![]() Coincidentally, McElwain’s husband had died the month prior, but Erickson said the two had been separated for over a year and his passing had nothing to do with her choice. “She was as fresh and exciting as the New Mexico summer storms that she chased with her painting tools.”Īll of which made her suicide especially shocking.Įrickson doesn’t recall any indication that McElwain was considering taking her own life. “Louisa’s passionate personality was reflected in her paintings–robust, charismatic and bursting with energy,” Erickson said. McElwain was full of life, vigorous, a big personality with big interests and big ideas. “Halfway through the job her tractor broke down and she produced a gigantic wrench and repaired it herself–to my amazement–before hopping back on to go for a quick bath.” “Louisa loved to gather with people to discuss art, music and a deeper meaning of life.”Įrickson tells a story about an annual collector event held at McElwain’s ranch where the artist cut a hayfield minutes before guests were to arrive for them to have a place to park. “She had a brilliant mind, was a great writer and kept journals throughout her life,” Erickson said. She couldn’t bear waste.”Įrickson first met McElwain in the mid-1990s she would begin representing her work a few years later. “When she harvested more than she could use, she would sell them to the local restaurants. “She was a great chef and a wild mushroom hunter,” Erickson adds. She raised cattle and sheep on her 13-acre property. She was a farmer, a rancher, a mother of two daughters. McElwain moved to New Mexico in 1985, living in the country outside of Santa Fe. Louisa McElwain in front of her pickup truck studio and one of her paintings in New Mexico. “One day a woman came in and exclaimed, ‘I just saw Louisa McElwain painting on the side of the road with a shovel!’” “It was a very regular occurrence for people to come to the gallery after they had encountered Louisa painting somewhere on the side of the road,” Erickson recalls. To reach the canvases which she had propped up on the tailgate of a pickup truck cum traveling art studio, she often painted from a step ladder. McElwain liked how this method removed “tightness” from her pictures. The stick would be several feet in length–crooked of course–preventing straight lines from showing up in her work. This would eventually be completely covered by her swift passes with a masonry trowel heavily-ladened with oil paint.” “She would begin each painting with a few rough strokes with a purplish-brown color coming from a scruffy brush taped to a stick to map out her composition. “She worked with the largest tool for the job which was a masonry trowel taped to a stick or branch,” Erickson explained. How she went about doing this, on canvases often spanning four and five feet a side, did raise eyebrows. There’s nothing particularly unusual about that. Original plans for such a tunnel were developed in 1802 and approved by Napoleon Bonaparte but the British rejected the plan fearing that Napoleon would use the railway to invade.McElwain was a plein air painter for the most part, starting and finishing her paintings on location in a matter of hours, masterfully capturing fleeting light conditions. The Chunnel is a railway tunnel beneath the English Channel that connects Great Britain to mainland France. In 1994, by the time he was 40 years old, on May 6th, the Channel Tunnel or "Chunnel" was officially opened. In 1987, when he was 33 years old, was the first time that a criminal in the United States - a serial rapist - was convicted through the use of DNA evidence. One student died, one was blinded, 128 were injured. Berkeley students at a protest for People's Park. The previous year, on May 15th, Alameda County Sheriffs used shotguns against U.C. There had been precedent for the killing of American college students. The students were at a peaceful demonstration protesting the invasion of Cambodia by US forces. In 1970, by the time he was 16 years old, on May 4th, four students at Kent State University in Ohio were shot and killed by National Guardsmen. Johnson was sworn in on the plane carrying Kennedy's body back to Washington D.C. Johnson became the 36th President of the United States when President John Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas. ![]() In 1963, when he was merely 9 years old, on November 22nd, Vice President Lyndon B. The ruling stated that state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students was unconstitutional thus paving the way for integration in schools. In 1954, in the year that Louis A Scida was born, on May 17th, the Supreme Court released a decision on Brown v. ![]() Refresh this page to see various historical events that occurred during Louis' lifetime. ![]()
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