March 26, 2009. Chevy Chase, Md. Charming Books.

Mildred Nungester Wolfe was an artist all her life, but when her artist husband was asked to retire from teaching at Millsap College in Jackson, Miss. in early 1970's, Mildred was automatically retired too, even though she was ten years younger. I discovered all this and more in a charming book she wrote when asked by her children for the particulars of her life. She died not too long after she wrote the book in 2005, and her daughter Elizabeth has carried on with her ceramics. We visited her studio when we were in Jackson and I purchased the book there but was saving it until I could read straight through. The book also has copies of her paintings, so I could savor the text and the pictures all together. I am always so interested in how people put their lives together, so when I see this small but very personal tale of one woman's life I just jump at the opportunity. She makes this statement right at the beginning of the book: "I was never seeking new worlds to conquer. On the contrary, the earth as it is---arched over by the sky and subject to rain, wind---fascinates me and at the bottom is the great subject of my painting." Now this is so far away from my way of thinking. Artists are just very different people.

Also this weekend I read a lovely book by Eudora Welty, "One Writer's Beginnings". She lived in Jackson for most of her life and I bought the book when I toured her home in Jackson. It tells the story of how she learned to listen and watch and then eventually describe. Her portrait hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. It was painted by Mildred Nungester Wolfe. I have read everything that Eudora Welty has written, but I never before heard of the artist. That tells a lot about me.