Sunday, April 4, 2021

Art Comes Home from the Sea

My Dad's art is still in a bit of homelessness as he is with my Mom in assisted living and much of it is in storage. We are trying to help him decide where his art should go believing that it should be passed down through his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren to be preserved through generations to come and not wind up in somebody's garage or a rummage sale. I mean, he signed his name on completed works and that should be respected down the generations and not forgotten. My wife recently came by a mountain landscape done by a great-uncle that has a family surname on it and the date of 1956. It will be preserved in family.

My sister had some pieces divided up for safe storage by display among our brother, herself, and me. We are trying to care for those and I had several pieces framed by the studio that my Dad prefers here in Salt Lake City. We found a lot of art in the dusty, mice-infested attic. One piece broke my heart a bit as I blew the dust off and passed a paper towel over the surface. I had the art dealer clean off the marks as best he could and frame with the closest to driftwood we could match:

I remember the day.

My brother and I are the two little boys. It was before I was nine and perhaps younger. I believe I am on the left as the taller one but I could be the more contemplative one on the right watching the surf swirl around my toes as they sink into the sand.

There may be a chance yet to talk with my Dad about this piece and so many others. And there are still so many things to talk about with insufficient time and ability to cover more than a few.

He didn't sign it so he may not have considered it finished. It is beautifully perfect to me.

As the designated family historian, I have been organizing and scanning the vast disarray of photos and other memorabilia from my parents' home. In a random pile, I was pleased to find photograph of my Dad painting on site at the Ocean. My Mom probably snapped the shot. It looked like it was probably at Rialto Beach near La Push, Washington as James Island was a favorite subject of his.


But there are no buildings at Rialto Beach. We would have been at a public beach of Olympic National Park. Having scanned the photo at high resolution, I zoomed in.

He's painting the very one I found in the attic!

. . . .

Not James Island. Kalaloch Beach No. 4

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