Mary's Art Starts in the Garden

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Walking on the Paths Carved by Centuries of Women Artists
March 2025

Because I paint large flowers, people naturally say, “Oh, you must like Georgia O’Keeffe.” What they don’t know is that Georgia’s work drew me in, not through her flowers, but through her abstractions and her skulls. The sensuality of her forms triggered me. I was moved deeply by her lightened color palette. I’d never seen paintings that had that lightness, that buoyancy. They had a girly-girl feel to them. I didn’t have the language to understand what moved me at the time. I probably still don’t. But her work made me feel like a woman — a soft, light, gentle free spirit.

I was a late starter when I finally went to college at the age of 27. My youngest son was going to preschool, so I had some time to pursue something besides motherhood, something that grabbed my soul. I began a YMCA oil painting class, and my teacher, a generous, gifted, and kind French woman, urged me to study in more depth. She saw something in me I didn’t know I had.
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​On Christmas in 1976, I received a present that changed the course of my life. It was the first coffee table book published by Georgia O’Keeffe. On the cover was a stunning painting of a skull that changed everything I’d seen in art up to that point. It was gorgeous and inspirational to me.
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I would weep at her images in that book. They spoke directly to my soul like no other art had ever spoken to me. I realized that paintings didn’t have to be narratives that portrayed how people lived or what they looked like. Instead, I learned that art could help me think deeply. It could open my mind and let me seek meaning within myself. It could stir questions that had never occurred to me before.

​I fell in love with Georgia’s white bones. They spoke to me of life, of death, of eternity. So, I took to drawing skulls with the subtle nuances of shading, the openings for eyes, the hollows and crevices. They spoke of the sturdiness we were made from and what held us together — a hidden part of ourselves. Her bones against the sky spoke to me of the eternity of life, the energy we dissolve into when we are no longer alive. They represented the remnants of who we were — a remembrance of sorts. To me, the blue sky shining through those hollow bones was a signal of transition to another plane of existence. 

Photo Courtesy: Mary Ahern

​As the first generation of my family to be born outside of the Netherlands since the 1600s, I have long been attracted to vanitas [in art, a genre of still-life painting that flourished in the Netherlands in the early 17th century]. Artist Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750) specialized in painting intricate and detailed floral bouquets. Because the Dutch were more of a secular nation, their work focused on symbols to express meaning rather than religious subjects, which predominated in other countries. Skulls were often included in Dutch floral still life paintings as well as different representations of the fleeting nature of life. Upon close inspection, you will find beetles, ants, and insects nestled amongst the flowers. You’ll discover deterioration in petals past their prime. These vanitas reminded the viewers of life's fragility. I was aware of these dark paintings before Georgia’s work attracted my attention. 

"Flowers in a Glass Vase on a Marble Table" by Rachel Ruysch (c. 1704)

​At about the same time Georgia came into my life in the late 1970s, my extraordinary art history professor, Patricia Hills, began introducing her students to contemporary women artists working in what would eventually be called the second wave of feminism. The two artists whose work spoke the loudest to me were Judy Chicago, with her ground-breaking installation The Dinner Party, and Audrey Flack.
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I made a pilgrimage to see Judy’s work at the Brooklyn Museum, where I began to realize that thousands of women throughout the world had been written out of history. 

The photorealist Audrey Flack announced herself to me loudly with her large, airbrushed paintings presented in a lightened palette of colors. This new take on the Baroque vanitas paintings of Ruysch filled me with ideas and expanded my vision in ways I’d never even considered. Her 1977 painting “Marilyn (Vanitas)” riffed on the subjects of transience and mortality. I realized that I was interested in painting ideas rather than painting objects. I planned to stimulate thoughts, ideas, and conversations as these women had done for me.
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I continue to walk boldly in the fading footsteps of these women. They showed me the immense courage it would take to keep creating my own vision, in my own way, in my own style. The world didn’t need their art. The world doesn’t need my art. But we need to create it, to put it out there to open the conversations, to spread ideas, to make statements, to provide warnings, and to joyously celebrate being alive.

Marilyn (Vanitas) by Audrey Flack (1977) 

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PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS:
I’m Aging Gracefully by Finding Creative Ways to Continue Doing the Things I Enjoy
A Strategy to Embrace: Lifelong Learning
Awakenings in the Garden: An Artist's Journey
Women Helping Women: A Recipe for Success
A Virtual Visitor Had Me Contemplating My Lifelong Career in the Arts
My Dual Passions

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