My darling English cocker Spaniel Fergie died on Sunday.  She was sick for awhile.  This is an etching I did  of her when she was young about 3.  She would have been 12 in December. When we got her as a puppy of 8 weeks, she had bright orange ears. The breeder who was English named her Fergie after Duchess Sara Ferguson.  We kept her name in tact. Fergie and I loved each other and were not far from one another on a daily basis.  She had her own chair in the studio and was my constant companion. She followed me wherever I went in the house. We love our animals sooooo much.  Only other animal owners understand the grief one experiences when one loses a pet.  It is a terrible loss.  Only time and my painting will help.

This a painting of Max Kramer when he was 10 years old.  Max is now going to be 22 next month.  How I ever got Max to sit is beyond my comprehension.  He always reminded me of the character Max in Maurice Sendak's book," Where The Wild Things Are." He was into every sport, very active, and very bright,adorable and very sweet.  My daughter and his sister were friends, we were family friends.  Max was shall I say high spirited.  I drove him around in carpools, and the experience was always eye opening. He tried on several accasions to talk me into letting them bag hebrew school.  I can still hear his convincing arguments in my head.  He was big on having the windows open in the car in the middle of winter, and teasing the girls to the point of tears.  How I ever got them home on those dark suburban roads, I do not know.  I always knew I wanted to give Max the picture and  everytime I pulled it out of the racks, I would grin.  I figured his graduation from Yale was appropriate.  So, adult Max now owns "Bad Boy Max".  He appeared at my door last night to retireve the painting, and he was all grown up, but I could still see he had a little of the devlish boy in him. We had a lovely chat, I always knew he would  grow into a special guy, and I was right!

  I put this together from a few different potos.  Taking my daughter to college ,we traveled 5 hours through western PA.  The landscape was so beautiful, rolling hills far into the distance.  There was little time to stop, only for a photo. Beacause of the small size, and the graphic quality of the subject matter, I was able to work from photo. When I returned home, the weather was cool with a hint of Fall in the air.  Between being inspired by the land on my trip, and the desire to be outside, I went out and finished a painting of my Ardrossan Farm about three miles from my house. From 1995-1998 I painting only Ardrossan, and had three solo shows on the property  in one of the barns.  I would paint all year, in all seasons, and show in the Fall.  Every show was sold out by noon.  Ardrossan is The Montgomery Scott Estate, owned by the late Hope Montgomery Scott. It was a working dairy farm and home to a herd of 200 Ayershire cows.  They were brown and white and  just beautiful.  People were mad for a piece of history in the form of a painting.  They would jump out of there cars to take a look, and tell me I was doing a geat thing documenting the land.  They had raised their children with these cows, visited the dairy and stopped by the road to chat with the cows.  The cows were huge endearing creatures, like big dogs, and they etched a place in my heart.  After the herd was sold and shipped to Colorado, I still painted the land, and put the cows in from photo.   I completed close to 100 paintings of Ardrossan.  I put the project aside because I was exhausted, but the land still calls to me in every season, with changes in light, color, and atmosphere.  I still go out, trying to interpret it in a new and more compelling way.