Three ladies, two different ways

A painting of the 3 ladies of San Miguel by Mo Van.

I had lunch the other day with a good friend, Mo Van. I could spin my wheels for the next twenty minutes trying to describe her to you but it still wouldn’t do her justice. She’s so multifaceted and complex that whatever I said about her would come up short. In fact, we had this conversation over lunch where she was telling me about a eulogy she recently gave at a service for a friend of hers who died in a traffic accident and I asked her what she thought people would say about her when she died and she replied, “Everyone would say something different.”

And it’s true. Because she’s lived so many different lives. So rather than trying to tell you who she is, I’ll just lift the copy from the bookjacket of her memoir Singing Off Key: “Mo Van is an international artist, breast cancer survivor, Playboy model, marathon runner, and gallery owner. She was born in Holland in 1949 and came to the United States 12 years later. She married at 18 and by 23 had 4 children. In her early years she designed clothing for many Los Angeles stores. Mo Van is a grandmother to 7 children.”

So there you go.

I know Mo Van as an artist. She once owned a gallery in Laguna Beach, California, and we became friends after I wrote a story about her and her art and her life (up to that point). Although we didn’t see each other a lot, we’d e-mail every once in awhile just to keep in touch. About a week or so ago, she sent me a photo of a painting she’d just completed which was based on a photograph I’d taken in San Miguel de Allende and run on this blog. She wrote, “I just loved the composition and colors of your photo. It gave me a real feeling of peace when I was working on it. I hope you don’t mind.”

My original photo of the San Miguel ladies.

Of course I didn’t mind. Seeing the painting of the three ladies makes me smile. I love what she’s done with it. You can see more of Mo Van’s work on her web site: www.movan.com