Several weeks ago I noticed a North, South, East, West round marker painted on the front of an old farmhouse along Old Bethlehem Pike just South of Route 113. It is black on a white, stucco wall. It looks like those directional markers on old maps. It harks back to the time when the primary modes of travel were horse-powered or on foot. There were no cellphones. There were no satellites to provide one’s global position.
I got the idea that it would be cool to make these to adorn barns or sheds or even blank garage walls or fences. I did an internet search for these and learned that they are called “map roses”. I considered using a traditional one as a pattern, but, that is just not my style. I decided on a postmodern approach with a nod to the area’s PA Dutch heritage. I used lower case modern Fraktur font for the directional letters. The directional lines are marked by the edges of patches of ‘fabric’ in the quilt cross. NW, NE, SW, SE are marked by the corners of ‘quilt squares’.
So this map rose is colorful. It coördinates with the siding and trim of our shed. It is two feet in diameter on 1/2″ salvaged plywood. It is oriented on the wall to relate with reality, which means, when one is facing the shed, one is facing Southwest. I can make one for you that coördinates with your colors and will orient properly for your situation.
It seems people are so nervous about aliens these days, with all this talk of a wall across our southern border and a Muslim ban. At the same time, people hardly take to time to meet the people living next door, or a few houses up the block or across the street. Wouldn’t you be shocked to discover your neighbors smoking veggies on their Blue Egg Grille while nude in their backyard? That’s not the strangest thing. They don’t have bellybuttons, and he doesn’t have nipples; aliens indeed! I heard they moved here from Slovenia.
Painting is 16″ x 20″ acrylic on stretched canvas.
Price: $150reduced to $50 plus postage
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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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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?”
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
Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit and debit cards are accepted.
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