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Patty's Story: Page 1 2 3 4 5 6
Early Teens - 17 years Excerpt from Patty's Story Artist Comments -Bonnie Van Moorlehem

 

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Painting 4 - Patty’s Story
Seizures
30” x 40”, acrylic on canvas

“One afternoon I was working in the school library basement putting books on the shelves, when I went into a seizure.  My left hand started shaking back and forth on the magazine I was trying to put on the shelf.  I had a hard time doing my work.  All of a sudden, my entire body started to shake.  I had a hard time standing still.  I was afraid I would be left and forgotten in the basement as the seizure dragged on.  It felt like the shelves were falling on top of me.  Sometimes I would have nightmares that this was happening.  It’s like being in a different world.  When I’m in a seizure I can hear people talking and saying my name, but I cannot answer them. “

--excerpt from Patty's story

 Painting No. 4, Seizures, --- has the figures in the background to represent Patty’s quotation that she could hear voices yet was unable to respond to them.  The composition of this painting came from a collage that I set up ahead of time.  I strung books on a fishing wire from our deck swing, photographed them, downloaded them to the computer, used a software program to cut them out and with the computer pasted them on a top layer of a photograph that I felt would work for the composition.  The flower shape at the bottom of the painting came from the first two paintings and represents Patty laying on the floor in a seizure.

Painting 5 - Patty’s Story
Climbing Walls
30” x 40”, acrylic on canvas

“When I was sick and I went into my seizures, I was climbing the walls.  I felt like I was trying to see how far I could climb except there was no end until I came out of the seizure.”

--excerpt from Patty's story

 Painting No. 5, Climbing Walls -- came about due to a request from Patty.  Originally, this was not a painting from the turning points of the story.  One day when Patty was looking at the progress of the paintings for her story, she asked me if I could ever do a painting about when she had seizures and she felt like she was climbing walls or going up stairs, but she never got anywhere.  Patty's description of her feelings for that memory was so vivid that it made it easy for me to paint this painting. 

Painting 6 - Patty’s Story
Escape
4 0” x 30”, acrylic on canvas

 

“There was one night I will never forget.  Everyone was in bed sleeping.  We had a clock that chimed twelve-o-clock.  It woke me up and I started to get out of bed and I started to walk.  There was a chair and an empty box in front of the bedroom door.  I stepped over them and went through the living room.  I unlocked the outside door and stepped outside.  It was twenty below zero with snow on the ground.  I was barefoot and only had my pajamas on.  I walked down the ditch a little ways, when I heard a voice speak to me.  The voice told me that I wasn’t going to see my house again.  I went back to look at the house for the last time.  Then my older brother David was running after me, calling my name.  The sound of his voice made me run faster.  I felt like I was going seventy miles an hour down the road.  I couldn’t seem to stop running and I kept calling for someone to help me.  At first, no one seemed to hear me, but then I got my answer because David and my Dad came and got me.”

--excerpt from Patty's story

Painting No. 6, Escape -- is a horrifying memory for Patty of an experience she had.  One January night (in Minnesota) when the ground was covered with snow and it was 20° below zero Patty recalls a voice telling her to run away.  Despite the fact that our parents had put a box and a chair in front of her bedroom door so that they could hear if she walked out of her bedroom, Patty manages to get out of the house.  Our brother Dave heard Patty leave and alerted our parents.
     To represent Patty’s terror I painted a black tunnel that Patty is fleeing into.  The upper left corners has purple shapes representing Patty fleeing.  The symbols of the clock, box, and chair are self-explanatory.  The yellow streams of light in the lower right hand corner represent our brother Dave and our Dad running after Patty to save her from herself.  The night this happened we all had awakened and felt the terror of what could of happened if Dave had not heard Patty leave the house.

 

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e-mail: bonnievm@mvtvwireless.com © Bonnie Van Moorlehem 2006