Vivian Hanby began painting seriously when she was 63 years old. She had never had a lesson, never used instruction books, just painted what she saw, or what she saw in her mind. The amazing thing is that Vivian Hanby had Alzheimer's Disease when she painted these.
Beautiful landscapes, trees, streams, covered bridges, old barns, lighthouses, and snow scenes are the subjects of most of her paintings, though there some still-lifes and portraits as well.
	Dorothy Womack, Vivian's daughter, was her caregiver. Dorothy tells the story of her years as her mother's caregiver in her book, Passage into Paradise, which is now online at her web site.
Dorothy also has shared her book of poetry, Crowning Touches at her site. She has also shared her poems at A Window on My Mind, and in her Reflections at Marsha Pennington's Alzheimer's Outreach, and here at this site in Contributed Poetry.
	Dorothy wrote in her poem "I'm Me" of what her mother would have said if she could about what it's like having Alzheimer's.
And we see how Dorothy felt, watching her mother leave long before her death in her poem "Watching".
	As her mother was a talented artist, so Dorothy is a talented poet and writer, and has written poems which stir our emotions and bring back memories, like "A Light on in the Window".
She has a gift for writing poems for caregivers and former caregivers she has met on the Internet. I have been honored by the poem Dorothy wrote for me, "Most of All", written as what my mother would say to me about my experience as her caregiver.
	When Dorothy's mother was in the later stage of her disease, she asked "Who did all these beautiful paintings?", and Dorothy told her "God did." She said that was true because God did do them through her mother. Dorothy feels the same way about the poetry she writes.

Thank you so much to Dorothy Womack for sharing your mother's beautiful paintings with us.