Mom's Paintings

It must have been about 2007 when I told my mom that I wanted to buy and then frame a Gustav Klimt print, Sonja Knips, 1898, (see below), that she could put up in one of her rooms.  

Several years earlier, I bought my mom a Van Gogh print and asked Catherine if she would frame it for me and she was happy to.  The Van Gogh was titled "Orchard with Blossoming Apricot Trees," 1888.  Catherine framed it at Chato's Gallery in Pasadena.  I loved most things by Van Gogh back then. 

Brief background on this painting:

Between late March and early May of 1888, Vincent van Gogh created some 15 paintings (with 8 in existence today) of apricot, peach, pear, plum, and other types of orchards just outside Arles in the South of France.  In letters to his brother Theo, sister Wilhelmina, and artist Emile Bernard, Vincent provides us with a record of his progress. 

I have just finished a group of apricot trees in bloom in a little orchard of fresh green.

To Theo, March 25

My mother also loved the painting and particularly the framing.  She loved Catherine's work.  She hung the print up in her dining room opposite the back sliding glass door.  See here.  The slight glare is from the light coming in from the sliding glass door.

So it was in 2006 that I got her to sit down with me and shop online for another painting Catherine would frame that my mom would put up in her home. The price of the print was nominal, less than $20.  The real costs were in the framing and the frame that Catherine chose appreciated the value of the print in my mom's eyes immeasurably.  Catherine, my dearest of friends, framed it for her at her gallery up in Santa Cruz.  And Catherine was kind and generous enough to meet me in San Luis Obispo to hand-deliver it to me.  So I drove up to San Luis Obispo, met Catherine, had lunch and coffee, then walked around the neighborhood a spell. We stopped at the local library, one of many libraries around the country funded by the Carnegie Foundation. Here is a list of all the Carnegie Libraries in California.

It was from my own early experience that I decided there was no use to which money could be applied so productive . . . as the founding of a public library.  --Andrew Carnegie

It was here at this library with Catherine that I first learned of Andrew Carnegie's library legacy.  And within the next two years, I found myself at the Azusa Library behind its City Hall, and sure enough there contained in a little cut-out of the marble wall was a bust of Carnegie behind glass, paying tribute to his efforts and civic contributions.  The Azusa Library was built in 1959, but the original Carnegie Library in Azusa looked like this:

What life was like about when I was born.

“Labor, capital, and ability are a three-legged stool... They are equal members of the great triple alliance which moves the industrial world.”  --Andrew Carnegie

The painting I got for my mom was Gustav Klimt's Sonja Knips.  It is beautiful.  I had a copy of it hanging from my apartment wall.  I loved it so much that I thought I would share it with the kids at school.  The look, the alerted posture, the dark and light contrasts scared a few of the kids but ultimately they liked it.  

But my mother absolutely loved this painting, especially the frame. Catherine has an extraordinary grasp of design, shades, contours, themes, and more.  The color of the frame was similar in color to Sonja's hands and the lighter browns in her dress.  The frame's pattern was subdued curved lines.  And my mother loved it.  She would offer unsolicited praise for it almost every time I stopped over.  

After securing the beautifully framed painting, wrapped in protective framer's paper, in the trunk of my car, I got southbound on the 101 just before night fell.  The remaining sunlight mixed with layers of fog turned the sky into an abstract painting itself, weaving inland and over the hills from out over the Pacific.  I was 5 miles north of Santa Barbara when the engine on my burgundy 1998 Ford Contour died.  I pulled over to the side of the road only to see the implacable "Check Engine" light beaming back at me.  I called AAA, the Automobile Club of Southern California.  I could not figure out what was wrong with the engine, nor could the AAA tow driver.  He wanted to pull me into Santa Barbara but it was late, coming up on 9pm when most, if not all, shops were closed.  A gas station would not have a mechanic on site at this hour, so I asked the driver how much he would charge me to tow me home to San Gabriel.  "$300" was his answer.  I agreed.  I needed to get home and get to work.  Two hours later and a few moments of dreamland, I arrived home.  I had him drop the vehicle across the street at Richard's.  I paid him, went up to my apartment, and went to bed, content to be in my own bed and that I had that painting framed and packaged for Mom.