After years of being stored away, I discovered that my mother had hidden a hoard of my old artworks in the upstairs closet in Grandma Aldrich’s house (now my parents’ house).
This oil painting was done on an old saw blade at the request of my Grandpa Aldrich. He wanted a farm painting on it, like the one he’d seen in a restaurant during a fishing trip in Minnesota. I chose as the subject Sally the pig. Sally was a hairlip piglet that had to be bottle fed and raised in a box by the stove until later in life she became a favorite pet. Believe it or not, pigs are smarter than the family dog. She became a pig you could ride. And Grandma had taken a precious old photo of my mother and Uncle Larry riding the pig. I used that photo to make this painting. It was also the painting I wanted to find on this trip to Iowa. Searching for it led to finding all the others.
These two are among the earliest paintings I did. They were both done on canvases that I stretched over the frame myself in high school art class. The purple one is a scene from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. The blue one doesn’t have a title, but you can see what it is. It is an ancient shibboleth water monster lurking under a dock, fishing for young boys to eat.
This drawing was done on the front porch in the house in Rowan. It would be years before mom framed it. It is another example of what I could do as a high school kid. In fact, I composed it from art-class sketches I did my senior year in school.
The Boy in the Barn was painted on the remains of an old chalkboard that my sisters, brother, and I had used in grade school.
Grandma Aldrich asked for this picture to hang over the sofa in the farmhouse living room. It stayed there for many years.
Great Grandma Hinckley passed away in 1980. I created this portrait from a combination of photos and memory. It was too good. It was never hung anywhere because it always made her daughter, my Grandma Aldrich, tear up.
This pencil drawing won a blue ribbon at the Wright County Fair in the late 70’s.
This picture is called First Years are Hard Years. It was painted in 1982 after my first year of teaching at the junior high school in Cotulla, Texas. I painted mostly the good kids. The girl on the lower right would later go on to become a teacher for our school district. I can’t claim to be the one who inspired her, but she did make straight A’s in my class.
This is called Beauty. It is done in oil crayon on canvas. I did it for my mother to hang in the hallway in the house in Taylor, Texas.
So, it turns out, I unearthed art treasures by searching for the one painting.
Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor
You should listen to the music. Not only is it beautiful, it is the perfect description of the now. Yes, I am a touch depressed, and the music is deep blue. But there are such strains of the bittersweet and angelic light, that Albinoni must be speaking directly from his heart into mine. This music paints my soul.
The sky reflects my mood with lurking dark blues and obscuring clouds incapable of completely taking away the sun. I finally had enough money to visit the doctor today. I had an infection in throat and sinus. I got medicine to heal the sores, and the medicine will prevent pneumonia, and probably saved my life.
My family was whole and together for the holidays, though three of us were sick for a good share of it and unable to spend the time together as we would’ve liked. Still, even though we had to take number one son to DFW Airport in the rain and send him back to Marine world, we got to see him and share good times with him, no matter how short. Deep blue with angelic violins of musical light. He made it back safely. I have more days and probably more months to live and write. And the music of existence continues to quietly play.
I continue to collect photos of new dawns. Here is December 27th.
It is possible that Tomaso Albinoni did not write the Adagio in G Minor. It is believed that it was cobbled together as a sort of hoax by his chief transcriber, Remo Giazotto. He apparently took old Dresden manuscripts and made this beautiful piece as a reflection of the work of Albinoni. Albinoni,a prolific composer of the 1700’s, beloved by Johan Sebastian Bach, wrote opera scores that never quite got published, and so,even though he is a composer of many musical works, most of them are lost to history. Yet, how can such a thing be considered a fake? The music touches my soul. From Albinoni’s soul, through Giazotto’s, to mine, and, hopefully, thence to yours. Listen to it. Really listen. You can’t help but understand what I mean. Even if you can’t stand classical music. Though, if you truly can’t stand classical music… I weep for thee.
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