On my mother’s side.
I realized I posted this photograph five years ago. But they were still looking at me in my living room today
Not an ancestor. An unknown. For Throwback Thursday.
When the neighbors moved last year, we inherited some artwork.
I looked at it today and this face was looking back at me. There are no identifying marks on the back . I don’t even have a wild guess.
You can make up whatever story you can think of about the subject staring out.
Here is my friend Vincie in my living room, holding a Bodhi Wind original portrait painted in 1965, She had just picked it up from the framer’s where Jennifer Panza had helped her select the frame and matting. Vincie brought it in and we unwrapped it so I could admire the framed portrait. I’d gone with her to help get it framed, weeks ago.
It’s a really good story.
Five years ago last April, I posted about the Extraordinary Art of Bodhi Wind
In that post I wrote about my friend Steve reading an article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette by Joe Smydo about what to do with the artwork of an artist who had passed away. When he read the article, he kept asking me if my friend Vincie knew Bodhi Wind since he’d graduated from her alma mater, Perry High School. After a couple of weeks of him asking if I had checked with Vincie if she knew Bodhi Wind, I finally remembered to ask her. “Vincie, Steve has been on my case to ask you if you knew a Bodhi Wind who graduated from Perry High School who was an actor in LA”.
Steve had mentioned the murals Bodhi Wind painted for the Robert Altman film 3 Women No, she didn’t know him.
(Here is a NYTimes article about The Man Who Painted Robert Altman’s 3 Women by Jennifer Dunning. )
So a few days later the three of us are in the car and it comes up again.
Steve is determined. Asks Vincie himself. Turns out I messed up by asking about an actor when I should have inquired about an artist.
When we got home, Steve got on the computer upstairs and called Vincie to come and read the article. And there was the missing clue. Bodhi Wind had changed his name. For more information it said to contact his mother Mrs. Kuklis. Vincie said, yes, she knew him. Yes, Vincie and Charles (Chip) Kuklis not only went to High School at Perry together but they were classmates in elementary school. Steve was insistent that she must have known him and not only did she know him but they were very good friends in elementary school, too.
This past August, Vincie and her friend Maribeth were attending their 50th Perry High School Reunion. Over the reunion weekend, the two of them went to visit Mrs. Kuklis at her home. Her granddaughter helped show them her Uncle’s artwork but before they looked at the work, they sat in the living room. Vincie said that Chip had painted her portrait when they were in high school. Mrs. Kuklis said “I have it.”
Not only did his mother have the portrait he painted of Vincie in high school, Mrs. Kuklis had set in out on a special chair for Vincie to see, and Mrs. Kuklis asked Vincie if she would like to have it. Oh my!
What a gift!
Vince wth the original portrait of herself, painted by her childhood friend- Bodhi Wind/Chip Kuklis. You can see his signature and the date 1965
Summer portraits of Maura today. Three grandkids from two families visiting. Today is her day. 70-200mm canon L series lens.
Maura finding the Hot Air Balloon Ride meditation on YouTube
I’ve been taking my cars to Bastone Auto for 25 years. You want to go to an auto place you trust! Being located in a former church seems a nice touch.
Pennsylvania car inspection was due and the temporary registration I’d gotten online was about to expire Dec 2nd.
My goal’s to get a photo of the Bastone brothers in front of their place. I thought it would be a great addition to People at Work- Primarily Pittsburgh (show at Panza Gallery. July 2018)
As I was asking Bob about getting Jim and Frank to agree I said “here I’ll take a quick sample on the phone to remind you to ask them”
Bob is also an expert Amateur/Ham Radio operator (licensed call sign is WC3O) and here’s an article
If you need a speaker for your organization’s event, he’ll expound on all aspects of automotive service, repair and maintenance in his “I Hate Cars” tour. His flyer says “hear the straight scoop from an ASE certified Master Mechanic with a lifetime of experience in the automotive repair and maintenance field”
Bob has a great sense of humor, too.
Thanks for letting me take your photo, Bob.
Please ask your brothers to make a time and I’ll be over with my real camera.
Oh and my car is happy, too.
the Weekly Photo Challenge. Nothing came to mind. Nothing in the archives.
“To change in appearance or form, especially strangely or grotesquely; transform.”
If you’re a Calvin and Hobbes fan you know all about the word already.
I didn’t know what it meant.
See before and after
Downloaded an App Face Goo and the after is on the right.
Photographed by Herr Spahn in 1985
Grafenwoehr, Germany
I smocked the frame (and Laura’s dress)
Mark Matthew and Laura
Mirror is the Weekly Photo Challenge so I’m interrupting the Northwest Vacation Series to post my favorite mirror photo. Maura is going to be eight come November- her baby photo makes me smile. Time passes at a rapid rate which is what old people always said to me but now I am understanding what they were advising me when I was young. The baby blanket belonged to her mother Erika when she was a baby. I always like the heirlooms passed on to another generation.
