All the in Between My Story of Agnes (Hardcover)

In All the In Between: My Story of Agnes, visual artist Laurie Brownell McIntosh uses more than 70 painted panels to tell the cradle-to-grave story of her late mother, Agnes Smith Brownell. A scientist, artist, doctor s wife, and mother, Agnes approached life with a kind of candor and pragmatism that left little room for sentimentality. From telling her thirsty and whining children to swallow their spit, to tending to her dying husband, to orchestrating a life of ritual in her widowhood, Agnes was a force to be reckoned with, eliciting emotions from her youngest daughter that were equal parts fear, reverence, and love. All the In Between: My Story of Agnes is a eulogy, a memorial, a work of art, and a kind of tribute that validates everything between the first and last breaths of a life well lived. There are no heroes or heroines in the story; no parables; no broken hearts or drama; no secrets to take to the grave. Yet the story is extraordinary in its simplicity. By capturing images of her mother s life through the intimacy of her own interpretations, McIntosh allows her readers a rare kind of insight to the life of a stranger made close and personal for us through the nuance of her daughter s familiarity. Yet, she does so without folly. Using paintings that are honest and straight-forward, yet beautiful and tender, she tells the tale of her mother s life with the kind of dignity that would have made Agnes proud.