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Show Lila Sweden's Paintings (over Variety of Amazing Subjects One of the very first paintings paint-ings ever done by Mrs. Lila Sweeten is a 15 x 20 inch oil of lilacs in a white pitcher. It, along with several dozen other paintings, comprised the Art Show at Mt. Meadow Ranch Resort Re-sort on Sunday, May 7. Mrs. Sweeten, who will be 91 in December, just happened to start to paint. Fifteen years ago a granddaughter of hers wanted want-ed to take art lessons but didn't want to go alone, so Grandma volunteered and a bit later, when the granddaughter withdrew, with-drew, Mrs. Sweeten continued. She was then 75 years young and has been painting ever since. Her variety of subjects is amazing farm scenes, mountains, moun-tains, wild animals, flowers, desert scenes, still life she has done them all. Mrs. Sweeten has the ability to copy or create from her mind. She enjoys painting for her family. With 8 children living liv-ing she has 33 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren and many of the paintings on display are the property of family members. mem-bers. Her paintings range in size from a tiny 3 by 4 inch miniature min-iature to an enormous canvas perhaps 12 by 8 feet. Prior to becoming a widow 42 years ago, her life with her husband was such a real love story that every once in awhile one of her paintings will reflect her life when he was alive-one alive-one outstanding example of her love of her husband is a picture pic-ture of a ghost rider silhouetted against the sky. She used a grandson as model but her family fam-ily agrees it is her husband who emerged in the picture. A deeply religious lady, yet tolerant of all around her, Mrs. Sweeten painted a very detailed picture of covered wagons and pioneers discovering the beautiful beau-tiful Salt Lake valley. Painting exclusively with oils, Mrs. Sweeten takes lessons les-sons from Jack Vogas in Salt Lake City. I like him to put his O.K. on my paintings" she said. "I really owe him a great deal. He's a wonderful man and I appreciate him as a teacher." Mrs. Sweeten is able to have phone conversations with her 4 sons and 4 daughters on a regular reg-ular basis. They all live in the Salt Lake area and are in easy distance of one another. Mrs. Sweeten makes her home with daughter Claudia (Mrs. Dale Atkinson). This interesting lady has done several small paintings on layered lay-ered glass flowers on glass covered by another layer of painted glass with yet another layer forming a 3 dimensional effect which is quite lovely. Mrs. Sweeten does more than paint; she continues to crochet and knit. She knitted an elaborate elab-orate white bedspread for one daughter and one Christmas she made 11 afghans another Christmas she made 89 knitted caps. "I used them as Christmas Christ-mas presents", she said. A gentle little lady, standing trim and alert, Mrs. Sweeten enjoyed visiting with friends and relatives at this showing of her paintings. "I certainly feel ' very humble about all this" she confided. "I can't imagine it really happened to me!" |
