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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This piece was a long time in the making. The core of it has sat as a text on what is my now defunct cellphone since December 17, 2015. It is crude and ridiculous. Diamond sent it to me after we had helped her and her man for over a year in various ways. Among other things, it includes the first and second and only times I have been called a bitch. When I read it, I broke into uproarious laughter. I determined then and there that I had to somehow immortalize this. This was by far the most creative “thank you” I had ever received for helping someone in 30 years of serving among the poor! I showed Tony. He couldn’t believe it. Earlier that evening, we had delivered their belongings back to them that they had stored in our barn since August. Some people just have a hard time saying thank you.
On August 14 Diamond and Rashawn had dropped off five huge garbage bags of their belongings at our barn for safe-keeping and tried to pull a fast one by just assuming they could arrive at our house with their stuff, and move in. They had not asked. They did not even ask for the ride. They just slipped into the back seat of John’s car. John just assumed they must have worked something out with me. They sat silently all the way home from Phila. to our home in Souderton, figuring I wouldn’t have the nerve to turn them away. I was home, because I was ill. When I heard them in the backyard, I lost it.
Tony had never seen me or heard me in such a rage before. I just could not understand the sheer gall at the level of presumption and deception that it took to try to do that. It was not like we didn’t have history. At Memorial Day, she had tried to guilt me into paying for a month’s rent, even though the weather was OK, and we had no money. When I did not pay it, she accused me of driving drunk, (She had seen me have 3 beers all day, several hours before we left to bring them home.) One used to be able to read about our appeal and the story on The King’s Jubilee’s site, before TKJ went out of business.
Over the last two years, as I have had open heart surgery for my aortic valve replacement; and as our house was foreclosed on and auctioned by the sheriff; as I went through three infections in my chest incision and ended up allergic to a ninth antibiotic; almost all of the old supporters and volunteers were silent, invisible, evaporated. with a few notable exceptions. Then I would refer to this glorious text message and have a good laugh. Diamond had really put her heart into it!
When our team was serving food in the park, Tony saw them. They were too embarrassed to come over for food. He called me. I told him to take food to them. He did, and gave them my love.
On the left side of the painting I wrote, “At least she said something. Read Revelations 3:16-18. It’s more than I can say for most of the church people in my life.”
Revelation 3:16-18 So, because you are lukewarm-neither hot nor cold-I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.
So the painting was done in layers. It is the logo of The King’s Jubilee in subdued tones on a 24″ square canvas. Painted over that is the QR Code for the text that Diamond sent me on December 17, 2015. That way, anyone with a smart phone with a QR Code app can read it, but it is not visible to casual observers or children. I thought this was a much better solution than counted cross-stitch. I discussed it with my therapist today. She and I had a good laugh. I said, “When I post this, the shit is probably going to hit the fan.” She said, “So what! That is what good art is supposed to do. It provokes a response.”
I asked her if she didn’t think I was totally off my nut for preserving this text in this way and doing this. She told me, no, quite the contrary. I had taken this ridiculous attack, seen it for what it was, and now turned it into something beautiful.
You’re Welcome.
Painting is 24″ x 24″ acrylic on stretched canvas.
SOLD
The irony here is the first time I shared it at a public showing, the first one to hit it with a QR code reader on a phone was a 9-year-old girl. I heard, “Look at this, daddy.” And I thought, “O shit.” I explained to him. We had a good chuckle. Our next door neighbor, who was visiting the show, stopped by, enjoyed the story, liked the painting, and bought it.
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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This daylily stands guard at the front of our yard and again at the edge of our patio with its vibrant, hot pink petals and luminous, deep yellow throat. On a sunny day, they almost seem electric. Roland Teich of Teich & McColgan Daylilies & Hostas bred this variety, so it is Hilltown / Peace Valley born, Roland & Robin’s place is just a half block off of Perkasie’s Callowhill, too.
The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $100 plus postage.
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This painting of a single dahlia blossom was the first time I have been commissioned to do a work in advance. In fact, I was paid, in full, in advance, and given complete artistic freedom. The client, who is our neighbor, only specified the size of the canvas. He sent me photos he had taken of his wife’s prizewinning dahlias. I could choose to do a grouping, a stand, a bouquet or a single. Neither he nor I knew the names of the varieties. The painting was a surprise for his wife’s birthday. I played around with the 10 or so photographs he had given me, until I settled on this: a single blossom on a 20″ x 20″ x 2″ canvas. I painted the entire area of the blossom with Cadmium Yellow as an undercoat. The paint for every petal has some of that yellow blended in it to convey the glow of that blossom. It took me over a week to paint. I painted the 2″ edges Cadmium Yellow. There is no need for a frame. I coated it with museum quality, clear spray acrylic to protect it. Dave was thrilled with it. He told me his wife Tammy is thrilled with it. I had named the painting, “Good Morning Sunshine!” Tammy saw it and recognized the blossom immediately as a “Sugartown Sunrise” Dahlia.
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.
Anthony McNeal is a dear friend. I don’t know how long ago we met. He was homeless. I was leading The King’s Jubilee, serving meals in center City Philadelphia. Tony managed to go to Philadelphia Community College to receive several certifications in computer use and maintenance. He is also a skilled, bicycle repairman and a cook. He got a job cooking at Tindley Temple UMC‘s kitchen which provided meals a couple of days a week to homeless people. He moved into an apartment with another man who had been homeless, when he got a Section 8 apartment, to share expenses. Tony started to help us serve on the street, when he was still on the street himself, and continued when he moved into the apartment. He was always a cool head to help maintain order and help keep everyone safe. When the city required food safety training, he took the course with me, so he could take charge when I could not make it.
When my health took a turn for the worse, he would come up to our home in Souderton and do the heavy chores that needed doing. Many times, he helped me cook the soup for the street or took over the task entirely, at our house. Sometimes, he brought his uncle, Steven Johnson, to help, as well. Tony has accompanied me to WXPN’s Exponential Music Festival for a few years. He also came with me to Philly Socialists’ retreat in West Virginia a couple of years ago. He is always happier when he is serving, so he pitched in and cooked the whole Labor Day weekend.
Tony is a joy to know. Everyone of our friends and family who has met him, became his friend, too.
A few years ago, Tony invited me to his birthday party at his dad’s house. When we arrived, they were surprised by the fact that I am white. They asked Tony why he failed to mention this. He said, “I forgot. I don’t think of Cranford as white.”
The painting is acrylic on 14″ x 11″ stretched canvas.
Tony is still not happy with me about how I cut off the top of his head in this painting. It communicates his height. I was standing that close when I took his photo in the hallway at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. I also gave him more white hair than he had yet. He is getting there.
SOLD. I gave it to Tony’s daughter and granddaughter.
I met Ethel Haanpaa in 1971 when I started dating her granddaughter, Becky Shostrom. I was 16. Becky was 17. Becky lived in her own apartment upstairs from her grandma Ethel and her step-grandpa Emil in their chocolate brown duplex on 25-1/2 Ave. No. in Minneapolis. Becky and I were both members at Fourth Baptist Church, which was then located at 21st and Fremont, just 4-1/2 blocks away. We were extremely involved in the youth group and in the church, which was extremely fundamentalist. Ethel was a member of First Baptist Church, downtown, which was more “liberal”. Emil didn’t go to church. He was a retired, union taxi and bus driver. He was a character. We disagreed on just about everything, but we had great, friendly discussions. I learned so much about honesty, character, tolerance and love from this old couple and their friends.
On the morning of the day of my sister’s funeral, I went into Minneapolis to visit Grama Ethel Haanpaa at the Lutheran Home, the high-rise retirement community where she had lived for several years. Ethel was not our grandma by blood, but by adoption. She was Becky Shostrom’s grandma. I had been engaged to Becky when I was a senior in high school until finals week of my freshman year of college. That’s when she told me she had fallen in love with the bus driver on the spring break choir tour. Grama Ethel and her husband, Emil, kept inviting me to all of the special occasions at their chocolate brown house on 25-1/2 Avenue North. We had become good friends, along with Ethel’s first husband, Al Shostrom, and his girlfriend, Mamie. We were a strange lot. When Bethann and I got engaged, I introduced her to Ethel and Emil. Ethel welcomed Bethann to the family with open arms. Emil passed away shortly after we moved to PA in 1977. Ethel became another grandma to our four girls. We exchanged Christmas gifts and birthday cards, letters and phone calls and always visited her when we got back to Minnesota.
When I got to the Lutheran Home, I did not find Ethel in her apartment. I inquired at the desk and discovered that she was in the hospice care unit. I visited her and can remember our conversation like it was yesterday. She told me that she didn’t want to take the pain meds, because they made her befuddled. She was dying and didn’t see any point wasting what little time she had left being befuddled. She said she needed to settle her accounts and needed a clear head to do that. She then recounted to me what she considered to be her failings and sins. Now she had been a Baptist all her life. Baptists don’t do confession. But I heard hers. We cried together. I assured her that God loved her and she was forgiven for all her failings and regrets. At the time, I was an Orthodox Christian layperson. When I got home, I told our priest, Father Boniface, about how I had heard her confession and assured her of God’s forgiveness. He said, “You did good.” As I left to go to my sister’s funeral, I knew that this was the last time I would see dear, sweet Ethel. She would never bless my “pointed little head” again. In fact, that was the last conversation she had. She slipped into coma and passed away a few days later, on December 7, 2000, at age 92.
Painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.
Price: $80 plus postage.
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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?”
Stephen was from Nutley, NJ. He moved with his family into the house across the street from our family in Golden Valley, MN, when we were 11. He had no sense of style. He wore brown “dungarees” and slicked down hair, and fully buttoned-up shirts. Whoever heard of dungarees?! I had to whip him into shape before school started, so he didn’t get laughed out of there before he started. We got the grease out of his hair; got him into blue jeans and flared pants; taught him to unbutton his top button, and listen to better music. We spent a lot of time together. We explored ESP and telepathy and tales of the Windigo. We meditated together in the dark. We were convinced we had achieved telepathy. We played around with the OUIJA board, except we were serious.
In seventh and eighth grades, almost every teacher in our junior high who had a paddle, broke it over Stephen’s bony butt. He had attitude. Sometime in our eighth grade year, Stephen’s dad got transferred back to Nutley, so the family moved back. One Saturday, Stephen was playing soccer at a school. Being a hot dog, he kicked the ball on top of the school roof. He promptly climbed up onto the flat roof after it. He chased it until he fell through a skylight onto the floor of the school below. No one could find the key to the school or break in to get him before he bled to death from his injuries. His mother called our neighbor to let us all know. It was still winter in Minnesota.
I cried my eyes out. I went up to my room . I looked out the back window into the blackness of the night and I tried to have telepathy with Stephen. I thought we had been communicating over the previous weeks. This time, I got a message, but it was different. I immediately broke it off and never attempted telepathy again. I was convinced that it was a demon, and that it was probably demons who had been carrying the messages all along. Then, I started to sing the song I had learned as a 4-year-old when the Ericsons had taken me to their little Bible Church in North Minneapolis: “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”. I soon started to weep, since I realized that Jesus was not my friend, since I was not his friend. That’s when I started to read my New Testament.
The story goes on to further spiritual quest and further confusion. My Lutheran pastor / confirmation instructor kicked me out of confirmation class for asking too many questions about heaven and hell, just one month shy of being confirmed. I eventually was ordained 3 more times in 4 more denominations. (I was ordained to the priesthood with my infant baptism.)
This painting is not of Stephen. I have no photos of Stephen. I do have his image firmly etched in my brain. I have started to sketch him to paint him several times. This time I decided to continue to paint who came to me instead. I don’t know who this beautiful boy is. I just went ahead and painted him, so I could tell you the story of Stephen, whose death I always considered a type of suicide. You see, Stephen was a misfit. He was not the smart one in his family. That was his little brother, Doug. He wasn’t the pretty one, or his mother’s helper. His dad kept getting transferred, so he was perpetually the new kid. His dad didn’t have time for him. So Stephen did outlandish, dangerous, risky things, to get attention and praise from strangers. It cost him his life at age 14.
Whoever this beautiful boy is or was, I hope he has or had a happier life.
The painting is acrylic on 11″ x 14″ stretched canvas.
Price: $100 plus postage
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Michael was a classmate in high school. He was a year older than the rest of us, as he had been held back at some point. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed academically, but he was good at mechanics. His younger brother was a better scholar and was in the same graduating class as him. I’m afraid we did Mike a great disservice. There were a half-dozen guys who went to the same huge, fundamentalist, Baptist church in the city, who were intent on evangelizing our classmates. We met for prayer every morning before school in the library. Our church had youth recreational activities every Saturday and training activities most other evenings of the week. We invited Michael to these outings and talked to him about becoming “born again”. At some point, he made a profession of faith, got re-baptized and joined the church. I’m sure this caused a rift in his Irish Catholic family.
The pastors of this church (there were eight of them) would never bother to contact the parents of teenagers who were getting baptized and joining their church. I now find this reprehensible and totally irresponsible. My dad threw me out of the house for converting (literally), two months after I was re-baptized. If it were not for my mom insisting on leaving with me, forcing my dad’s hand, I would have been stranded, homeless, in rural Wisconsin. He decided to keep my mom even with me. So I don’t know what all Michael went through. Whatever it was, he went through it with no adult help.
We graduated together in 1973. We had good times that summer, with camp and lots of activities, bicycling together, etc. Then all of us went off to Bible college, that is, all of us except Michael. He lost his gang of comrades, his support group. It was sometime during that school year we got word that Michael had died. Then we learned it had been a suicide. We never got details, never knew about a funeral or burial. His family wanted nothing to do with us or the Baptist church. Since it was a suicide, he couldn’t be buried in the Catholic Church. We had been in college more than an hour away, taking 22 credit hours a semester, being self-absorbed 18-year-olds, too busy to notice that our friend was suffering.
I painted Michael in monochromatic, burnt umber with shiny golden hair. He had naturally wavy, blond hair. I chose to do this to signify the hope and promise of youth, “the golden-haired boy”, snuffed out.
This painting is monochromatic burnt umber on 11″ x 14″ stretched canvas.
Price: $100 plus postage
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I knew Fred since 1998, when he was 20 and I was 43. This was when he started working at Keeney Printing in Lansdale. I printed all of my icons and notecards there for my icon business for several years. I got on Fred’s nerves as I was a customer run amok. Marg Keeney had given me a key to the shop. I would come in after hours and use the copiers and the computers to make my prints. At times, I had to come in during the day to print as well. Fred was friendly enough, but he had an even darker sense of humor than I do. He loved heavy metal music and extreme graphics that to me appeared fantastical and gruesome. He was excellent at what he did, with attention to every detail. He was serious about what he did and was not afraid to put in long hours to get jobs done on time and done right.
Fred worked at Keeney for 13 years, until he was 33. He finally found a woman whom he loved. On 4th of July weekend in 2011 he intended for her to join him at his cabin in northern PA, where he was planning on asking her to marry him. However, she broke up with him. He took his own life at that cabin on July 4, 2011.
Fred’s death was devastating to his dear friend, boss and co-worker, Michael Keeney, as they were close comrades at and after work. Michael loved Fred like a brother.
I have lost 18 close friends and relations to suicide and a total of 43 acquaintances. My therapist asked me how I deal with all that grief. I replied, “Apparently not that well. That’s why I’m here.”
We have all heard people say that suicide is such a selfish act, because it hurts everyone who loves or even knows the victim. We have all heard that suicide is “the coward’s way out”; that it is braver to stay and fight to solve one’s problems. These sound like logical arguments against suicide to those who are left to grieve. But to the one suffering extreme depression and despair, they are bullshit. Through the depression and bipolar support group I attend I have met several people who have tried to commit suicide several times. It is not easy to carry out. It is not for the ‘coward’ or the feint of heart. If one does it wrong, one can end up living with permanent brain damage or some other lasting disability, along with the shame and regret that one did this to oneself. When a person is contemplating suicide, it is not to hurt other people; quite the opposite. It can come from a strong, false belief that the world, including one’s nearest and dearest would be better off without them.
So what is the best suicide prevention? This may sound trite or simplistic to you, but I believe it is love. But that love needs to be expressed by a willingness to just be with a person who suffers with a mood disorder. Logic, persuasion, expert advice don’t go near as far as just a willingness to take the risk to be a friend, knowing that may not be enough.
“Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.” – Paul of Tarsus
The painting is acrylic on 11″ x 14″ stretched canvas.
Price: $80 plus postage
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Bobby was a good friend in grade school and junior high. His family lived two blocks away from mine in Golden Valley, Minnesota. We would bicycle together, sled and skate together in the winter, and sometimes camp out in our backyards together in the summer. He was a beautiful boy! He was handsome, with thick, dark hair, athletic and smart. All the girls loved him. Most of the boys wanted to be him. He did not appreciate all the attention. He was shy and became more withdrawn in his junior and senior year in high school; to the point of not allowing any pictures of himself to appear in the yearbook. This painting is based on his two pictures in the 1971 Robin. The pose is from the soccer team’s group shot, but his eyes were closed, so I looked at his yearly picture for details of his face.
The last time I saw Bobby was in the spring of 1974. I was visiting a few of my friends at the University of Minnesota’s main campus. At that time Pioneer Hall was for both men and women; every other room for each gender. I greeted Bobby as he darted stark naked from the showers to his room. I was shocked at this, not because of modesty, but his apparent lack of it. He had changed, and changed radically. Early December, 1974, we heard the news that Bobby had shot and killed his father, his mother and his sister, Ann, then himself, with a 12 gauge shotgun in the middle of the night in their Golden Valley home. A neighbor discovered their bodies four days after when North Memorial Hospital called her to check on his father, because he had not showed up for his on call assignment. He was a doctor.
Bobby’s case was written up in a feature article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He had suffered some sort of mental breakdown prior to this and had been in treatment. He left the treatment and had been alienated from his family. They reached out to him. He was home for dinner that night to discuss re-entering treatment as an inpatient. After they had all gone to bed, Bobby got his hunting gun and shot his parents and his younger sister while they lay in their beds. Then he shot himself.
The four of them had a joint memorial service at Valley of Peace Lutheran Church. Their were four, beautiful Christmas wreaths on stands in the front of the packed church. Pastor Stine gave this horrible message. He said, “Heaven is God’s gift to us at Christmastime. Bobby gave his family their Christmas gift early.”
I got up, then and there, and walked out of that church! What an ass! This was the same ignorant pastor who had kicked me out of confirmation class one month shy of completion for asking too many questions about heaven and hell, and how one gets to heaven, after my best friend, Steve Rainoff had died by falling through a skylight, chasing a soccer ball, in a locked school in New Jersey.
In the spring of 1975, the Mpls. paper had a feature article on Angel Dust. The authorities had just seen a rise in its use. The symptoms of its use and long-term effects sounded just like Bobby. I have always wondered if he could have been exposed to that, and that is what changed his personality so never know.
I painted his portrait in monochromatic phthalocyanine blue, from a happier time in his life. Bobby was a beautiful boy. He had all the advantages. This could have been me.
Painting is acrylic on 11″ x 14″ stretched canvas.
Price: $100 plus postage
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We knew Lynn nearly our whole time growing up, at least the part in school. She was in my sister, Sue Ann’s, class, so she was two years older than me. We were in Girl Scouts together, the musical, swim team, Student Service Organization in junior high, Annual Staff in senior high. She was one of the gang.
Lynn kept you on your toes. She always had a snappy answer. I have yet to meet another person as quick-witted or funny as she. She was smart. She developed early, so she was bigger and taller than all the girls and most of the boys all through junior high and most of senior high. This gave her body image issues. She so desperately wanted to be liked. Nothing worked out. She had academic success, but couldn’t find a man who could embrace her amazing intellect, her quick wit, while at the same time simply love her “like a boy loves a girl” as the song says.
We got word that Lynn had taken her own life, when we were in Minnesota visiting family in 1989. Lynn would have been about 36.
Painting is 11″x 14″ acrylic on stretched canvas.
Price: $120 plus postage
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Scott was a good friend of mine in junior high. He was on the ski jump team. At Theodore Wirth Park, there was a huge, wooden ski jump. Next to it, was a smaller jump built into the hill. Scott would be there, training with his jumping skis. I would be skiing on the downhill slopes on the park board slopes on the Saturdays I couldn’t get away to Wisconsin, or after school. One Saturday, Scott found me and let me use his jumping skis on the smaller jump. What a thrill! He tried to coax me to go off the big, wooden jump. I knew I didn’t dare. The likelihood would be I would jump off the wrong side of it. Another Saturday morning, Scott finished with his jumping practice. He had forgotten to bring his downhill skis and didn’t have a ride home until later. He found me and persuaded me to share my skis. He let me use both my poles. He just used a single downhill ski. He taught me how to ski downhill on one ski! That was a useful skill. The rope tows were a little tricky. I would end up slowly wilting to one side and pull all of the other passengers on the line with me, down into the snow.
Scott was a beautiful boy, and charming. He had a fort he had built behind his house. In the summer after 8th grade, guys and girls would hang out at his house. Couples would use his fort to make love. I was not aware of this until my girlfriend told me it was “our turn”. I declined. I was caught completely off guard. That ended my relationship with that redhead. That was OK. I am so glad I waited until marriage.
During junior high and into high school, Scott was one of those who called me on a few occasions contemplating suicide. My sister, Sue Ann, and I, it seems, were known as the suicide counselors for our junior high. How that came to be is anybody’s guess. All I know is that Scott and I spent time talking, listening, crying, laughing, renewing a reason to live.
We went to different high schools. The night in 1972 in our junior year when Scott took his life, he did not call me. It still hurts.
Painting is 12″x12″ acrylic on stretched 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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