Chaos on canvas: Area resident commissioned artist Eddie Mormon to produce hurricane painting for her home
Published 3:57 pm Friday, January 29, 2021
- Photo Credit
Rita LeBleu
Iowa resident Allison Savoy will always remember how it felt to experience Hurricane Laura, the strongest recorded storm to hit Louisiana in over 150 years. Her husband, Travis Savoy, is a law enforcement officer. He couldn’t leave, she said. Her mother, Myrna Romaine, is 82 and wasn’t scared of what could happen, telling her daughter, “It’s all in God’s hands.” The family had a generator, and plenty of food and water.
“We all stayed for it, six of us,” she said. “It was scary and intense.”
Their home was brand new, built 18 months before the hurricane.
“During the construction, I placed different Bible verses within the walls,” she said, “and sprinkled Holy water. I know God protected us.”
The home was damaged.
“Others had it much worse,” she said. “Some are homeless. It’s so heartbreaking to see Lake Charles destroyed far worse than it was after Hurricane Rita.”
Just in case her visceral memories of “that long night of Mother Nature” fade, including how the walls seemed to breathe and how the winds sucked the whirly birds off the roof and into the atmosphere, making it necessary for someone to hold the French doors closed for three hours, she wanted a reminder.
A supporter of local artists with paintings from Louisiana artists adorning her walls, she commissioned Eddie Mormon to paint, “The Eye of the Hurricane.”
“I have lived in Lake Charles all my life and was familiar with his work,” she said. “He was the first person I thought of to do a painting.”
She likes his abstract style, his thick application of oils and clearly defined brush strokes. It also gave Mormon, who also did not evacuate, a way to express his emotions about his own experience. When she saw the finished painting, she knew he had nailed it.
“It looked like chaos and that’s how it felt,” she said, “like chaos.”
Special to the American Press
