Grandma Moses

For those who recall Grandma Moses as an overexposed pop figure who bordered on the kitschy, "Joy Ride," at the Westwood Playhouse, is a chance to re-evaluate and reassess. * Sure, Moses was a media phenomenon. Naturally, her work has been exploited in a variety of commercial venues, including Hallmark cards. Granted, she was drubbed for decades by the critical Establishment, which once dismissed her as a fluke. However, Moses was an American original--never trite, but iconic.

Motherhood has changed a great deal over the last few millenniums — or has it? Today, we take a look at famous mothers in history, fictional and otherwise — the good, the bad and the infamous. Gaia. Also known as Mother Earth, Gaia was the first goddess in Greek mythology. She created herself out of the primordial chaos, and conjured Uranus (the starry sky) out of the nothing, proving that even thousands of years ago people believed mothers were capable of just about anything.

Cloris Leachman just got back from two months on the road. Not counting Los Angeles, she's already played 24 cities as Anna Mary Robertson Moses, the legendary farm wife who started painting late in life, then turned out hundreds of colorful paintings before dying at 101. Stephen Pouliot's play, "Joy Ride: The True Story of Grandma Moses" is now on its third tour, each time starring Leachman as Grandma Moses.

The mural outside Erma Winfield's Mid-City home has a Grandma Moses look to it. And not just because the artist who painted it is 94, either. The artwork stretches across a 40-foot fence and depicts the four seasons in a linear, primitive folk-art style that captures scenes from Winfield's past, just as Grandma Moses' work did when she took up painting in her 70s. Like Moses, Winfield was raised on a farm and is a self-taught artist whose...

The Grove Theatre Company's "Quilters" has the quality of a Grandma Moses folk painting--it captures that quaint essence of American frontier life as it raises the settlers to icons of bravery and hope. The musical centers on a time when living by Emerson's code of self-reliance wasn't a choice but a necessity--survival depended on spiritual strength and making do. The challenge was particularly demanding for women, the linchpin of family life.

"Memory is history recorded in our brain," is how Grandma Moses begins her autobiography, "My Life's History," published in 1948 at the apex of her fame. "Memory is a painter, it paints pictures of the past and of the day."

Motherhood has changed a great deal over the last few millenniums — or has it? Today, we take a look at famous mothers in history, fictional and otherwise — the good, the bad and the infamous. Gaia. Also known as Mother Earth, Gaia was the first goddess in Greek mythology. She created herself out of the primordial chaos, and conjured Uranus (the starry sky) out of the nothing, proving that even thousands of years ago people believed mothers were capable of just about anything.

There's some frightening talk going around about Loretta Livingston and Dancers' "Grandma Moses Project." Unsettling words such as "modern dance" and "tribute," which, when used in the same sentence, can cause otherwise-sensible parents to avoid the performance like car-pool duty during Friday rush hour. But take five.

Grandma Moses redefined the late bloomer. After decades of farm work, she took up painting in her 70s and captured the hearts of Americans with her nostalgic, folksy reflections of 19th-century rural life. She was 78 when she was "discovered" by an art collector from New York City, and continued to paint until just a few months before she died in 1961 at age 101. In the intervening years she completed about 1,500 paintings.

To cite the stereotype, the beloved folk artist Grandma Moses represents a kind of all-ages, all-American artist for the people, in stark contrast to the more intellectual modalities of the art world. She's spoken of in the same breath with populist painter Norman Rockwell, and was literally a Hallmark card image-maker.

Dear Amy: I need to respond to the questions in your column about how to handle toddler tantrums. I was a screaming toddler 50 years ago. My mother took nothing from anyone, especially me. Tantrums were simply not tolerated. One day, as I stood there screaming, I watched her as she calmly put an ice cube in a glass, then filled it about an inch full of water, swished the cube around so the water was good and cold, took the cube out, stood back and threw the cold water swiftly over the front of me. I stopped screaming abruptly, and she said, "You were getting awfully hot."

"Memory is history recorded in our brain," is how Grandma Moses begins her autobiography, "My Life's History," published in 1948 at the apex of her fame. "Memory is a painter, it paints pictures of the past and of the day."

To cite the stereotype, the beloved folk artist Grandma Moses represents a kind of all-ages, all-American artist for the people, in stark contrast to the more intellectual modalities of the art world. She's spoken of in the same breath with populist painter Norman Rockwell, and was literally a Hallmark card image-maker.

Grandma Moses redefined the late bloomer. After decades of farm work, she took up painting in her 70s and captured the hearts of Americans with her nostalgic, folksy reflections of 19th-century rural life. She was 78 when she was "discovered" by an art collector from New York City, and continued to paint until just a few months before she died in 1961 at age 101. In the intervening years she completed about 1,500 paintings.

For those who recall Grandma Moses as an overexposed pop figure who bordered on the kitschy, "Joy Ride," at the Westwood Playhouse, is a chance to re-evaluate and reassess. * Sure, Moses was a media phenomenon. Naturally, her work has been exploited in a variety of commercial venues, including Hallmark cards. Granted, she was drubbed for decades by the critical Establishment, which once dismissed her as a fluke. However, Moses was an American original--never trite, but iconic.

Cloris Leachman just got back from two months on the road. Not counting Los Angeles, she's already played 24 cities as Anna Mary Robertson Moses, the legendary farm wife who started painting late in life, then turned out hundreds of colorful paintings before dying at 101. Stephen Pouliot's play, "Joy Ride: The True Story of Grandma Moses" is now on its third tour, each time starring Leachman as Grandma Moses.

The mural outside Erma Winfield's Mid-City home has a Grandma Moses look to it. And not just because the artist who painted it is 94, either. The artwork stretches across a 40-foot fence and depicts the four seasons in a linear, primitive folk-art style that captures scenes from Winfield's past, just as Grandma Moses' work did when she took up painting in her 70s. Like Moses, Winfield was raised on a farm and is a self-taught artist whose...

There's some frightening talk going around about Loretta Livingston and Dancers' "Grandma Moses Project." Unsettling words such as "modern dance" and "tribute," which, when used in the same sentence, can cause otherwise-sensible parents to avoid the performance like car-pool duty during Friday rush hour. But take five.