Dr. Eleanor McQuillen’s Crime Scene Painting Haste Makes Waste

“MVA while passing farm vehicle” is the only note my mom provided with this painting. As the fourth painting in her series, this painting shares another crime scene she was regularly called on to investigate, a motor vehicle accident. Like the third painting, this is more symbolic than literal. Unlike the other paintings this focuses on the moment before the accident, rather than the aftermath. These decisions were probably heavily influenced by her visual inspiration.

When I first saw the undulating and geometric landscape, coupled with the elevated bird’s-eye view, I thought of Grant Wood’s work. I didn’t realize how much my mother appropriated his composition and style until I found his Death on the Ridge Road. Wood typically romanticized country living and excluded modern machines from his paintings. This is one of the few paintings that depict automobiles, and the two ominous black cars racing toward the hard-edged red truck reflected Wood’s feelings for the mechanized and industrial. My mom’s revisions altered this interpretation. Her lone individual in a fancy convertible passing a working tractor speaks more about speed and bad judgment; two common ingredients in MVAs.

This painting also reminds me of one of her go-to parenting techniques. My parents regularly recounted graphic details from accident scenes to teach us kids life lessons. Don’t speed and don’t play with matches were more memorable admonishments when supported by visual aids. While she never showed me a picture of someone who died by gulping air as a way to burp the alphabet, apparently that killed a boy very much like me.

Next week’s crime scene painting sees the demise of another “flatlander” in A Bad Day for a Goodfella?