0008 A Woman's World

She was artistic as a student, sweet-natured, imaginative, not overly ambitious; a good catch for him, the fellow student with the drive, the ambition, the great family connections. They married young; she did what so many girl art students have done: gave him all her intelligent support, bore and raised his children; and in the few brief moments that she was granted for herself, took out her student paintbox, and while the kettle boiled, sat at the kitchen table, and beyond the view of washing-up part painted that familiar view – a jug of garden flowers on the kitchen window-sill.. and when he left her for another strong woman who, however, sculpted the cutting-edge new abstract thing she brought up his children by herself and when they left the nest, and she, now older, had more time to give to paint, she returned - as so many artists do – to that motif, for them an eternal reminder of that moment when the exalted mind sees, beyond the kitchen sink, a glimpse of that great heavenly view beyond the garden flowers, where she could walk into that paradise that eternally awaits the sweet-tempered heart.. and year by year, the modest jug of flowers on the window-sill became herself and she became that heavenly view until the jug of flowers burst into glory and she did what only ikon painters, praying, do and gold and silver joined the rainbow paint to point the way to an eternity where kitchen sink’s now holy path; that is more now than now and she became, the painting is, a jug of Eden's flowers on a kitchen window-sill and with all heaven in its sight