Sometime in the 80's, I clipped out a small article about Elizabeth Layton from the Sunday Parade. Several years later the traveling exhibition of her Through the Looking Glass show made it to Oregon. I was teaching a drawing class in a small coastal town. We decided we needed an art day, so off we went, for a 7 hour drive, lunch and an art show. I wanted to show my students that sometimes the power and conviction of the message was more important than a sophisticated, polished execution. Some students were mesmerized, others questioned the art taste of their young, idealistic teacher. Twenty years have passed, but her images and messages are just as fresh and meanful today, as the day they were drawn. They still have the power to move my heart and challenge my thinking. 
At 68, Elizabeth Layton took a contour drawing class that inspired her to draw prolifically for the last 15 years of her life. Layton laid bare her fears and fantasies with colored, wavering lines in frank and unflattering self portraits. Her husband Glenn appeared in many of the drawings, bemused and bewildered. When I first saw her work in the late 80's, I was fascinated by her image and story. But now, after nearly 30 years of marriage, it is the portrayals of Glenn and their life together that brings a knowing smile to my face.
Layton, a native of Wellsville, Kansas came from a family of writers and journalists and was herself managing editor of her hometown newspaper, The Wellsville Globe. But she had suffered bouts of depression throughout much of her life and had undergone 12 shock therapy treatments before enrolling in a contour drawing class in 1977. Layton credits her daily regime of drawing her image reflected in a mirror, without looking at the paper, with saving her life. Consequently early drawings were dismissed as art therapy, but later the power and volume of her images earned her exhibits at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American Art, and in more than 200 art museums and centers throughout the U.S. She drew nearly 1200 self-portraits during her drawing career, giving nearly all of them away to friends, museums, and charity auctions. In doing so she raised more than a half million dollars for the arts, women’s organizations, civil liberties, mental health, medical ethics issues, the visually impaired and the Wellsville Library. I have added a small collection of her work to this website, hoping to tempt you to want to see more. Check out http://www.elizabethlayton.com for more images and information.
