Meadow Lane Art Gallery
Oil Paintings by Luanne (Wentworth) Peterson
Harmony, Minnesota
Links: http://www.amishwritings.com/
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Meadow Lane Art Gallery Oil Paintings by Luanne (Wentworth) Peterson Harmony, Minnesota
Links: http://www.amishwritings.com/
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A Little About The Artist... When I was very small, my Father was always drawing or painting something. I can remember him sitting me down beside him and he would tell me that he was going to show me something about drawing a tree. "It's like Magic!" he would say. He showed me how you could draw a tree trunk and it would simply look flat on the paper. Then he would continue to shade the outer edges of the tree. Soon the tree looked round. That was my first lesson of many that he taught me. He would paint stage coaches with wild black horses running so wildly and fast. When he finished painting a wild horse it simply looked like a picture...but, put a little dot of red in the corner of each eye and the horses seemed to come alive! That was another one of his many tricks. I never really got to put my art to work until I was 50 years old. I would try to paint something and nothing ever really happened. One of our Amish friends was suddenly killed in a tragic farming accident. My husband wanted me to paint him as we remembered him, and that of course was a blacksmith. I can still remember the thrill when our friend and the hot coals in his forge came to life. It was quite a thing to watch it come to life right before my eyes. At last, I had finally found my subject matter. It was around me the whole time and I didn't even know it! From that day on, I have been taking things from real life, and can actually tell a story with my artwork, which to me, makes it all worthwhile. I always said that if I could reach just one person I would be happy, and I did reach one lady. She wrote me a letter and was thanking me for making all these paintings so that she could enjoy them. Here she was almost blind and she was thanking me! It should have been the other way around. I still have that letter today as it really humbled me. My next painting was of a wood chopper, as I finished it I was thinking of how good a nice cup of water or a cup of hot coffee would taste. It made me think of something our minister had said when we were first married. He said that you shouldn't say that you like or dislike someone unless you have actually sat down and had a cup of coffee with them. Besides that, I don't think that it is up to us to judge anyone at all. Someone else will do that for us. I guess those words really had a lot of meaning for me. That is why I like to sit and have a cup of coffee with someone, you really get to know them...so that is why there is a cup in some of my paintings. All of the Amish paintings are something that I have seen that had really moved me. In later years I started working in some of the history of the Harmony area in the backgrounds. My first scenery painting was of our home farm. At one time there was a large Dutch type mill there and many people came to have their flour ground. We found the foundation of this mill right where I wanted to have my garden. Our son, Larry, almost dug up the whole area one time looking for the many coins that were dropped there, he did find quite a few! Another reason for the painting was because I wanted my grandchildren to know what the farm looked like many years ago. I went on to paint the neighbors farm. A good friend of ours, Wayne Hoag, helped with that. He told me so much history of the farm that I knew that I had to paint it. This one is called "The First Springhouse Crossing". He told me that this was the first farm settled in the Harmony Township. Calvin Hoag came here from Illinois and found this place, he then walked all the way back to Illinois to get his family. They settled on this farm and the one up the road from us, which we call the "Hoag Farm". There are still descendants living on both of these farms, from way back in 1852. I came to this area in 1952, 100 years later. My husband, Lloyd and I have lived on the same farm since 1952. This is where we raised our family, and where I milked cows until I was 67 years old. Since 1980, when I was 50 years old, I started my paintings. I have been painting at least one painting each winter for the past 30 years. My husband wouldn't let me sell any of them because when my father passed away, we didn't have any of his art work left to enjoy. Lloyd did not want that to happen to mine. We kept all of them over the years and had them hanging in many business places in the Harmony area. Last spring my husband opened a beautiful art gallery for me and now all of my paintings are hanging all together in one place. It was quite a thrill to walk in to this room and see all of them hanging on the walls so beautifully. I have no words to express what I was feeling at that moment. Without my husband, none of this would have been possible. He is the one that got me started in my painting again, and the one that keeps me going. When I would get discouraged, he would lift me up and always had great confidence in me, actually more than I had in myself. One of the main things that I've tried to do, was to put a lot of love, patience, and kindness in each one of my paintings. I hope that people who view them, can feel what I was feeling at the time I painted them. I feel that this is my small gesture in this fast moving world and I really hope that it will mean something to someone! Any talent that I have, I truly believe that it comes from a much higher source. I simply just hold the brush....
"Head of Christ"
Just A Little Note To Any Would - Be - Artists : Don't let any criticism keep you from pursuing what you want to do. I painted a picture when I was about 30 years old and took it to an art show. It was called the "Head of Christ". The judge told me that I shouldn't have even bothered to bring it because no one knows what Christ looks like. I was so disappointed that it took me another 20 years to get up the courage to start again. Now I am sad that I missed out on the best years of my life, when I should have been painting. Now it is getting harder to do. My words to anyone who has something they want to do...Don't put it off, tomorrow may be to late. Luanne
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Meadow Lane Art Gallery
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