DORIS FISHER: This is by Joan Mitchell, who’s certainly been one of my favorite artists, and I think she was a very underappreciated artist. She worked in Giverny, which is outside of Paris.

LAURA SATERSMOEN: Joan Mitchell was an American artist who moved to a town in France near Giverny where Claude Monet, the French Impressionist painter, worked. Monet had an influence on Mitchell’s paintings. Her color palette is similar to his, and her lively brushstrokes evoke Monet’s impressionist techniques. Here’s more from Doris Fisher, along with their son Bob:

DORIS FISHER: And she – as told to me – because I certainly never knew her, she’s long gone – she used to drink all day and paint all night. And I just love her pieces. I find them very, very magical. I don’t know, just whatever.

 BOB FISHER: The one thing about the art in my parents’ home that I think is important for people to recognize is that the pieces they were able to live with are what I’ve often heard to, as more ‘domestic’ pieces. I mean, they have a home that was built in the late 1950s. The ceilings are, my father must have known that he was going collect art, because they’re quite generous ceilings. But they’re still not 18 foot ceilings the way that you can have in a museum.