Half-Baked Art

My Aunt Margot had something in common with famous writers, musicians, and artists. She pursued her art until her death and left some half-baked work. It was an oil painting of bloodworts, the white petaled flowers with yellow centers that grow wildly in the woods and bloom early in the spring in patches of sunlight. Cupped in large green leaves, the unusual wildflower unwraps its layers in the morning and rewraps them at night. It was a favorite decoration in Aunt Margot's home. In a squat wine glass filled with water, the flower looked like a decoration on a table at a candled-romantic date for two. A poet may have been stirred to write a poem about the flower's birth in a shady area, comparing it to a loving relationship that blooms in a drug-infested area where other liaisons die. A musician may have been encouraged to compose exciting song lyrics about meeting an alluring, and possibly dangerous, new lover wandering through the woods in a sheer, flowing ivory dress and a headband of flowers circling her long blond hair. In her younger days, Aunt Margot hiked through the woods in boots, beige slacks, with her boxer dog Bitsie, searching for the early bloomers. She wore gloves because handling bloodworts sometimes causes a rash like poison ivy. Venturing into the woods could be dangerous for another reason. Coyotes run wildly through the area. Aunt Margot carried a stick made of a fallen tree branch to ward them off as she trekked around the oak, poplar, and red maple trees. The tall trees stood like some sort of custodian, protecting their inhabitants: coyotes, deer and snakes. As she grew older and needed a cane, Aunt Margot sent her daughter Margot Louise into the woods to collect the wildflowers. Margot Louise shivered at the thought of going where the snakes slither, hiss, and play dead, but she clenched her jaw, put on boots, and her plaid coat, and gloves and gathered the bloodworts that captivated her mother. Aunt Margot died at 88, leaving the still life incomplete. ” I was going to finish it, put stems and flowers on it, said Margot Louise, who is an artist. "But I decided to leave it in my room, as is." In its unfinished state, "Bloodworts" lets its viewers determine what she was trying to convey: beauty and danger, calmness, or else. Aunt Margot's still life joins other unfinished works, including "Answered Prayers," by Truman Capote, and the 10th symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven.