Sentimental Sunday: Keeping the Lord Company in the Dark

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)
Phillip Columbus McCormick (1892 - 1981)


Phil and Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's love affair with Spain began in 1960, when they arrived for a couple of months and ended up living there for a year, making some of the best memories of their lives.  Benita - my great-aunt Detty - also created some of her best art there.  In her untitled ode to Spain below, she painted a loving picture of the country that captured her heart and sparked her imagination.

Iberian Peninsula at night, NASA,
International Space Station, December 4, 2011
Creative Commons; in the public domain

My husband and I used to wonder

About this nocturnal activity of a people.

It puzzles most visitors,

But we think God loves it.

Picture, if you will, El Rey de los cielos

Gazing nightly upon our dark, revolving earth.

All is stygian

Except for a little glimmer

Around New York. 

The Americas are asleep.

Then, gracefully, España spins slowly into view

And warms His heart.

For there below, stepping gaily but with authority,

Heads high, spines straight, toes pointed,

Under the gleaming lights

Of every town and city in Spain,

Pass a proud and beautiful people,

A whole nation of night-walkers,

Laughing and talking

To keep the Lord company in the dark.

- Benita McCormick

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Copyright ©  2015  Linda Huesca Tully

Treasure Chest Thursday: We'll Always Have Barcelona

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)
Phillip Columbus McCormick (1892 - 1981)

Married couples often have a private word or catchphrase, born of shared experiences and rich with meaning.  My great-uncle and great-aunt, Phillip and Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's catchphrase was, "We'll always have Barcelona."

"Las Ramblas" depicts a Sunday afternoon on the famous boulevard in Barcelona.
My great-aunt Detty, Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, painted this as an ode to the
year long sojourn she and my great-uncle Phillip McCormick spent in Barcelona.
Oil on canvas, 1970.

Those of us who loved them during their 50-plus years of marriage knew that of the countless places around the globe they had visited, nowhere else resonated with Aunt Detty and Uncle Phil more than that captivatingly proud, complex, and progressive land of Gaudì, Dali, and Picasso.

Barcelona was many things to Phil and Benita.  It was a retreat that offered them respite from the pangs of separation as they watched their children become adults and reclaimed their own lives.  It was a haven of inspiration, offering new ideas and methods of expression to an artist and an art lover who welcomed growth and new ideas.  And it was a seat of romance, where Arab and Roman influences danced gaily with the Catalan culture and rekindled their passion for life and each other.

As time passed, all it took to elicit a nod and a knowing smile was for one of them to repeat that storied phrase, summoning in an instant those memories of their glory days in Barcelona.

In 1970, some ten years after their extended stay there, Aunt Detty painted a tribute to the city that stole their hearts. Titled "Las Ramblas," it is an 18" x 24" oil on canvas depiction of various groups of people, from lovers on a park bench to little girls in their First Communion veils and dresses to their parents gathering with their families on the famous Barcelona boulevard on a sunny Sunday morning.

"First Communion Sunday in Barcelona."  Inspiration for her later oil on canvas
painting titled, “Las Ramblas,” this was painted by my great-aunt Detty, Benita
(McGinnis) McCormick. It is reminiscent of Degas’ style. Her writing in the
lower left hand corner notes the title and her name, "Benita E. McCormick.”
Watercolor, circa 1970.

Their daughter, Jane (McCormick) Olson, gave me the painting many years ago.  A couple of years before she died, she gave me another, smaller painting, this one a watercolor, of the same boulevard.  It seems that Aunt Detty had painted it first but was not entirely happy with the result, so she stored it away in a trunk for many years.  Both paintings hang on adjacent walls in our family room.

First Communion Sunday, the watercolor above, focuses on a group of little girls right after their First Communion and is reminiscent of the motion and pattern of an Edgar Degas ballerina portrayal.  Unlike its later version, Las Ramblas, its mood is brighter and more impressionistic by way of its lightly-brushed figures and pastels. The day feels warmer, hot even, with a flat light on the ground and surroundings. 

By contrast, Las Ramblas has a more complex combination of shadows and light. The time of day seems later than the one in the watercolor.  There is more subtlety in the details and gradation in the colors, with just a hint of a light blue sky beyond the sunlight-dappled canopy of trees. The activity is more varied; while the little girls first catch your eye, your find your gaze traveling diagonally toward the flower stand in the lower right hand corner, up to the center where the men in white suits stand as their wives talk, and then finally resting on the young people on the bench who seem oblivious to everything but each other.  

I have always loved this painting the most of all my aunt's works.  Every time I look at it, I wonder about the stories behind the people and marvel at how they seem so connected.  Though I have yet to visit this charming city, still I am drawn into its busy, charismatic boulevard where untold surprises await.  I can almost hear the lilt of my aunt's voice beside me as I weave my way through a sea of faces and a cacophony of sounds - life at its best.  

Thanks to Aunt Detty, we too, will always have Barcelona.

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Copyright ©  2015  Linda Huesca Tully

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: Visiting El Greco Museum

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)
Phillip Columbus McCormick (1892 - 1981)

Toledo, about an hour's drive from Madrid in central Spain, was one of the excursiones requisitas,  or obligatory stops, for my great-aunt and artist Benita (McGinnis) McCormick.  She and my great-uncle Phil made a pilgrimage to the Museo del Greco during their year-long Spanish sojourn in 1960, to view the master's dramatic artwork and see a replica of his Renaissance-era home.  

Benita and Phillip McCormick leaving El Greco Museum.
Caption reads, "Recuerdo de Toledo - Casa del Greco."
"Souvenir of Toledo - Home of El Greco."
1960, Toledo, Spain.

The caption on this picture postcard is disconcerting.  While the museum is situated on land where El Greco's home may have stood, the home within is in fact a very good replica.  It probably did not matter to Aunt Detty and Uncle Phil, who like many visitors to the museum, were presumably more awed by the excellent exhibit of many original paintings and sculptures of El Greco and other 17th century artists.

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Copyright ©  2015  Linda Huesca Tully

Travel Tuesday: Rebirth in the Land of Mañana

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)
Phillip Columbus McCormick (1892 - 1981)

When a letter begins with the words, "Sit down," a big announcement is sure to follow.

That was how my great-uncle-and-aunt, Phillip and Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, learned that their daughter, Jane, had married her true love, Eldon "Ole" Olson, in a private church ceremony in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, in May of 1960.

Reading the news in their Barcelona pension, some 5,000 miles away from home, they were undoubtedly surprised, though maybe not entirely. True, it had been easier to see their son, Bud, marry and start a family, but letting go of their daughter was tougher to do.

They had to admit that she did what they would want her to do, which was to follow her heart and do things her own way.  Besides, she had tried her best to cushion the news.

Did Aunt Detty gold-leaf this small statue of
the Virgin Mary? From her collection of Spanish
Madonnas, it now sits on my dressing table. 

In characteristic fashion, Uncle Phil and Aunt Detty rose to the occasion. Swallowing their pride, they sent her and Ole their congratulations and decided to extend their stay a while longer. And being the larger-than-life couple they were, even in their 70s, their idea of "a while" turned into a year.

Spain, a place to retreat in a moment of uncertainty as they struggled to give their daughter some room to grow, became the place of their rebirth and rediscovery.

They made the rounds of the major art museums and architectural jewels, not just in Catalonia but throughout the country and became active members of the local artists' colony. Uncle Phil, already somewhat familiar with Spanish, began taking a conversational class so he could talk to people during his long walks through town.  Aunt Detty, always looking to reinvent herself artistically, signed on with a master artist to learn the art of gold leaf.

In a 1960 letter to my parents, Aunt Detty's words spill out breathlessly, and she seems to abbreviate many of them to help her fingers keep up with her rapid-fire thoughts.  Here, "g.l." stands for "gold leaf," while "E" stands for España, or Spain:

I've had 6 days of wonderful gold-leaf application.  Yesterday I g.l.  a little shelf.  Today I do the Virgin (plaster) that I helped repair & prepared for g.l. yesterday.  There is no one I know of in our country doing this gold and silver work and after we tour the rest of E, we may return here for Sept. & Oct. do do further study with this wonderful maestro - the head of the craft in Barcelona.  We work in his studio-workshop - the former stables of a castle (walled - even now, if you please) and so old that even Antonio's father, who had the place before him, doesn't know its age.

I wonder if the small statue of the Virgin Mary, shown in the picture above, is the same plaster Virgin that Aunt Detty was gold leafing?  My cousin, her granddaughter Suzanne (Olson) Wieland, gave it to me a couple of years ago, one of a collection of Madonnas Aunt Detty brought back from Spain.

Evidently, her hosts were equally fascinated by their older pupil:

Each day our lesson from 4:30 pm till 8 pm is punctuated by loud rings of the bell to admit some visitor, or client, to meet the "Americana."  [The maestro's] daughter, 14, brings her school friends and his sister-in-law came to check on me. . . . Evidently I pass muster, look harmless, and so get the welcome Española!  I love them all.

Aunt Detty and Uncle Phil were especially taken by the Spaniards' slower pace of life, their philosophy that there is always mañana - another day, and that if things don't resolve themselves right away, they will work themselves out eventually.  In the same letter to my parents, she marvels at this slower pace of life.

Joan, this is a week to the day from the start of this note.... you also know what mañana means - Mary Harlow told me that if a Spaniard says "Mañana - mañana" that really means the next day.  but life is so full here - I can understand how it takes months to get things done.  No wonder they think we do everything by "machinas" we move so much faster than they.

As with everything else they did, Phil and Benita McCormick wholeheartedly embraced the lifestyle of mañana.  Sure enough, they gradually accepted the idea of Jane's being married and lovingly welcomed their new son-in-law, Ole Olson.

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Copyright ©  2015  Linda Huesca Tully