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♪ Music ♪
Franz Brown: This is my mother as Errol Flynn and this is my
mother as Maureen O'Hara.
Franz: My goodness, I didn't realize how racy that shot was!
You're open in front down to your navel!
And if you look here, you can see the position that
Errol Flynn is standing in here.
And the other shot is the Maureen O'Hara position.
Narration: Such is the life for the wife of renowned movie
poster illustrator Reynold Brown.
Franz: Save the shot and there's a number
of different pictures.
♪ Music ♪
Narration: In the 50's and 60's, Reynold Brown created movie
posters for some of the biggest films in Hollywood.
And his wife Mary Louise Tejeda Brown was the model who posed
for his paintings.
Franz: You want to be remembered like that?
Mary: I can't even see the darn thing.
Oh!
I did whatever he needed...
It saved us paying a model.
Narration: Mary was an artist in her own right.
She had a career as an illustrator as well but as the
family grew and her husband's career took off,
Mary willingly put her artistic pursuits aside.
She became...
The artist's wife.
Franz: The art career came to an end in 1946 when
the children started arriving.
And this is what happens to almost all women artists is
they're faced with the fact their professional career,
comes to an end when the first kid arrives and
if you got eight kids, then it's really at and end.
Narration: As the couple approached retirement,
they moved from the Los Angeles area to the hilly,
pine ridge landscape near Chadron.
Mary: We drove out here several times and so when we came we
could see how beautiful it was around here, you know.
So uh we kind of fell in love with it.
Narration: The new surroundings inspired her to paint again.
Mary: When I came here, then I-I just go out-went out and
just whatever I saw that interested me,
I'd stop the car and get out and set up
my easel and start painting.
And now that I cant so just so easily jump in the car and go,
I have to think of things I can do while I'm in the room.
Narration: In 1991, Reynold Brown past away.
Even before his death, Mary began to lose her eyesight due
to macular degeneration.
Now even her brightly colored pastels appear to her in shadow.
Mary: On this eye, it's-I see things on the edge of the eye.
I don't see the center.
See, I close the other center.
Now I can still see, but I'm-it's fuzzy.
Now this eye, I can see the center,
but I can't see the edge.
So thank god, it sort of balances out.
Narration: Since her view of the world is now seen through the
slit of a crescent moon, her memories are the
visuals that drive her now.
Mary: The more I'm trying to do things, the less I'm seeing.
I know it's there because my mental health
tells me it's there.
So and with my knowledge of color,
I can put a stroke there and make it into
a leaf because I know that.
Not necessarily cause it's-I see it, but I see it in my mind.
Narration: Mary's paintings have grown increasingly
impressionistic with her deteriorating eyesight but you
can still recognize the distinctive landscape of
this part of the northern panhandle.
She wants others to really see the beauty of the area.
Mary: I was trying to make the people aware
of what they had.
They're surrounded with beauty, but they do not see it.
It's just like now they drive in the car and they're busy on a
cell phone or whatever else they've got.
They've got this thing here and another thing here.
They don't see a blooming thing.
Narration: Mary Louise Tejeda Brown has created more than
12-hundred paintings and sketches with
her colorful pastels.
But at the age of 92, she is slowing down.
A shoulder injury now makes it difficult for her
to paint or draw at all.
But she won't give up.
♪ Music ♪
Mary: All I can say is I've done it since I was a little
girl and I'll keep-probably keep doing it till I die.
But it doesn't mean it's gonna be a great painting or anything,
I don't care really.
At this point, just as long as I can try and I'll
just keep trying.