Adelia R. question: inspired by particular artist?

[laur...@lauraleekharris.com]

Dear Ms. Harris,
My name is Adelia Rosati and I am currently a grade 12 student at
Sacred Heart C.H.S. in Newmarket, and involved in the grade 12 art
program. I am emailing you because I am amazed by your work and the
originality you bring to this wonderful world of art. Your paintings
have inspired me to put 100% effort into the piece i have just
finished painting that resembles your style. I do have one question
for you, and that is, where you inspired by a particular artist
growing up, and if you were who was it? Hoping to hear from you, thank
you!

[laur...@lauraleekharris.com]

Hi Adelia,
Nice to meet you. Thank you for your wonderful words for my art. Who
Inspired me as an artist growing up? It was my Grandmother Cyr...She
painted in oils and I was always so blown away with how she could
create these paintings which were folk art country scenes from the
farm where she grew up in Manitoba. She raised me, taught me spirit
in all things and she also wrote poetry.

Later on the next artist that would take my breath away was Arthur
Shilling, an Ojibway Artist who had MS, teaching himself to paint, his
mother worked as a cleaning lady so she could afford to look after him
and buy him books of art and paints. He died in 1986 at the age of
45. He painted the portraits of his people and wrote poetry too. He
wrote this poem for his mother after she passed on: “My mother, whose
memory is moulded in all my works, from the beginning to the end. Her
presence occupies my strengths and torments, my thoughts and my
dreams. This painting saddened her because I painted her with the
memories of her childhood. She would look at it and smile. I never
could accept she was going to die. I couldn’t imagine life without
her. She was the air I breathed, my eyes when I couldn’t see.” Arthur
Shilling 1941-1986

It is the bittersweet passion of life and its artists that breaks me
into my art and inspires me.

Thank you Adelia,
LauraLee