The Art & Poetry of Mary Coleman

The biggest influences in my life are my mother and grandmother. My mother was an artist and my grandmother was a social worker. The two were very different and affected me in different ways. My grandmother was well educated and very lady-like. She was born in 1912 to a mother who valued education over marriage and was encouraged not to marry until she had completed college and had an established career. As a result she didn’t have a husband until her mid thirties and no kids until her late 30’s. She would have been considered an old maid but her mother, who was born in 1865, didn’t marry or have children until her mid thirties as well and set the example. She wanted her girls to be more than just wives and to be self sufficient and not dependant on a husband. My grandmother had four sisters and no brothers. The eldest was born in 1902 and my grandmother was the youngest.

I only knew my grandmother when she was retired as she was in her 70’s when I was born. She lived in a little house in Lake Oswego (my grandfather passed away in 1960 when my dad was a kid) and I spent every weekend with her and went to church with her on Sundays (she was a devout Catholic). She took me everywhere; to the ballet, the symphony, the zoo, the children’s museum, children’s plays, the science museum, to broadway shows when they were in town, and the opera. She was the only one who would watch children’s programs with me and would tape them on her VCR which she got in the early 80’s and that was very novel for the time.

My mother was a very different creature. She had a typical middle class upbringing in the suburbs of Kansas City, but she rebelled against her parents and got pregnant at 16 (in 1965). She married her first husband but the marriage was annulled quite quickly because he was a terrible person. Then she left her baby with her parents and ran away to St. Louis where she met a biker and got pregnant again and married him. This time the marriage wasn’t annulled and she had a further two children. She grew very unhappy, however, and out of love with her husband. Once again she ran away, going to Chicago and leaving all her children with their father who she divorced.

In Chicago she met my father, who again, wasn’t a very good person (she really knew how to attract the wrong kinds of men). She got pregnant and married him at the court house and moved with him to Portland, Oregon where I was born. My brothers and sisters (minus the eldest who was 18 when I was born) came to live with us. My father did not get along with them and was abusive.

Anyway, how is this related to her being an influence on me? Well, she wasn’t the best mother but she was a wonderful friend. When I was old enough to think for myself and mostly take care of my own needs (around 8 years old), we grew very close. She was a painter and showed me how to draw and paint. She would watch movies with me every night (each week we went to the video store on dollar day and got out a ton of movies) and taught me to love film. She never rented children’s movies so I was regularly confronted with adult themes and stories that made me think well above my age. Similarly she would share her books with me so I was reading adult novels from a young age. We would go to the book store after we finished books and sell them back to buy more books (we also went to the library). She was the one who really got me to read a lot (my grandmother mostly stuck to romance novels and wasn’t particularly drawn to literature).

My mother adored me and encouraged me in everything I did. She was so happy I went to college because she never got to go. When I went to art school she was over the moon. She had a fiery temper and we fought a lot when we lived together (because we were so similar) but we always tearfully made up afterwards and hugged. She said some awful things to me, threw things at me, and bit me once, but she never meant any of it (it was all done in a passion) and I knew that so I never held anything against her. My father, unlike her, meant every mean thing he said so abuse was much more hurtful coming from him.

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Today I let my husband open a present and he chose to open the biggest which was an Apple Vision Pro. He’d been wanting one for ages so we went to the Apple Store on Sunday and he got fitted for one. It wasn’t much of a surprise but we sort of don’t go for surprises at Christmas. Little surprise gifts sure (like stocking stuffers), but the big things we buy ahead of time together because it means we actually get what we want.

I bought a ton of good food for Christmas and Christmas Eve. We have nice salami and cheeses to put on crackers, cookies that a friend made, orange juice, egg nog, ginger beer for Moscow mules, and tonight we are going to Portland City Grill on the top of the bank building for a three course dinner. Tomorrow we are having pot roast and I’m making ham, corn, and cheese muffins for breakfast. There will be lots of nibbles from the food in the stockings as well.