Back around 1967 in a storefront called Center of Consciousness, which was located in the area around Sixth and Portland in Minneapolis, there lived a group of hippies. One of them was an artist named Leah Peterson, or Jacobson. She took a very big canvas, about fifty by forty-eight inches and painted an abstract in shades of brown and orange – with one lavender exception. She didn’t sign it, and later, when she moved away, she left the painting behind.The person who was to become my husband moved into the Center of Consciousness (it’s hard to believe, looking at him today, but he was a hippie back then) and liked the painting. When another artist proposed to white it out to paint something new on the canvas, Al offered to buy a new canvas the same size as a replacement. The offer was accepted and Al came into possession of the original.
When I saw the painting in 1979, I fell in love with it, too. It has survived three living quarters with us. Today, thirty-odd years after I first saw it, I still will get a glimpse of something new in it. At last count, I’m seeing up to thirteen figures swirling in its depths. We’ve never named it.
I sometimes wonder what became of the artist. We’ve never seen or heard of her, but I’d like to know what she was thinking of when she painted this. And I’d like to see what she’s painting nowadays.
Have you ever owned something you didn’t quite understand? Something you couldn’t explain your attraction to? Something that stirred an appreciation of the mystery that lives in all of us?
