During Mental Health Awareness Month, a mother’s grief inspires art in St. Pete
ST. PETERSBURG — Genevieve “Vevie” Lykes Dimmitt has always been inspired by nature.
As a native Floridian growing up in the varied landscapes of the state’s swamp, coast and rolling hills, the artist’s love for nature is intrinsic, as is her instinct to protect it. Over the years, she’s contributed artwork to several exhibitions dedicated to the state’s conservation.
She passed her love of nature on to her four children, who grew up enjoying the waters of Dunedin’s St. Joseph Sound. Inspired by that landscape, she created Batik textiles and paintings.
In 2017, her son, Lawrence Hundley Dimmitt IV, died by suicide. Going outdoors or into her studio were the two things that really helped her. When people came to see her in the days following Lawrence’s death, she would hand them a square 12-by-12-inch board and art supplies. She would sit and make art with her visitors, ultimately assembling it all into a mourning quilt.
She channeled her grief into her art, creating several bodies of work that have never been shown publicly until now.
At The Factory in St. Petersburg, “The Nature of Healing” in the Florida Wildlife Corridor’s Wild Space Gallery features Dimmitt’s paintings and David Price’s bronze sculptures of animals — sandhill cranes, owls and a seriously realistic-looking alligator. Price is the president of Bok Tower Gardens and a close friend of the Dimmitts.
The exhibition is presented in partnership with the Love IV Lawrence Foundation, an organization with the mission of de-stigmatizing mental health. It’s running throughout May, which is Mental Health Awareness Month.
The first work Dimmitt made after Lawrence’s death is titled “Only Begotten Son.” Dimmitt said she was “railing at God and life” and began painting words, layers and layers of them, and then elements came to her in a stream of consciousness.
At that point she was “screaming” out words onto the canvas, which led to a series called “I Wish I Had Told You Then, I’m Telling You Now.”
After discovering a set of arched frames in an antique store in Sarasota, she started a series called “Windows to Heaven,” in which she’s sending messages to heaven.
Dimmitt included things that belonged to Lawrence, like marbles, maps, arrowheads and shark teeth. There are references to the 2017 solar eclipse, which was the last time she saw him. (”He told us all goodbye, we just didn’t know it,” she said.) She occasionally includes bottle caps to represent his love for parties — and the ones he would throw at the house as a teen while his parents were out of town, after he respectfully told the neighbors.
She uses mica to give the pieces sparkle — symbolic of light and shadow in the soul and the notion that light is God’s shadow. She paints with rust to imbue a sense of transformation, which inspires hope and faith.
Dimmitt is deeply spiritual and believes that everything, animate and inanimate, is connected. As time has gone by, the paintings have become brighter and happier, as she allows herself to remember the good memories about Lawrence. She painted an osprey, as it was his spirit animal.
The bird has a deeper meaning, too. Shortly after his death, as she was in bed crying, her daughters called her outside. There was a double rainbow, starting from Lawrence’s favorite fishing spot. Dolphins jumped out of the water, while manatees lolled under the dock.
The ospreys that would eat and visit the nearby nest began actually nesting there. She put one of Lawrence’s ties on the roof and the birds put it in the nest and now return every year.
She doesn’t think she will show the works again, but she’s grateful for her family and friends who encouraged her to share her story, and for curator Noel Smith’s discerning eye. At the show’s opening reception in April, she felt Lawrence was remembered, with many of his friends who started the foundation in attendance.
In the past seven years, they’ve gotten married and had children. And now Dimmitt has two grandchildren herself. She loves watching their sense of awe as they discover nature.
What to know if you go to “The Nature of Healing”
The exhibition runs through May 25. Free. 2-6 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 2-8 p.m. Saturday. Wild Space Gallery. 2606 Fairfield Ave. S., St. Petersburg. floridawildlifecorridor.org. For more information on the Love IV Lawrence foundation, visit loveivlawrence.org.
Need help?
Contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988, visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org, or call the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay by dialing 2-1-1.
