Processing Life with Roses and Bees
By Sandra Huffman ’86
When Philip Lindsey, M.F.A., professor of fine arts, first thought about applying for a sabbatical, he knew he wanted to continue his work on the language of non-objective painting, which he has been pursuing for over 25 years. His mother had died during the summer before he applied, so he was already exploring ways to include the themes of grief, illness, death, and reconciliation in his art. His mother’s illness and death had been a long and difficult journey for Lindsey and his family, which made him realize that his work needed also to explore his relationships with both of his parents. When his sabbatical was approved for spring 2024, the work he ultimately created invites viewers to engage with the emotional narratives embedded within each piece.
“Art is a marriage between what is in the artist’s heart and what is in the artist’s mind. I’m trying to find a space where I can explore both,” said Lindsey, as he described his paintings and drawings created during spring 2024. Fifteen pieces of this work were curated for an exhibit in the Cooley Gallery of the John Stewart Memorial Library from July 2024 through January 2025. The exhibit, titled “Passages: New Work by Philip Lindsey,” presented a profound exploration of loss and grief through the lens of contemporary art. Curated with help from the Wilson Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) students in residence during the summer 2024 session, the exhibit provided an interdisciplinary way to showcase Lindsey’s sabbatical journey.
Lindsey said he wasn’t really trying to make many pieces during his sabbatical. Instead, his goal was to work on several things and look for a way to tie them together. The first painting he worked on was based on the last photograph he took of his mother, a companion piece to a portrait he painted of his father when he died a few years earlier. Both paintings feature the subjects in front of landscapes created by the artist. “My parents loved the outdoors, liked to go outside. My father was a scoutmaster for 60 years. I was an Eagle Scout. My brother was an Eagle Scout. The outdoors were very important to us. I thought that would be a great setting for him.”
The collection also includes a self-portrait that Lindsey said wasn’t part of his sabbatical plan, but during the winter months he had seen several self-portraits by the artist Käthe Kollwitz that inspired him to consider working on one himself. He started by sketching a few mirror-portrait drawings in his studio which led him to tackle a large-scale oil on canvas that features the artist and his paintbrushes.
As Lindsey continued to work through the semester, he dove into abstract painting. “The heavy work was about grief and sort of finding one’s way through loss. That kind of went into the abstract,” said Lindsey. During this time, he started writing letters to his parents; sometimes deep and personal letters, and other times simple birthday wishes or messages to say he was thinking of them. These letters were added to the abstracts but were eventually painted over. Lindsey explained, “With these paintings, we see what’s left, and there are paintings underneath that I obscured.” The text is there, but no longer entirely visible, which is a reflection on the loss of his parents.
A piece of her and what once stood
Once stood as a vibrant token of love and of life
A dedication to this earth
Now fades to black in the misty static of loss
The waking numbness of my grief
My sight and smell obstructed by a blizzard flurry
Cold exposed hands stinging
Your thorns ripped from my fist
I tend to my unhealing wound
In anticipation of Spring
April or June’s warm kiss
Ushering your bloom
Waiting to see you again
Hoping to see her
— Taylor Santoro ‘25 M.F.A.
Slowly, slowly the joys come back
I carry her in an unfamiliar way
As memories fade from helpless to strong
Life passes, time passes, anger builds and surpasses
Part of life as we learn
No more pain, but for who
A sign here, a butterfly there, she is watching
Guiding
While the family uniting
She is whole once again
I’m left to shake the pain
To reconcile
— Bailey Grayson ‘25 M.F.A.
“I made a number of other paintings dealing with grief and loss, looking for private symbols with roses. My mother grew roses, so as a boy, I was charged with taking care of the roses, pruning them, flipping the beetles off them, getting pricked by the thorns, and, of course, scolded by my mother when I didn’t attend to the duties I had been assigned. And so, it became a valuable and important symbol and metaphor for me.”
Another symbol he incorporated was bees. For the last few years, Lindsey often found dead bees on the floor of his studio. At first, he swept them up and threw them away. Eventually, he started saving them. Lindsey chose to add the dead bees to several diptych paintings he made of the roses, mixing them into his paint and attaching them to the surface of the canvas. By including the bees in his mourning process, Lindsey created a symbolic link to life and death. He said, “There is an ephemeral quality to the bees, which which is underscored by our own temporary presence in the world.”
As nature often serves as a backdrop for personal reflection and healing, Lindsey progressed to landscape work as he moved closer to the end of his sabbatical. “The opportunity to paint outside gives me a chance to tap into something that is peaceful,” said Lindsey. “The landscapes are usually these quiet farm scenes, and I just love that. I love the peace that comes with being there. My mind can be quiet, and I focus on the atmosphere, the temperature, the color, the form of the landscape. And it’s a great opportunity to step back and reflect and just focus on what’s in front of me.”
Overall, Lindsey ended up creating over 100 pieces of art during his sabbatical. Selecting which pieces would be included in an exhibition became a unique collaborative project for Wilson M.F.A. students enrolled in the curation and dramaturgy course led by Joshua Legg, M.F.A., dean of the school of professional and graduate studies. The students met with Lindsey to discuss his work, and each student selected one of his pieces to analyze and interpret. The student writing was included in the exhibit and the gallery catalog to create a more personalized experience for the audience. Legg said, “Some of it is creative non-fiction, some of it is poetry, but all of it gives us a really personalized and unique lens to view the individual pieces and then the entire collection from what ends up being a very cohesive perspective.”
Every tear.
Every hug.
Every fall.
Every kiss.
Every song.
Every laugh.
Every dance.
Every, every, every.
A gift of every love I left from me to you.
— Lydia Young-Green ‘24 M.F.A.
As Adam DelMarcelle, assistant professor of graphic design, described the show, “There’s a lot of reconciliation happening in this space. A lot of this work is this conversation that [the artist] is having with himself to reconcile the past with where he’s at now and where he’s going in order to move forward.
Looking through the vast windows of grief takes you into passageways of conflicting feelings. What does one feel when grieving? How do we convey that grief of a loved one when blind love isn’t reciprocated? Sitting by watching the yellowing of a soul dissipate into deep circles of love bruising purples. Reds mixing with rages of oranges exuding feeling of anger and resentment. Take all these feelings and cover up the words that express how I felt for you. Words that I wanted to say but couldn’t get out. Peer into the juxtaposition of the light and the darkness.
— Candis Taylor ’24 M.F.A.
