“If we merge mercy with might and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and changes our children’s birthright.” ~ Amanda Gorman
Please excuse these utterly horrible representations of the work, but it’s the best I could do at the time I was introduced to Texas artist Lyne Klingelhoefer Lewis Harper. I call her Lena because that’s what her Fredericksburg High School diploma hanging on the wall said, and it’s stuck in my head as Lena. Anyway, a simple google search turned up nothing in particular on her other than a painting of daisies for sale on eBay. Even though they’re daisies, you can tell they were painted by her. Though she lived elsewhere, Lena’s (Lyne’s) studio was in Fredericksburg, Texas in the house built by her grandfather who emigrated from Germany to Fredericksburg around 1847. He built the house around 1854, and it was left to Lena by her mother in 1949. From then until her death in 1997, just shy of her 100th birthday, Lena painted scenes of the surrounding Texas Hill Country. We toured the house because of its German construction, but also because they used adobe brick for infill (in west Hill Country it’s usually limestone) and a rare enclosed dogtrot, which is a somewhat common building style in early Kentucky, but not so much in Texas, apparently. Once I saw the artwork, however, I didn’t give the house a second look. I’m not often captivated by landscapes, whether they’re paintings or photographs, doesn’t matter. Most of them look like they belong over a couch in a quiet living room. I think it was the accuracy of the colours that struck me and the useful compositions. They’re not impressionist nor are they abstract or realist. I remember seeing similar work when I was a kid in Tucson. I have no idea who the artist was back then, but they were similar in their dullness, even though the scenes, at least to me, are anything but dull. Lena has managed to use a burnt sienna pallet in limitless fashion, building depth and texture and giving life to a dusty, rocky world in much the same way her German forefathers used their knowledge to build unique structures in a new land. Lena’s niece inherited the house in 1997, and I had the opportunity to talk with her while we were at the house. She’s a writer working on a memoir. I encouraged her to write about her aunt Lena. Just the little I know about her from her niece, her’s was a unique life, and the art she left behind is compelling. I hope to learn more about her someday.
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