. it's moderately sized at 30" x 30". thats a good size, especially compared to my published work which is generally 8" x 10" or so.
the image is from my family album. it's of my mom and brother in 1952 in a town (now a city) called lemon grove, CA. the home of the giant lemon (in background here). also dennis hopper's hometown. in fact dennis' mom, marge, and my mom, ruby, were best friends, especially later in life...until my mom died suddenly of heart failure in 1992.
we all went to the same methodist church. in the 1980's i was living in england when marge and her husband, jay were visiting. she called me from her hotel to arrange meeting for dinner the next evening. sadly, however, she called that morning and said she was sorry but they needed to go back to the states ASAP, jay was feeling ill. that week he died. i felt so so sorry for them. but he had wanted to see england and they had done that. at least. it was very upsetting to our family let alone to her and i assume dennis. it was very unexpected. marge and my mom loved to go antiquing together. she often visited or even "sat" my mom's antique shop in lemon grove. they had a lot in common. for one thing, both marge and my mom were very energetic, happy women in their 70's.

4 comments:

Lorie McCown said...

Lisa, this is such an awsome painting, and such a moving story. Your art is fantastic.

Anonymous said...

I'm quite fond of this one, mother. Well, you know I like dark themes.
Jamie

Colette George said...

Your story is very interesting. I can just picture everyone. I'll have to tell Ted too, he loves Dennis Hopper.
The painting is gorgeous but I too thought it was a bomb shelter. I loved the retro look and feel to the painting, very evocative and nostalgic.
Colette

Lisa Bebi said...

thanks lori.
thank you for your nice comments. colette. yeah, even a few local people who know of the giant lemon in lemon grove and my prepensity to paint from my family album, thought it was a fall out shelter.
the theme of the show was called "nurture v. nature" which gives the piece even more pungency.

jamie, my son, i am always very touched when you take time to look at my work. i know you are very busy. love you, boy. and i have to say, it has always struck me as funny (in an incongruent way)that such a happy-go-lucky lad loves things dark. how do you like my auto paintings? earlier post.

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