When Dave was 20 and Betty was 25, sometime in 1944, David Reber asked Betty Michael to marry him. She said yes. They were married in February of 1945. This painting is based on the photo Dave’s mom and dad, Ruth and Ferdinand, took of them in their living room, to mark their engagement. They had three daughters: Susan, Bethann, and Meg (short for Margaret). Bethann is my wife. I could write a book about these people, but they have always been rather private. I will say this. They were the absolute best grandparents we could have hoped for for our girls. Betty had been disabled by a severe stroke when Bethann and Meg were still in grade school, and Susan took over the household chores and a lot of looking after them. But Betty always had a listening ear and a fun song at the ready. She was the youngest sister to five older brothers and a sister, in a Welsh, steel mill family. Some of the songs she knew were drinking songs that were rather mischievous. Dave & Susan raised goats and chickens, and all kinds of vegetables on their 2-1/2 acre lot, to provide them and us with wonderful food! Our girls got to learn all about gardening and processing food. We all have memories of shelling peas with Betty. It is hard to say just a little.
David & Betty were not perfect. Nobody is. But I so admired Dave for how he never, ever considered leaving. He worked hard. He was thrifty. He and I did things to cars together that were well beyond our skill levels. We learned. Sometimes we learned to hire professionals. But I can say I have rebuilt a car engine in a freezing cold barn and heard a Baptist deacon swear in ways that I have never heard any other man swear. Good times!
They were good, loving, faithful, and honorable people. We miss them.
This painting is acrylic on 16″ x 20″ stretched canvas. The edges are painted black, so framing is not necessary.
Price: $150 plus postage.
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Mike is a good friend. He has helped our family countless times. He has taken me to the Emergency Room more than once. We have many times regretted our decision to buy the house on Front St., Sonderton, from a financial standpoint. But, on balance, we feel the move enriched our lives for having met Mike.
I will write more later.
This painting is acrylic on 24″ x 24″ gallery stretched canvas.
Price: $150 plus postage
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When I get stuck in my art, I go back to the beginning. The beginning was a self-portrait. I am beginning to understand why Frida Kahlo and Vincent Van Gogh painted so many self-portraits. Not that I dare compare myself to them; well, not yet, anyway. This is only my sixth self-portrait. Ask me if and when I finish my 36th self-portrait. They are a great exercise. One knows what one looks like and what one is feeling. You can experiment with your own likeness and not worry about anyone getting offended by or being disappointed with the result. The pressure is off.
For this portrait, I recycled a painting I had done for Perkasie Fun-A-Day 2017. It was Hope #22 Fun. I turned it sideways and painted my likeness over it, based on a snapshot that Bethann had taken of me in August. I had a bit of a sunburn. I was wearing my Menlo Aquatic Center tag as an earring, along with a green rabies tag earring that Hilary had made me, both in my left ear. At the beginning of the summer, I lost the rabies tag earring in the pool. At the end of the season, I lost my pool tag in the pool, after going down the twisty water slide. The guards found my rabies tag earring. The pool tag was lost, but everyone knew me and we only had four days left in the season. So it was not an issue.
This painting is acrylic on 20″ x 16″ stretched canvas.
Price: $150 plus postage
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For Valentine’s Day, this year, I painted on 6″ x 6″ stretched canvasses for each of our five grandchildren. It was not planned this way, but as it turned out, they all have purple or lavender in them. They say purple is the most provocative of colors. I think it is fun. These paintings have been well received on Facebook. Here goes!
Asters, etc.
“Asters, etc.” is for Brigitta, age 9. She loves green and is a very good, abstract artist in her own right (better than me). In art, anyway, I find it hard to break free from physical reality. This is a freestyle interpretation of asters, with a couple of undefined, red weed flowers blooming, above the jumble of mixed foliage below.
Goldfinch with pulple coneflowers
“Goldfinch” is for Elijah, age 9. He loves it! It is based on a photograph I had taken through the front door window of our house on Front Street. It was the same goldfinch who had serenaded me at arm’s length while I paused on my morning walk just after my open heart surgery.
Lavender Sunflower
My painting for Isabella is of a sunflower, but with lavender petals. When she saw it, she said, “Poppop, you are a genius!” I surmise she likes it.
Bizaro Skittles
Jacob’s 11th birthday is next week. He wants a cat. His dad does not want any more animals in addition to his three sons in the house. So I painted him “Bizaro Skittles.” It is a portrait of my cat, mirrored, in purple and pale green.
yes!
“yes!” is for our 12-year-old grandson Aidan. I wrote around the sides: “Even when the answer is No, it says YES! I love you. 2 Corinthians 1:19”
It came to me that he is of the age and temperament that he needs to hear this. When his parents or other adults tell him no, it is not because they don’t want him to have fun, it is because they love him and want him to have a long and happy life. I explained this to him when I gave him the painting. He gave me a huge, tight, long hug-of-war hug.
Fun-A-Day is a creative project that happens in various communities across the country during the month of January. Some are centered around a theme. Some are centered around a certain craft or field of art. Others are more free-form. Almost all are open to participants of all ages and skill and experience levels. The challenge is to create something new every single day of January. This is my first year participating. I just started painting on canvas, on March 1, 2016, so that is what I chose to do, illustrating each successive number on 4″ x 4″ canvasses. I have been posting these on Facebook. It has been quite a challenge. They have caught the eyes of some fellow artists from far afield. I have gained fans from India, Vietnam, Sweden, Minnesota and Pittsburgh.
I have not been doing this alone. I challenged our granddaughters, aged 9 & 10 to participate with me. They are each decorating a popsicle stick each day and arranging all of their sticks on a 12″ x 12″ canvas that gets photographed each day. My number is reduced and edited into the photos to sequence them. In the process, they are learning some basic painting and craft techniques, and we are having fun together.
My “15” took hours to paint. It was the most ambitious to date. There are 15 colors on the wedges radiating from the center (which wrap over the edge of the 2″ thick canvas frame) plus black and white on the 15.
Mark your calendar to reserve the date. The art show to view and purchase my and about a dozen other participants’ art from the greater North Penn area will be in Lansdale on February 18, from 7 pm – 11 pm. I will post more details as soon as I know them.
At 00:49 07/09/17, I posted: “I just finished painting the wind.”
Of course, it was hyperbole. According to John 3, Jesus said, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born [from above].’The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” The first thing that should be noted is that “born again” is an incorrect translation and one that the historic church who spoke Greek never used. The primary meaning of this expression and in context, it can be seen to be, is “from above”. The mis-translation of “again” has led to so much confusion, but that is an aside. The part of the text I am concerned with is this, that one cannot see the wind or tell where it is coming from or where it is going to, but one sees its effects.
I was on the beach on LSD, Lower Slower Delaware, and I looked to the North and saw this huge wind generator of the University of Delaware and a couple of flags flapping and a kite flying in the strong breeze. Soon, the wind blew in a rain cloud and it was raining while we were swimming in the ocean. Everyone but our family got out of the water. We did not see the sense in that. We were wet. The rain was not going to make us wetter. One man finally joined us deciding that since he was getting wet on the beach, he may as well be in the surf.
So this is a painting of the wind. There is a wind generator, a flag held out by the wind, and a kite held aloft by the wind. The house was really white, but my granddaughter thought it would be better dark red. We were on LSD, so dark red it was.
Painting is 12″x12″ acrylic on stretched canvas.
Price: $90reduced to $25 plus postage
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When I was eight years old, our family went to Fort Snelling during their restoration preparations for their big sesquicentennial in 1969. We were only six years early. They were already selling memorabilia to help pay for it. While we were there, we witnessed a polo game. It was the only time in my life I have done so. My mom grew up with horses, so this was mandatory. Lawyers had not gained as much of a foothold by then, so fans just sat on the grass, with no barriers between themselves and the field. Polo matches were rare, so there were no stands. When a ball got so nicked up that it was deemed too poor to continue in play, they would simply knock it to the sidelines.
A ball came hurtling out of the field. I went racing toward it. So did another boy. Now I was pigeon-toed and never that athletic, but I threw myself on that painted cork ball! I nabbed it fair and square! I took it home and found that it had a special charm. I placed it in a drawer of my maple desk with the Masonite drawer bottoms. When I opened that drawer, the ball would roll around and the divots in the ball would make the most interesting sounds and resonate in that drawer. For 12 years, I kept that drawer empty except for that ball, just so I could roll it around to make that special sound.
My mom never understood this special delight. Countless times I would come home from school and see a huge trash bag outside the back door with things from my room in it. Before entering the house, I would retrieve my polo ball and a few other choice possessions, then take out the rest to the trash. I would then enter the back door. I would holler, “Mom! Did you clean my room?” She would answer, “Yes.” I would say, “Did you throw anything out?” She would say, “No.” I would say, “OK.” And I would return the polo ball to its drawer. My mom had cryptic methods of education. Looking back, this was probably her way of training me for politics and negotiations. I am nearly 61. My mom has been dead since 1993. I still have the polo ball. Sadly, I don’t have the maple desk with the Masonite bottomed drawers.
The painting is acrylic on 10″x 8″ stretched canvas. Price: $55reduced to $25 plus postage.
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The fact that we keep desiring to have children and keep having children is probably the greatest sign of the level of hope most humans have in the future. Against all indications to the contrary, we still feel things are going to get better for our children.
This is #20 in my images of hope for Perkasie Fun-A-Day 2018
Painting is acrylic on 6″ x 6″ x 1.75″ stretched canvas.
Price: $25reduced to $15 plus postage
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The eighth image of hope in my Fun-A-Day series is “Welcome”. We have just come through the “holidays”. For so many, it can be the most difficult time of the year. It is hard to go home to the family or there is no family or no home.
Painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $30reduced to $10 plus postage.
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I painted Rupert for our son-in-law Vincent’s 30 somethingth birthday this month. Sadly, as it turns out, Rupert is slowly dying. He has been a wonderful cat, friendly and affectionate. He has lived longer than we expected, what with his taste for toxic chemicals and his talent for escaping outdoors. Even though he hasn’t eaten for days, the sweetheart still roused himself to stand up to greet me when I visited yesterday.
The painting is acrylic on 10″ x 10″ stretched canvas.
It seems I need to paint all of the family’s pets. It was Oreo’s turn for her portrait to be painted. She is Skittles’ litter mate and playmate. They have very different temperaments. Skittles will lay, purring on my chest for hours. He will come when I call and let me pick him up and snuggle him. He just settles in and enjoys it. Oreo comes if she smells chicken or hears her food bowl hit the counter. She surprises us when she jumps up on us and jumps down just as suddenly. She likes to sleep in Bethann’s clothing drawers under the bed.
Both of them like to race back and forth in the middle of the night.
Of course, I have painted Skittles and Oreo a few times before in CUDDLE!, SNUGGLE!, and SPOON!
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $70 plus postage.
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I saw an image of fierce-looking tiger eyes composed like this. I decided that I needed to portray my cat Skittles’ inner tiger. This is part of my Perkasie Fun-A-Day 2019 home decor project.
The painting is acrylic on 24″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $200 plus postage.
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These are Oreo and Skittles sitting on the window sill looking out for birds and rabbits, bees and butterflies. They may also notice some of the human activity on our corner. I call the piece Weltanschauung because it is my view of the world. We rent a 500 square foot house. The house we owned was foreclosed on and auctioned after I had several hospitalizations and my business failed, and Social Security (falsely so called) took three years to get me disability, and then did not pay my retroactive back pay for another two years, until after I finally happened upon a sympathetic Social Security employee who risked her job to fix the problem for me. While that was happening, I found out that the illness I had before had damaged my aortic valve. So I had it replaced with a pig valve last June. I had three rounds of infection in my chest incision after that. The week we moved into this tiny house, last September, I was weak with pain and had to spend time chasing down a rare antibiotic that is now the ninth on the list of those I am allergic to.
Of course, Weltanschauung means far more than just one’s view of the world out of a window. Surely you can see how the experience of the last several years has shaped and reformed my worldview. While this may look like an idyllic picture of country life, it is actually facing a very busy street in the middle of town.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $150 plus postage
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Pepi was a Golden Cocker Spaniel. Our family purchased him at a service station along Route 8 on our way home from family camp at Camp Lawton on Deer Lake in Wisconsin, when I was six. He was the runt of the litter, so they let him go for $10. I was the youngest of the four children. I spent the most time with him. He pretty much became my dog. Like me, he had a wide circle of friends, and roamed freely in a wide area of the neighborhood. We had Jewish next door neighbors who dearly loved him, and welcomed him into their house regularly. He would defend their front step as vigorously as ours from the paperboy or the mailman. The mailman always brought a Milkbone for Pepi. Pepi would bark, at first, for show. He would receive his treat and petting, then he would accompany our mailman along the rest of his route. This helped him a great deal, as Pepi would keep any dogs busy while he delivered the mail. If any pets were loose, Pepi would make sure they would not come near to, or harm, the mailman.
Pepi would always get excited when my dad got home from work. He knew when the normal time was and he would sit on the manhole cover in the middle of the street, looking East in anticipation of his car. Our neighbor’s Hebrew school bus would sometimes come to drop Elaine off after her lessons. Pepi would not budge from his spot on the manhole cover. The driver would have to veer way to the right to go around him. Pepi loved kosher food. Whenever there was a Jewish family picnic in the neighborhood, even if he had to cross the highway, somehow he would sniff it out and find it. He would beg for food and scarf up anything that was dropped. Then he would come home, eat grass and throw up. We found out just how far he had ranged when our neighbors, the Shermans, had a big gathering on the occasion of a visit of family members from Israel. Pepi, of course, attended, as well. So many of the guests said to each other, “So you know this dog, too?!”
The painting is based on a 4″ black and white snapshot I took of Pepi eating from his dishes in the back yard of our house on Lowry Terrace in Golden Valley, Minnesota. In the background is the fort that my dad built from plans from Popular Mechanics. It had a locked shed in the back for the lawn mower and yard tools. The front had a little play house with a ladder through a hatch to the top deck with the turrets. It was great for snowball fights, etc. That fort was a famous landmark for children for miles around. More kids played in our fort than I ever knew. Behind the fort was a swamp that had milkweed, so we had loads of Monarch butterflies and other wildlife. Behind that was a sledding hill with four rows of American Elms which separated three great sled runs, that terminated on the swamp, which, of course, froze in the winter. The lower part of our yard, next to the fort, was flooded for a skating rink, for several years when I was growing up. In the summer, our yard was the middle of three mostly flat yards, with only one tree, that ran together without fences, where we could play football, baseball, soccer, dodgeball, etc. It was a great place, and a great time to grow up.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $100 plus postage
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Fezzik is a little cat ironically named after the character played by André the Giant in The Princess Bride. I painted it for a present for our grandson Jacob’s 13th birthday. The cat was a stray that adopted his family and now lives indoors.
This painting really makes an impact at four feet wide and three free tall! It was such a beautiful weekend, I decided to accompany my wife and daughter to the Franconia Township Fall Fest, where they were selling their wares. Bethann makes clothing, purses and quilts. Hilary makes jewelry. I went along to help set up and take down and took this painting, along with my good easel and supplies, to work on it Saturday 11 to 6. Last week, when our daughter, April, saw it, she said it looked trippy. I said, “Yeah, sunflowers on acid.” She said, “More like the artist was on acid.” Full disclaimer here: neither one of us has ever done acid. (At least I know I never have. I mean, not that I remember.)
Illustration of Vogel’s model for n = 1 … 500
Sometimes, while I am painting, I learn more about my subjects. April mentioned the Fibonacci Sequence in the pattern of the florets in the heads of Sunflowers. In 1979, Helmut Vogel devised a formula based on it. His formula looks like this:
On Saturday, Hilary also mentioned the Fibonacci Number. She has a friend who gets excited about all of the different places it shows up. I mentioned that Sunflowers always face East to greet the rising of the Sun. She replied, “Except when the sun goes down, they turn and face each other.” Another person told me that later that day. I don’t know if that is true or just a romantic folk tale.
I had so much fun interaction with folks, especially the little ones, at the festival. At one point, about a half dozen 4-foot tall girls were walking down the path in front of my easel. They all happened to look left at the same moment, and in unison exclaimed, “Whoa! That’s beautiful!” That’s when I knew the painting was a success.
This work was what I did over the canvas I re-primed after giving up on the Indonesian floating market painting I had stewed over all Summer.
The painting is acrylic and marker on 48″ x 36″ stretched canvas.
I painted a Lavender Sunflower for our granddaughter, Isabella, for Valentine’s Day 2017. She loved it. Several of her paintings and a couple of mine that I had given the girls were destroyed by their wicked landlord, when he illegally evicted their family. They lost all of their toys and games, and household goods. The judge has awarded them restitution and punitive damages, that they are waiting to receive. I am painting simple daylilies and fantastical flowers to sell at reasonable prices so we can help replace some of the things they lost, as we find them at yard sales and thrift stores.
This painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
This is a monochromatic painting of me and my wife, Bethann. It was done in the spirit of the old Instamatic, black & white snapshots of the ’60s. In that spirit, neither one of us is very happy with the outcome. It should probably have sticky black corners put on it and be inserted in a large photo album, to be viewed at our funerals. It does look better in person.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $80 plus postage.
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Based on the first snapshot of my wife and me as newlyweds in July 1975, leaning on Poindexter, our 1967 Chevy Impala, in front of our ‘garden level’ apartment at 1900 Upton Avenue North, Minneapolis, MN 55411. I was 20. Bethann was 19. It was on the corner where my mom always said, “Lock your doors, bad neighborhood,” as we entered the city, growing up. We were young and in love, so none of that mattered. During the six months we lived there, our car was stolen. My sexy Oshkosh overalls were stolen off the clothesline in the laundry room and there was an attempted break in into the apartment on Thanksgiving.
Our first child was conceived there. It was wonderful!
This painting is acrylic on 24″ x 24″ stretched canvas. It is not for sale. It was my Christmas gift to my wife this year.
This is a painting of our youngest grandson with my cat. It is based on a photo from several years ago, when Elijah was just a little boy and Skittles was just a kitten.
Original painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Marie is a former co-worker of Bethann. She and her husband, Pete, retired to Lewes, Delaware, a part of the state affectionately referred to as LSD, Lower Slower Delaware. It has a small, historically preserved, shopping district with an independent, used book and novelty store, a toy store, ice cream shop, several restaurants, antique and art dealers, etc. There is a super quilting fabric shop, close to the beach. The beach is on an inlet, so no rough surf or undertow. It is calm and perfect for little children and old folk, whose knees don’t like to get knocked about. There are vineyards and wildlife sanctuaries to tour. There are a pool and a pond in Pete and Marie’s community. Lewes just happens to be the same town where Fr. Boniface and Khouriye Joyce Black started St. Andrew’s, and where our friends, Fr. Herman & Khouriye Vera Acker now serve. I helped build and design the Holy Table for St. Andrew’s as well as the side tables. I made the icons for the mission before they had a building. So this falls into the “small world” category.
But, back to our story. If it were not for Pete & Marie, we would not be able to have any sort of vacation for the last several years. They invite us down. We have a great time with them. They are a great, loving couple. We have gotten to know their daughter, Jen, as well. She lives not far from us, in PA. Pete & Marie have been married for over 40 years. One day, Pete left the house with our son-in-law, Vince, me, and our two granddaughters to walk over to the pool on the other side of the pond. We hear the garage door open and Marie holler, “I love you, Pete!” He hollers back, “I love you, Marie!” I look at him. He said, “We always kiss each other whenever one of us leaves the house. I forgot to. So …” Now that’s sweet.
This painting in acrylic on 14″ x 11″ stretched canvas. It is not for sale. Jen is taking it down to her parents for us as a “thank you” gift.
My playmates for the first six years of my life were my sister Sue Ann and our neighbor across the street, David Ericson. They were two years older than I was. I was the youngest of four in my family. David was the youngest of four in his family. There were other children in the neighborhood, but these were my closest friends and constant companions. Our family built a bigger house and moved two miles away in Golden Valley, MN, the summer between kindergarten and first grade, but we stayed in touch. We spent 4th of Julys together and got together around Christmas and did some other outings, as well. We ended up going to the same high school: Robbinsdale Senior High.
When we were little and playing cowboys and Indians, David always managed to get killed right outside his back door. He would lay there for a moment then he would get up and run into the kitchen and pour some ketchup on his face and lie back down; you know, to add bloody realism. The next time we would come by, he would still be lying there, but he would be scraping the ketchup off with potato chips and eating them. You just can’t waste food like that! There were children starving in Africa.
David’s parents, Lester and Lois prayed for our family daily and brought us kids to church when my folks didn’t go, and to vacation Bible school, to their little Bible church in North Minneapolis. Lois particularly prayed for me daily from the time she heard my mom was pregnant with me until the day she died in December, 2008. I played with David’s toys while he was in school and my mom was working for the 1960 Census. The Ericsons’ house was the safest place I knew as a child. Playing with David’s Lincoln Logs in the middle of the living room floor with Mrs. Ericson in the kitchen was as good as life could get.
David grew up to be a serious, well-mannered, Christian, young man. He graduated RHS, Class of 1971. He decided to take a year off to do a short-term missionary assignment with Wickliffe Bible Translators, helping his sister and brother-in-law, Jim and Carol Daggett, in Peru, instead of starting college. While there, he was accompanying a girl on a flight to Quito, to go to a hospital for an emergency surgery. It was Christmas Eve. The flight went down and we did not know for three weeks what had happened. Finally, we learned that only one German girl survived. The plane had broken up in mid-air in a bad storm. Pieces of the fuselage had fallen from the sky. Her mother died in the seat next to her. She was carrying her wedding cake on her lap. That helped save her. A tribe of natives who were known to be cannibals took her in and treated her wounds. She was finally found and rescued. So we lost David. He died on a mission of mercy. He was Les and Lois Ericson’s only son.
In 2000, my sister Sue Ann committed suicide. I just remember being so much happier and four and saying, “Alison, can you help Sue Ann and me cross the street so we can play with David?”
As I painted this portrait, I reminisced of a time before my birth. I recalled Grama Dodier’s life from when she was born as a “half-breed” on the prairie of Minnesota in 1880, to when I interviewed her when I was a 12-year-old in the Spring of 1968. I still have a clear vision of her log cabin and her excitement at her French, trapper dad arriving home after a weeks’ long hunting and trading expedition. I can visualize the scene as freshly now as then of her first vision of a motorized vehicle. It was steam-powered. I asked her if her daughters were flappers during the “Roaring 20s”. She laughed. She told me she helped make Irene’s dress. The times had changed and she and her husband had moved to the city (Minneapolis).
I have no photos of Grama Dodier. She is not a relative, but I carry her memories. She was a neighbor’s (two blocks away) mother. I painted her portrait from 49-year-old memories. It is truly amazing how quickly things have changed. She witnessed the first automobiles and now we were heading to the moon. She was an outcast for being a “half-breed’ as a child and young mother. By the 1950s, no one noticed her race because of her French last name. Her daughters married well. She could pass, but the Blacks and the Native Americans were still struggling in Minnesota.
I learned much from Grama Dodier and was careful to preserve these memories as a living link to the past. It is now 2017, so I have a link going back 137 years.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $80 plus postage
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I decided to paint this moment in my sister Sue Ann’s life in the same style I originally captured it on film with my Instamatic camera just over 45 years ago. The painting is square, slightly out of focus, with a yellowed border as if it sat in a drawer all those years like the actual snapshot.
Sue Ann was copy editor for our high school yearbook, the Robin, for 1971, her senior year. I was the only sophomore on the annual staff. That was a violation of longstanding tradition. They were shorthanded for the Academics Section due to illness. I had submitted a number of poems for the book that demonstrated my talent. I started writing secretly, submitting articles through Sue Ann. A couple of months in, I was publicly accepted, when we had to start doing all-nighters to meet deadlines. Sue Ann was a tough editor. Articles had to be brief, yet packed with stories that would be understandable decades later. She and Janice Eisenhart, editor-in-chief, and Helen Olsen, our adviser, wanted a book that was to be a true time capsule; a reference students and others would be able to read years and decades later and get an accurate picture of the year at RHS. We all worked extremely hard to make that happen. This was before personal computers or word processors. We had to manually print on the layout grids each character of text, accounting for exact pica widths and justification. Then we would ship sections of the book off to the publisher at a time and wait to see how it looked. This painting is of my sister taking her first look at the finished book, the night before it was to be distributed at RHS.
The book won national awards. It received mixed reviews at school. That was OK. We expected that. It was not the usual, school spirit, jock centered, kitschy review of the year. There are no inside jokes or private messages. Forty-five years later, it reads well, and its style does not seem dated. This was a proud moment for Sue Ann, and no small accomplishment.
Sue Ann went on to Concordia College, Moorehead, MN, for a year, then continued at Augsburg in Minneapolis. She had taught me to write, and to be a ruthless self-editor. While at Augsburg, she lived at home. I ended up typing her English Lit. papers, in the wee hours of the morning. I became her editor. Her English prof. was my British Lit. teacher’s husband. They compared notes. One day, Mrs. Wood asked me if Sue Ann helped me with my papers. I told her No, but that I edited hers. However, Sue Ann had taught me how to write, so our styles were indistinguishable. She shared this with Prof. Wood, and reported back that they had a good chuckle over their Chardonnay.
This is in my suicide series of paintings. Sue Ann had started drinking regularly, as well as using various recreational drugs, while at Concordia. Both of our parents and three of our grandparents were alcoholic. Sue Ann got married, had three kids, was a paralegal, then an accountant. She decided to try to do an intervention on our dad to get him treatment for his alcoholism. That’s when she confronted her own. She went into treatment. She and her husband joined AA. She was after everyone to join AA. At some point, in her 40s, she became addicted to gambling. She ended up squandering the family’s resources, and had just separated from her husband and moved into an apartment on her own when she took her own life with a drug cocktail. She was about to be confronted by her boss for embezzling money from his companies. It was November 29, 2000. She was 47.
She had been a great mom. The great irony here is that she and I were the main, informal suicide hotline counselors when we were in junior and senior high.
I am the youngest of four siblings, yet my memories have always gone back further than my sisters and brother. This is a painting of the house where I lived for my first six years (June 1955 – June 1961). It still stands. The outside finishes and windows have been updated, but it is still the same tiny Dutch Colonial. It is almost totally obscured by trees on Google Earth. When we lived there, those Google Earth shots would have been impossible! The place was literally crawling with children! (also skipping, jumping, climbing, hiding & seeking, chalk drawing, running,etc.) 1955 was the crest of the Baby Boom after all. Crystal Lake was across the street. That is where the Ericksons, Hostermans and DeLays lived.
Our house was at 4438 Shoreline Drive, Robbinsdale, 22, Minnesota. Postage stamps were 4 cents. Flags had 48 stars. Everybody liked Ike. Our phone number started with KEllogg 7. I knew all this when I was three. My earliest and most powerful memory was being held in the arms of my godfather, Harold, when I was not yet two years old, in the dining room of that house. He was looking out the door to the screened-in porch. I remember the feel of his laugh, and that it was one of the few times I felt truly happy and safe in that house.
Not long after that party, Harold took his own life. It wasn’t clear, at first, that he intended to. There was no note. Harold had the form of acrophobia that would cause him to have a strong urge to jump from open heights. I have it, too. It is actually an idea, seemingly hardwired in the brain, that the scariness of being on the precipice would be relieved, if one would only throw oneself on the wind and fly. Harold flew. His wings burned up like Icarus’ in the Sun. I simply never saw Uncle Harold again; never smelled that smell; never saw that smile; never felt that embrace; never felt that laugh again. (Further investigation revealed that he apparently did mean to exit that day.)
That’s me, in the red jumper, asleep in Harold’s arms. My therapist asked me, when I showed her this painting, “So safety must be a big concern for you. What do you do to make sure you are safe?”
I asked her if that was a trick question.
Christmas Eve, 1971, my neighbor across the street and childhood playmate, David Erickson, was dead in a plane crash in Peru. That wasn’t the start of the deaths. The suicides started from 8th grade on: Dean and Stephen and Mark and Scott and Bobby and Lynn and Sue Ann and Fred and the list and the tears don’t stop . . .
Painting is 11″x14″ acrylic on stretched canvas.
Price: $100 plus postage
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Dorothy Williams was one of our adopted grandmas. She had no family left when we met her. She lived two blocks from us in East Greenville, PA. She lived in a small, second floor Section 8 apartment that was part of the Baumans’ half-twin on Main Street. Her only income was from Social Security. She grew up in Philly. Every grocery store was an Acme to her, pronounced in three syllables. We got to know her when neither of us had cars and Pastor Dave Benner would come, in his big Suburban, and pick up the six of us and Dot to bring us to Finland Mennonite Church. After we got a car, we continued to pick up Dot. We would have her over for dinner. She doted on our girls and taught them important life lessons that we quote to this day, such as: “Tables are for glasses not for asses!” Just the kind of lesson you want your four-year-old repeating at Sunday School! She especially loved the littlest ones. “Ba-aby!” was also a three syllable word, as she reached out her arms to receive any little one near her.
We also ran other errands with Dot. Whenever Dot got a bit of money in her purse, she couldn’t resist treating us to dinner at her favorite Chinese restaurant, over in Quakertown, or the “Pound o’ Roses”. (Ponderosa Steak House) We would try to pay or, at least, handle the tip. She would have none of it. We were all poor. We learned not to argue. She made it clear that this was one of the few things in her life that gave her joy and we were not to take it from her! She was in her glory in the New Far East Restaurant! It was such a shame when it burned and closed. We didn’t tell her. By that time, she was too ill to handle the food. She would still press cash, that she couldn’t afford, into my hand for me to take the family out for dinner on her.
She came with us to Bethann’s folks house for Christmas and Easter and all the birthdays. She was part of the family. I mean, that’s what one does. People are not made to be alone. I grew up with so many Aunts and Uncles. I didn’t find out until I was in high school that we weren’t related to but a quarter of them! Their families had either rejected them or died, so they became part of our ragtag clan. Our lives have been so much the richer for this!
This painting is Dot snoozing after Christmas dinner in 1985.
It was not long after this that she got so ill that she could no longer take care of herself. She minimized her illness to us. She moved into the Montgomery County Geriatric & Rehabilitation Center formerly known as the Poorhouse. We visited her with our four little girls. She was obviously very ill. We had to wait for a bit to see her once, so we visited other patients. Some of them had not had any visits in weeks! They had been warehoused and forgotten. Our youngest, Hilary, would climb up into laps. Immediately, there were smiles and tears. No words. These patients couldn’t speak. The next time we came to visit we planned extra time to visit “Dot’s new neighbors”. The nurses thanked us so much. That was the last time we saw Dot. She died of some form of cancer.
She was a little rough around the edges, with a heart of gold!
If it weren’t for Dave & Priscilla Benner going the second mile, Dot would have been one of those forgotten, warehoused cast-off souls, and we would have missed out on being blessed by another Grandma. I have learned, one can never have too many Grandmas!
Painting is acrylic on 14″x11″ canvas.
Price: $100 plus postage
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St. Marie of Paris said, “Each person is the very icon of God incarnate in the world. The way to God lies through the love of people.” So Gary Heidnik was an “icon of God”. Hmmm? Most religious people like to sort their saints and sinners much more discreetly than that. I guess that’s why almost all the religious people hated Jesus. He accepted everyone, no exceptions.
I had an encounter with Gary Heidnik. It must have been in 1988. I was Mennonite Chaplain for Philadelphia Prisons. I was waiting for an inmate to be released from the City Hall Court, so I could take him to visit his mom, then up to the aftercare program that I oversaw in the suburbs. My back was turned, but I felt a darkness of evil. I turned around to see Gary Heidnik, the serial killer, shuffling in shackles, being escorted by two guards from the courtroom into the caged holding area. The hair on my neck stood on end. And all I thought was, “God is gracious. He is still giving him breath. What is there possibly left that God loves and hopes to redeem? Yet here he was, the living, breathing evidence that God ‘is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.’” I learned then, that even Gary Heidnik ‘was the very icon of God in the world.’
Now, I am no longer a believer in God per se, because I have seen and experienced too much evil done by people claiming to act in his name. I do, however, believe in the sanctity and dignity of life. People are not inherently evil. Every one of us was conceived and born with hope and potential to somehow add something wonderful, beautiful and unique to the human experience! So many of us get beat down by poverty, malnutrition, war, prejudice, or, in Gary’s case, severely mentally ill parents. We get broken.
Gary’s dad was a cruel man and Gary was a bed wetter. (chicken and egg?) Gary’s dad would force him to hang his wet sheets out the window for all in the neighborhood to see. He was good at academics. He was quiet and never made eye contact with fellow students; always looking down. He tested near genius on his IQ. He dropped out of the military academy he went to for high school and joined the Army at age 17. In the Army, he trained as a medic and earned his GED. He was stationed at 46th Army Surgical Hospital in Landstuhl, West Germany. In August 1962, Heidnik reported in sick, complaining of severe headaches, dizziness, blurred vision, and nausea. He was diagnosed with gastroenteritis, and it was noted that he also displayed symptoms of mental illness, for which he was prescribed trifluoperazine. In October 1962, he was transferred to a military hospital in Philadelphia, where he was diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder and honorably discharged.
He enrolled in a nursing program at U. Penn., only to drop out after one semester. He worked as a psychiatric nurse at a VA hospital, but was fired for poor attendance and rude behavior. From August 1962 until his arrest in March 1987, Heidnik spent time in and out of psychiatric hospitals, and attempted suicide at least 13 times. In 1970, his alcoholic mother Ellen, committed suicide. His brother Terry also spent time in psychiatric institutions and attempted suicide multiple times. Gary was a brilliant investor. He started with $1500 and turned it into over $1million. When he was arrested, they found his dilapidated rowhouse wallpapered with bearer-bonds. While in state prison, he helped turn several correctional officers into millionaires with the advice he gave them, as well.
Gary’s criminal record is well-known. He murdered two women and raped six. He dismembered and froze a couple of their bodies in order to hide them. While on death row, he attempted suicide again by saving up his Thorazine and taking an overdose. The State of Pennsylvania spent multiple tens of thousands of dollars to nurse him back to health, then tested him to make sure he was competent enough to be executed, then murdered him by lethal injection on July 6, 1999. As of this writing in 2016, he is the last person to be officially executed by the state in PA.
When it came time for his execution, two of his victims, including his former wife, filed for a stay. The state ruled that they had no standing. I find it telling, that they still could see something in Gary that was worthy of their love, “an icon of God incarnate in the world.” After all: God love is.
Painting is 11″x14″ acrylic on canvas. Price: $100 plus postage
Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit cards are accepted.
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