Pakenham Bridge

Maureen has been doing a lot of genealogy work in the Ottawa Valley in Eastern Canada. This old bridge is significant in her family history. It is the only one of its kind in North America. It spans the Mississippi River near its headwaters. Mo's family members are buried near a little church just behind this view.

She asked me to paint it for one of her distant relatives who has been so helpful to her with her research efforts. Acrylic on canvas 20"x 10" (Jan. 2009)

Lean On Me

My sister, Connie, asked if I could paint this scene of some old out buildings she had seen in a black and white photograph given to her by Sister Elaine Dalton. She expained what it meant to her ... sometimes in our lives we need to lean on someone else for support and sometimes we need to be leaned upon! I was thrilled to give it a try!

As evidenced in the painting, the Lord can use any of us, no matter our perceived condition or stage in life to help another! I thought it was a great visual image of one of life's wonderful realities. Acrylic on canvas 24"x 18" (Jan 2009)

Grammy's Monkey Business (Christmas 2008)

Maureen has been suffering from some severe neck trauma and has been working through some disc decompression therapy since November. She somehow found the strength to sew a sock monkey for each grandchild, 18 in total, for Christmas this year! Liz Wolfgramm from work helped her cut out and sew a few (thank you, Liz!) ... I even tried to help a little by stuffing some of them. In the end, Maureen did most of the work (even re-did some of my efforts) and finished them on time for Christmas!

The kids absolutely loved them! She even led them to believe that she had used all of my fishing socks for the project ... a fact that several of them relished! I naturally fell right into the act complaining later that all of my fishing socks were missing! We really had alot of fun with that one!

I was so impressed by her efforts that I painted this litte guy and had all of the grandkids, that were there that day, sign the painting and we gave it to her for her Christmas present! Acrylic on canvas 16"x 20" (Dec 2008)