When my brothers write biographies about themselves, they always talk about the influence that Daddy had on them as carvers. That's true but they neglect to mention that our Mom, Connie, was also an artist. That's her, pictured with our Dad. She excelled in many crafts. When the older three of us (Rich, Jessie and me) were little, she made and sold ceramics from our house on High St. She was an accomplished seamstress and made many matching dresses and coats for me and Jessie. We were so cute. The pictures that I've put on this post show some of the other artwork that she did. The bittern and the cat on the brick wall are painted on the walls at the High St. house where I live. She has also painted wall murals at Ross's and Rich's houses. The picture of the little girl with the horse is a painting that she did for me to put in my office at work. It must have been her "Grandma Moses" phase. The idea for the painting was a photo of our grandmother taken when she was about 1o years old (1910). The photographer lined up their whole family in front of the barn (they were dairy farmers) and each person had the reins of a horse. The painting shows just our grandmother "Nannie" holding the plow horse, Barney, and the dog that shows up in all the photos from that time, Shep. Mom also painted lots of birds. Daddy was slightly color blind and didn't like to paint very much, so she painted some of his decoys for him. She was the artistic influence for the whole family and all five of us miss her very much.
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