Mermaid, oil on canvas, 29" x 46"
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by Holly Green

My mother, longtime San Miguel resident, painter and author, Fen Lasell, was born in Germany in 1929. Her father, Werner Hegemann, was a city planner and political dissident, who, escaping the rising tide of fascism, brought his family to the United States in 1933. My mother would never tell you about herself, so I am singing her praises.

At the age of 10, Fen realized she had a gift for drawing which resulted in her being put in charge of costumes and decorations at school events. As a teenager in Vermont, she rode a horse every day to the Putney School, where she developed a love of classical music and made lifelong friends.

Family, oil on canvas, 24" x 30"
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Fen's first job was at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, making sets and costumes. This led her to study set design at Boston University. But there came a point where she knew life in the theater was not for her. She went on to study drawing and sculpture, working from live models for four intensive years.

At that time another artist remarked to her that she would spend the rest of her life unlearning what she was working so hard to perfect. In fact, now, she finds this is to be true: "My aim is to lead the eye on a visual adventure. Subject becomes less important. Design, color, and composition now tend more toward abstraction."

Horse Thief, oil on canvas, 25" x 17"
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Later, as a young mother with three children, Fen worked from home, writing and illustrating children's books (Michael Grows a Wish, Fly Away Goose, Kiya the Gull, and others). She also found time to make our childhood magical with drawing classes, candlelit Christmas trees, homemade costumes, and singing together.

Once her children left home, she took her first trip to Mexico, a passenger on that flight telling her about San Miguel. Taking that hint, my mother came and staying at the Sauto Hotel, woke that first morning to five peacocks outside her door. She was captivated.

Nocturnal Creatures, oil on canvas, 31" x 36"
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An avid lover of birds and gardening, Fen led Audubon Society bird walks for many years and worked as a volunteer to clean up and replant shrubs in Parque Juarez.

An accomplished gardener herself, Fen designed gardens for several San Miguel homes, wrote a column in La Atención, "About the Garden" in the 1990s, and published a book of the same name. During her residence in San Miguel, she has designed and built and/or renovated six of her own houses, adding intricate wall mosaics and terraced gardens to each house.

Bird Catcher, oil on canvas, 36" x 30"
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Fen's love of classical music led her to help organize several choral groups. These sang in peoples' living rooms at first, wherever there was a piano, and she fondly remembers singing in a flash mob at the former outdoor organic market at the Instituto Allende.

Fen has been painting in San Miguel since she moved here in 1971. Her paintings have been shown in San Miguel, and in British Columbia. Now, well into her 90s, she continues to paint daily with oil on canvas.

www.fenspaintings.com

Tempest-Oil on Canvas 24" x 40"
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Mother and daughter
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Holly Green, Fen's daughter, has been coming to San Miguel since she was 17-years-old. She is recently retired from the medical field and splits her time between the Texas Hill Country and San Miguel.

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