Ed's Blog

Present for Mom

It's always a challenge to find the right gift for my Mom. She's artistic and stylish, but, she likes to hunt down her own treasures. When I was a kid, we'd go out on country journeys looking for rocks to fit into intricate locations in Mom's rock garden or rock wall.

I have done pretty good over the years, finding cool things that fits my Mom's eye. Mary is also pretty good at it, we often shop on vacation, sometimes in out of the way locations, looking for rare finds. This Christmas I know what to get. After Mom saw pictures of her pictures - my digital photographs of some of her art work, she had mentioned that she would love to have a collection of some of her work, in print form. So, I plan on taking more pictures over the coming weeks and assembling a portfolio or album. Most of Mom's paintings are off somewhere, sold, hanging in homes or businesses. But, what remains I'll try to collect and photograph, capture and digitize.

Mom wants this collection because on rare occasions, when people come over, she wants to be able to show them. So after working for years, Mom started at age 35, worked seriously at art when Dad was laid-off from work, until her arthritis got too bad, maybe to age 65, she created quite a collection of varied work. It ranges from abstract to realism, from watercolors to pottery, lino-cuts (easily over 100), to all sorts of odd-creations. Mostly Mom was known as a painter (watercolors) and a graphic artist - lino-cuts. The lino-cuts were sold at Allentown Art Fest and other similar shows, and she made quite of lot money from these. The linocuts were often about nature, sometimes very symbolic, always creative. Many were in fact representative of deeper concepts or ideas - such as the environmental movement, back in the 70's - which also had a profound impact on me, and vice-versa, with Mom.

I love all of Mom's work. The symbolic and abstract, and the realism. Over the next few weeks, I'll try and display some of it.

posted by Unknown @ 6:37 PM