Dream

I dreamed that I found a book of Edward Hicks paintings in a used books pile at the library and opened it and my name was written inside in pencil in a child's handwriting. My middle name was spelled wrong.

I never knew the details of Edward Hicks' life until I read them just now.

By 1816, his wife was expecting a fifth child. After a relative of Hicks, at the urging of Hicks' close friend John Comly, talked to him about painting again, Hicks resumed decorative painting. This friendly suggestion saved Hicks from financial disaster, and preserved his livelihood not as a Quaker Minister but as a Quaker artist.^[6] Around 1820, Hicks made the first of his many paintings of The Peaceable Kingdom. Hicks' easel paintings were often made for family and friends, not for sale, and decorative painting remained his main source of income.^[7]

In 1827, a schism formed within the Religious Society of Friends, between Hicksites (named after Edward Hicks' cousin Elias Hicks) and Orthodox Friends.^[8] As new settlers swelled Pennsylvania's Quaker community, many branched off into sects whose differences sometimes conflicted with one another, which greatly discouraged Edward Hicks from continuing to preach.^[9] Nonetheless, in his lifetime Hicks was better known as a minister than as a painter.^[10] He is buried at Newtown Friends Meetinghouse Cemetery in Newtown Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. he died in 1849.

Edward Hicks (April 4, 1780 – August 23, 1849) was an American folk painter and distinguished Christian minister of the Society of Friends (a.k.a. "Quakers"). He became a notable Quaker because of his paintings. 

Quaker beliefs prohibited a lavish life or having excessive quantities of objects or materials. Unable to maintain his work as a preacher and painter at the same time, Hicks transitioned into a life of painting, and he used his canvases to convey his beliefs. He was unconfined by rules of his congregation, and able to freely express what religion could not: the human conception of faith.^[11]

One of over 60 versions of The Peaceable Kingdom painted by Edward Hicks, c. 1833–1834. Brooklyn Museum

Although it is not considered a religious image, Hicks' Peaceable Kingdom exemplifies Quaker ideals. Hicks painted 62 versions of this composition. The animals and children are taken from Isaiah 11:6–8 (also echoed in Isaiah 65:25), including the lion eating straw with the ox. Hicks used his paintings as a way to define his central interest, which was the quest for a redeemed soul. This theme was also from one of his theological beliefs.^[12]