Book Description

The paintings of Dorris Curtis are an accomplishment on several levels, a tribute to her industry, talent, and commitment to what must be recognized as at bottom a preservationist impulse, old as Herodotus. Their claim upon the attention of viewers, as with any paintings or sculptures, is initially a matter of spontaneous attraction varying in its motive with every viewer. Subsequent reflection, however, would surely note a complex mix of aesthetic and nostalgic elements in their appeal. In her "Memories" especially, but also in the paintings she grouped under other headings, Curtis re-creates in durable form and color the rural Oklahoma world she knew as a child and lost all too soon. That early loss - of cherished home and even more cherished mother - would in itself be more than sufficient as a sustaining motivation. But there was also, in the spectacular career of Anna Mary Robertson Moses - better know first as Mother Moses and then even more famous as Grandma Moses - a wholly conscious model and inspiration. On a wintry March day in 1973, according to her own account, Curtis was at home in Conway, Arkansas. The schools were closed , and the teacher, a woman of sixty-five facing retirement, found herself thinking of the upstate New York farm lady who became a famous painter at eighty: "'Grandma Moses started painting without formal training when she was seventy,' I reasoned, 'creating memory pictures of her childhood. Why can't I do the same?'"