Black Grapes No. 4

16 x 16 oil on panel

I shipped off the first five paintings for the Tree's Place show in July yesterday. Hopefully they will be well received by the local collectors on Cape Cod. Maybe get a little early buzz going for the show. The Black Grapes were completed Sunday evening and will be heading up there along with Seven Spoons in the next shipment.

Karen and I are planning to attend the show, and are currently working out the logistics. There are two places we'd like to visit while we're in the region. Karen wants to go to Martha's Vineyard and I really want to veer northward to see the Olson House in Maine. I've been enamored of Andrew Wyeth since I first discovered his work in a show at the de Young Museum in San Francisco July of 1973. I was twenty one and knew of Christina's World, but when I saw his paintings in person I was hooked for life. I went back a half a dozen times before the show moved on. I still have the dog eared catalog for that show. In 1979 I drove up to Chadds Ford to visit the Brandywine Muesum, and while I was there I was able to track down the location of the Kuerner House. The home was still occupied at the time, so you couldn't go inside, but Anna Kuerner was on her porch as I drove by. Unreal! Anyway, to actually visit the Olson House and walk around inside would be like a pilgrimage. Hope we can make it happen.

Back in 2006 I did a small painting of a Maple Leaf to auction off on ebay. Not too long after that I received an email from Tina Maple, co-owner of Maple Vineyards in Sonoma county California. She wrote that they were about to produce their first vintage and wondered if I would be interested in doing another maple leaf painting that they would use for the label. It took about two seconds to say yes. We worked out the details, I sent them the painting, then never heard anything about the wine. About a week ago I got another email from Tina stating they made wine for only two years, but decided it was too much and had come to the conclusion that they would rather just grow the grapes. She then offered to send me a few bottles of their 2007 Zinfandel. It arrived a couple of days ago, and it was fun to see my little painting on the bottle. We haven't tried the wine yet, but we're looking forward to it.

Thanks Tina!