Following Fifi
La
Grange artist, writer sees world
from a child's innocent perspective
By
Dianne Stoess
Contributing Writer
LA GRANGE, Ky. – Her full name is Deborah Lynn LeFan Gattis, but
most people, including her husband, call her Fifi. In college, her friends
dubbed her with the nickname because of her short, curly hair style
and French surname.
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Photo by Dianne Stoess La
Grange artist and writer Fifi |
Fifi is a multitalented artist who has done mainly commissioned
portraits in the past, but she says that after a while, “I began
to feel like a portrait machine.”
She now limits herself to only six or seven portraits a year because
her real passion lies in free artistic expression.
Freeing up more of her time allowed her to create a beautifully illustrated
children’s book, “Dancing in the Hollyhocks.” The manuscript
is completed and she and her husband, Bob, are “putting out feelers”
for a publisher.
“Dancing in the Hollyhocks” is about a little girl named Hannah
Rose, who is not entirely fictional. She was modeled after Anna, the
8-year-old daughter of friends, Lisa and Richard Roederer, of Westport,
Ky.
“This [Hannah Rose] is actually Lisa Roederer’s daughter.
She’s a cross between Pippi Longstocking and me growing up,”
Fifi said. “It’s about Hanna Rose, and the things she likes
to do.
"She likes to skip and twirl and dance in the hollyhocks her mother
planted by the barn. She chases butterflies and pretends she’s
a princess. When she feels sad, she simply wants to fly away, so she
goes out in the wind, looks up to the sky, stretches her arms out wide,
and closes her eyes very tight. She imagines the wind is picking her
up and carrying her high above the house.
"It’s about how she views life and it has a lot of wonder
in it.”
Roederer says that Fifi chose her daughter as the model for the book
because “Fifi thinks Anna’s a lot like her, delighting in
the simple pleasures of life like watching sunsets, being by the river,
in her own world.”
She said that the illustrations of Hannah Rose look exactly like Anna.
Indeed, Hannah Rose does mirror the author’s own childhood. She
was an only child for eight years and enjoyed being alone, exploring
nature and drawing pictures of the natural beauty all around her.
Her mother says, “She’d sing to the cows, sit on the ground,
take her pencil and paper and just draw and draw. She was as happy as
a bug in a rug all by herself in her own little world.”
When Fifi was five, her parents moved to a farm in Oldham County, and
it is there that she grew up. She explored her new world with awe. The
surrounding countryside with its woods, creeks, and wildlife, was her
playground.
Her paintings usually depict a single child delighting in nature and
animals: a child on his back gazing at the clouds; a pigtailed girl,
arms outstretched, eyes tightly closed, dancing in the wind; a little
girl singing to a herd of cows; a child walking along a creek. Among
the illustrations in her book are watercolor images of Hannah looking
at the stars, making silly faces and playing under a weeping willow
tree. All are recreations of Fifi’s own childhood.
Her artistic talent surfaced at age two when her parents gave her a
child’s desk with a chalkboard top. Across the back of the desk
were pictures of an airplane, a butterfly and an elephant. With a piece
of chalk, Fifi reproduced the pictures one after another without once
looking down at the surface on which she was drawing.
Her mother, Doris LeFan, recognized her daughter’s talent instantly.
In her excitement, she ran to her husband and said, “Oh my gosh!
This kid’s going to be an artist!”
She didn’t enroll Fifi in art classes, but added, “We spent
a fortune all her life on art supplies.”
The driving force that compelled Fifi to write “Dancing in the
Hollyhocks” came from her desire to use her talent as a means of
self expression and to send a message to parents.
“My real passion is proclaiming Christ, and I wanted a way to use
my creativity not only to project that, but to affirm children who are
creative. And to remind adults that (a creative) child’s perspective
is a worthy thing.”
Fifi still enjoys long walks in the woods. She sometimes walks two miles
along the country lane where she lives, feeling free to sing or pray
without intrusion by the outside world. It helps her keep in touch with
the creative spark that produced her book.
“Dancing in the Hollyhocks” is ready for submission a publisher.
It’s not certain when the book will be available to the public,
but watch for it, because it’s a work of art and a refreshing account
of childhood memories you won’t want to miss.