Like the collages she creates, Mary Heussenstamm is piecing her life
back together as she struggles with Parkinson's disease.
What keeps the La Crescenta artist going is her attentive husband,
George, and her art of collage.
"After I was diagnosed, the onset of the disease was very fast,"
she said. "I was really devastated."
Creating collages has been her salvation, she said, because the
disease has caused an interior tremor in her body. It affects her
ability to eat, and it also prevents her from painting -- a pastime
she had longed to do her whole life.
She had been painting almost every day for 12 years. At 59, she
said, she quit her job as a registered nurse for the terminally ill
so she could paint full time.
A retrospective exhibit of all her work is on display at the La
Canada Library. The exhibit includes her papier-mache masks and
watercolor still-lifes and portraits.
She painted people on the streets of the local community as well
as in Los Angeles, paying them $10 for a 25-minute sitting. She
painted all ages, starting at 4 or 5, and ethnicities. She liked the
challenge of capturing people's expressions.
"The face doesn't communicate, but the expression on the face
does," she said. "The slightest raise of an eyebrow will communicate
an attitude to the viewer."
She found it interesting how her models would react while they
were being painted, she said.
"People who are not used to the limelight, when others watched
them being painted, it would heighten their personality," she said.
"They stopped slouching, and there is ego involved. Those are real
neat things. They have more adrenaline running through their body and
it's stimulating for the model, and it comes across in the portrait."
And that invigorated the artist, she added, seeing the change in
the person.
In her collages, she strives to create good color, shape and form.
She said she sees things differently than most people do. Even a
simple flashlight sitting on a table has a rhythm and movement in its
shape.
"I find a lot of appreciation and happiness looking at different
forms of common objects and interpreting them," she said.
Her exhibit continues through Thursday at the La Canada Library,
4545 Oakwood Ave., La Canada Flintridge. For more information, call
790-3330.
SPECIAL EVENTS
FAB FOUR RECREATES MUSIC OF THE BEATLES
If you see him walking down the street, he's just Ron McNeil. But
when he steps onto the stage, McNeil becomes one of The Fab Four --
John Lennon.
