My dad's cousin Petie surprised me last night with two photographs of Aunt Elsie and an essay written by our Aunt Sissy. Although Elsie Brooke Snowden did not have any children of her own, her great-niece Petie definitely received Elsie's aesthetic inheritance. First, I would like to say a few words about Petie.
Artist Petie Brigham is a
landscape painter working mostly in alkyd oils but I've seen some of her lovely watercolors and sketches as well. Her subjects are usually the sea, beaches, sounds and
marshes of the Outer Banks. She studied
painting in Woodstock, NY from 1969-73. Her approach
to painting is to work from the abstract, loosely at
first, toward realism. Petie layers paint opaquely and
transparently, juxtaposing subtlety-mixed neutral colors against brighter more
saturated color, until she achieves a sense of
atmosphere and distance, but not necessarily detail,
that reads to her eye. I am privileged to have two of her paintings hanging in my home. Petie Brigham lives and works on
Roanoke Island. She is passionate, intelligent, and delightful to visit. Her work is custom-framed by
Lynn Atkins Custom Framing in Manteo--Lynn is equally delightful. Petie's artwork is available through
Greenleaf Art Gallery in Duck, North Carolina.
Marjorie Brigham Miller was the author of the essay below. We lovingly call her Aunt Sissy. She was Petie's aunt and my great-aunt. In turn, Aunt Elsie was Sissy's aunt and Petie's great-aunt. Sissy was 23 years old when Elsie died on December 21, 1945; Sissy was 72 years old when she wrote this down for Petie. There are some minor typos and historical inaccuracies, but I have not corrected them. I will share this essay with you as it was given to me, same as it was given to Petie. As Petie wrote to me, our Aunt Elsie "was a Mystery Woman in many respects."
Elsie Brooke Snowden
Excerpt from a letter written to my niece in Virginia with requested information about my Aunt Elsie Brooke Snowden. (Written in 1994 by Marjorie Brigham Miller)
This morning I have betaken myself to a faraway place, where only the green fields, distant hills, morning mist and lovely sounds of the birds claim my attention. Ever since you asked me to write a little about Elsie, my mind has been crowded with such a myriad of thoughts of her that had been stored away for many, many years.
The mere mention of her name brought such a rush of childhood memories, with a combination of deep sadness and affection which swept over me so suddenly my eyes were filled with tears. All at once I realized that this woman, my aunt, had influenced my whole life, probably more than I had ever before realized, and I had an overwhelming desire to pull back as many memories as I could, to be given the privilege of, as an adult, being able to absorb the impressions and lessons and images with which she fired my childhood imagination so long ago.
There was always an air of sadness about her, and I always knew her life was a hard one. She was the eldest of five children and the two pictures that come to my mind are the first of her as a child with a pouty mouth, a toddler early displaced by other babies. The same mouth in adulthood became sensitive in early years and then firmly, grimly set as the dreams faded and the cruel years of the Great Depression made earning a livelihood next to impossible in the fine arts world.
She had one fling at world travel; and that as a companion to a wealthy lady who traveled a few weeks “abroad” in Europe. On that wonderful journey, she sketched enough vistas and objets d’art to last all her life and had great memories of Rome and Paris.
Foremost among her talents must surely have been her gift for portraiture for which she won the Corcoran Art Gallery Gold Medal. As far as I know, any training she received was there, and it was there also she met her two dearest lifelong friends.
There was the hint of an early love, but I never heard much about it. I only know she always seemed a very pensive, sad kind of person who had a deep sense of appreciation for beauty and nature and enjoyed funny situations and little jokes.
She always made me feel that “if you could see something, you could draw it” and I always believed it and listened enraptured as she explained the wonderful mysteries of color, mixing, perspective and balance. Her teaching has remained with me all my life, although it was only the tag-along fun of a little girl watching a friendly aunt who enjoyed answering all my questions. I still remember the importance of ox-gall, the fragility of pastels, the sin of leaving brushes stiff with paint – not because she ever let me do any art work in her studio, but just because I was fascinated just to be allowed to watch her and listen to her.
Just the mention of the name ”Elsie” brings a picture to my mind of large serious sea-blue eyes, an ample sensitive mouth, and a mass of strawberry-blonde hair piled above a sad, pale face.
Blessed with a very practical and forward-thinking little Quaker mother, she was ever somewhat at odds with her viewpoint. After my grandmother gathered her girls together and gave them a brief explanation of feminine hygiene and an even briefer summary on the facts of live, Elsie’s only comment was: “I think the whole thing is perfectly disgusting!”
Ever the artist and aesthete, she recoiled as her elderly semi-invalid little mother would retire for her afternoon nap and say, “Now, Elsie, thee has two hours. Go and paint!” So many nights, her weary but inspired artist-daughter could be found painting beautiful flower still-life creations by the flickering light of a kerosene lamp. After a hard day’s work keeping house in a large old house and caring for her demanding, aging parents, the spark of her talent still managed to produce lovely rich creations on her canvas.
In order to make money when the market would not demand expensive oil paintings, she put “pride in her pocket” and taught herself heraldry – researching it out at the Library of Congress. She did coats of arms and sold them, framed, for $25.00 each, hating every minute of the exacting, detailed, unimaginative work, all the while longing to be working with her beloved oils.
Her only years of freedom were the two or three she had lived alone in a Washington, D.C. basement studio-apartment at Henderson’s Castle on 16th St. After that it was back to the old family home “Ingleside” in Ashton with no electricity, an aged pump, woodstoves and in later years, needy parents.
Somehow, almost osmotically, her appreciation for beauty, her love of color, delicate fragrances, the exquisiteness of Nature – all seemed to absorb into my own being, just from sharing days with her. I realize now how great was the privilege of my brief association with her and I wish the world of art could have known her better. The cursing blight of those hard years must have smothered many great creative talents, forced to scratch out a livelihood under rigorous, grueling conditions.
Like Monet, she gardened all her life, carefully raising the flowers she wanted in her pictures. The delicate blues, soft rose tones and pure whites for light effects, the rich golds, crimsons and tawny oranges to group with rich blue plates and aged crockery.
The rare opportunities to do portrait work gave us glimpses of the depth of her talent, kin to that of the Dutch Masters and sadly, not many remain in the family. She requested that all unfinished works be burned at her death. Looking back, I'm reminded of Wordsworth’s “Lucy”. “She dwelt among untrodden ways” and spent her life at a period when times were hard and maintaining even “genteel poverty” was almost impossible.
She longed for a trip, a rest, a break from so much care. In her mid-fifties she required surgery for abdominal malignancy. She welcomed the “rest”, saying to her sisters, “I am the only one of you girls who has never had a good rest in the hospital”. She enjoyed the cards, flowers, pretty lingerie and being cared for. Two days after surgery, she died in her sleep – the one thing in her life that was easy.
Until I began to write, I had never realized the indelible mark my dear aunt left in my personal outlook on life. Perhaps her greatest legacy lies in the great appreciation of beauty she gave by example, which I, in turn, have so enjoyed sharing with my children. She never knew them, but a lot of what they know and are may well have come from what she taught me by attitudes and example. To me, she was what Robert Henri would term “a true art spirit”.
[More on Elsie Brooke Snowden's life and artwork is
here.]
