Barbara Ellen Baston-Beausoleil

 

To the grateful members of her family she is known as Mimi.

 

She danced through life with a beautiful smile, and taught us how to do this too.

 

She cooked us good food with the vegetables she grew in her garden.

 

She graced us with her vibrant presence, adorning our world with color and light and form.

 

She continues to embrace us, to inspire us, to encourage us and lift us up, but we miss her scolding us to help us do better.

 

We, the family members and friends she left behind, honor her memory and celebrate the many gifts she left to us.

 

 

She Dances in the Spirit World

Bobby BeauSoleil October 2022

acrylic on canvas 6" by 9"

 

This past October I was working on a painting (not depicted here) and found that it would be helpful to have a second surface on hand for testing my brush strokes and colors, or removing excess paint from the brush before applying it to the main canvas. The painting was being done on a canvas that had been prepped with black gesso, so I tore off a small piece of canvas about 6 by 9 inches from a larger piece of scrap canvas, and painted it black in preparation for using it as a secondary test surface while working.

 

When I was done working late that night, and putting my materials away, I looked down at the little scrap piece of canvas, and was dumbfounded to see that I had produced a second painting that night without any awareness of doing so. There amidst the swirls, flourishes and spots of paint I had randomly applied to the little scrap of canvas was a "visitation" in the form of an image of my late wife Barbara dancing in the spirit world. If you think I'm bonkers for saying this, well, maybe so. But I find it impossible to interpret this work development in any other way. The image came unplanned and unanticipated exactly ten years after Barbara's untimely death. I hadn't even been thinking about that. Some independent forces or consciousness was working through my subconscious actions that night.

 

The image arrived in potential. Some additional work on my part was required to bring the image forward and make it more present, but not very much; just a bit of refinement to some lines and enhancement to the colors that were miraculously already there.

 

Barbara was a dancer in life, so it makes perfect sense that she would appear in this form. I have found the entire experience to be very reassuring.

 

Bobby

 

 

©2014 Beth Hall |  Images are copyrighted to their respective owners