Frances Stephenson Orr

( Size: 50" x 44.5" Oils )

This painting, through the medium of Surrealism, depicts the life and times and tribulations of Frances Stephenson Orr (Stevie).

Stevie is 83 yrs young. For 53 yrs she has suffered from the crippling disease Arthritis. Stevie has worked tirelessly throughout her life to raise monies, funding etc., to eradicate this awful debilitating disease. Other charities have also benefited from her generous assistance. Even though Stevie has had a lot of tragedy in her life, through the loss of her loved ones, this woman is always positive in her outlook to life and greets every morning of everyday with cheerfulness and vitality. She has written several books chronicling anecdotes from her long and varied life, the proceeds as usual going to charities etc. Stevie always says to me "Isn't Life Wonderful !" Knowing her as I do, I feel that I have become stronger and more understanding as a person.

Subjects in the painting

The painting is alive with metaphors and symbolic meaning, trying to captivate a flavour of how Arthritis has affected her existence. The colours are warm, rustic depicting the "Autumn" of her life. The background is fraying, decaying, curling up at the edges, it is becoming unstable, just as old age inevitably takes over.

The Feet and Hands

Show how Arthritis has taken hold, these are Stevie's limbs today, boasting no exaggeration.

The Stiletto Heeled Shoes

Represent that the wearing of these shoes would be a luxury, Stevie knowing that her deformed feet could not sustain their wearing.

The Pencil

Lying, abridging a broken landscape (Africa), depicts that with the aid of the pencil Stevie would use it to punch the keys to her typewriter.

The Woman's Body

Melting into the landscape, represents what could have been achieved physically and outwardly if Arthritis had not been present. Stevie being conscious of her distorted hands and feet, inhibiting and affecting her true personality. Over the years these mental barriers and fronts have given way with the help of her inner strength, her robustness, her close friends and family.

The Apple

Situated just above the hands, is synonymous with the birthplace of sin, Eden, forbidden fruit, God, religion, symbolic to Christianity. Stevie is a religious Christian person, she holds her God dear.

The Jigsaw

The "Jigsaw" pieces, three of them, firstly have a religious connotation by way of the three points of the Holy Trinity, secondly, they represent funereal black holes, Stevie's past history entombed in her subconscious mind, memories and events she wishes to forget. Thirdly they represent the future, the pieces are void of anything, they will appear as Stevie's future history in future paintings. And finally they represent all the wars, genocide, world conflicts, famine, child abuse, animal cruelty, species annihilation, pollution, erosion of the Earths resources and ecosystems and so-on that Stevie has witnessed since she was born in 1915 to present day.

The Camels

The "Camels" Trilogy (Three, Holy Trinity, underlying theme), not only represents the "African Continent" but is a metaphor for a religious pilgrimage to the Middle East, as to "Walk" where they have walked. One of the Camels is prone, resting upon an open book, the book being portrayed as the "Holy Bible", or Koran, or as any holy scriptures you so desire.

The Ladders

Represent journeying spiritually and morally in search of answers, enlightenment and the mental belief of an higher plain. We strive to enrich our being and worth as ordinary human beings.

The Lipstick

Is creating the illusion of tiering up of three sections that I have painted as being a broken, fractured "Africa". We, the mainly Christian west, perceive Africa as being one of the countries we class as the "Third World". As I see it, especially with "Central Africa", this has created a third world within a third world.

This three tier system consists of the Arabs of the "North" rich in Oil and Minerals, living opulent life styles. The "South" mainly Negroid people exploited by the whites are rich in land, food production, diamonds, gold, have well established infrastructures military and socially, and stable economies and governments.

"Central Africa" has become a wasteland, Arab and Negroes alike toiling with daily life with a "diet" of starvation, drought, famine, aids - the list is endless. Countries such as Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Chad are abundant in sand, soilless deserts and abject poverty, all exacerbated by "Civil Wars". These countries have no commodities to barter with, we the "West" will let them deteriorate further into apathy and oblivion. We will send a token gesture of "Aid" but only when it is too late..

E.W.POWELL July 1998. Painting completed 2.12.1997

Complexity comment:
Life is full of tribulations and constraints. Those of a medical nature are especially debilitating. Yet options abound, and if we are positive we can not only change society in a valuable way but feel in ourselves that, despite our inadequacies in some areas, we are true human beings.
The greatest of those amongst us are such....they lead the way.
Complex Systems are all about interactions, between people, between things, between forces. These come in three flavours, zero-sum, positive-sum and negative-sum. In the first, what one party loses the other gains, in the second there is a overall net gain, whilst in the third the net result is an overall loss.
Many people assume that people interactions are zero-sum, if I give you money then I lose as much as you gain. This however is wrong. Almost all human interactions are either positive-sum or negative-sum. Money, resources, time, whatever we exchange, means more to one of the parties than to the other, so the net result is an imbalance. To make progress, we must ensure that all our transactions are positive-sum, that we add value by our actions.

Compare the net value of the rich giving to the poor, against the rich taking the poor's resources. Each latter act impoverishes mankind, each of the former enhances our humanity. Make this test for every interaction you make, and then, perhaps, the 21st Century can become the paradise of our dreams...

Sadly, Stevie (F.S.Orr), died at 11.20am on 18 July 1998, during the preparation of this testimonial.

This Exhibition is dedicated to her memory...