Happy Birthday Hoohoo

October 15th is always bittersweet for me, my late aunt Hoohoo's birthday. We usually have a frost before mid-October, ending our growing season, but this year, we haven't. I was able to go into my cutting garden and pick this beautiful arrangement of dahlis, zinnias, and a geranium bloom. Above, shot with the flash, every detail is clear and shadows are obvious. The table runner was woven by my dad on a small New England Morgan inkle loom. I was so lucky to have creative people in my family to teach me and encourage me to find my own creative outlets.

The same arrangement, turned around to show the other side. This photo was shot without the flash, but with the exposure time lengthened. Dahlias and zinnias and geraniums, oh my!

On This Day in 1925

October 15, 1925 —Gloria Isabel Sanborn was born to Anita and Charles Sanborn. I called her Hoohoo from the day I met her when I was 3 years old, fresh from Germany where I'd been born at the American Army base in Stuttgart and my only home for the first few years of my life. The story goes when our car arrived in Leete's Island my grandmother called out to her younger daughter and her husband who lived with her in the family home, "Yoohoo, they're here!" Apparently I mistook that as the name of my mother's sister and we immediately "clicked" with her first hug. She was my Hoohoo from that day on.

She and her husband, my dad's brother Bill, never had any children. Yes, two sisters married two brothers and we had a very small family all told. Hoohoo and I were pretty much inseparable and in a few years I would really need that when things went south in my life.

She bought me a pair of silver candelabras for my 6th birthday as I had already been playing the piano for four years by then and we stayed up late weekend nights watching Liberace on TV. She taught me to mix wallpaper paste, to match paint colors to fabrics, to plant daffodil bulbs, to dance the Jitterbug to 78s, how to wrap presents and tie a festive curled bow all by myself. It was understood I would never tell my parents how high the speedometer in her '58 Thunderbird went on the long straightaway between our homes in Leete's Island and Mulberry Point. We laughed like no one else was in the world; when I cried she held me and told me I was her little artist and that we felt everything just a little bit deeper than other people but that everything was going to be alright. We explored every square inch of the 200+ year old family home and acreage around it. We dug for antique bottles and what-have-you in the old gardens. We traced the lines of the old tennis court, overgrown with trees, and pretended to volley balls over the long-gone nets. We found wooden wagon wheels and old family Ford and Buick artifacts in the barn destroyed in the great '38 hurricane. We were thick as honest thieves.

She saw me excel in grade school, stumble in junior high, and graduate from high school and Vassar. She gave me her last Tbird, the powder blue '64, but her hourglass was running down. Her last ten years were spent battling cancer in almost every part of her body. I still have every letter she wrote me, every card she drew for me, every gift she gave me, including the envelopes. I even still have all those thing I gave HER as I got my gift of "saving things" from her.

I'm now a year older than she was when she died in '82, taken way too soon from all of us. So many things would have been different in my life had she lived, so many paths would not have been taken, but in the past few years I've been slowly becoming again the person she knew and loved. My demons will always be there. My past will always haunt me. I will always feel everything just a little bit deeper, but I also have a feeling everything will be alright. Hoohoo's little artist will make her proud.

Happy Birthday Hoohoo. RIP

Self Portrait Polaroid, 1996-97

Self portrait taken with a Polaroid camera in 1996-97. I had just moved back in with my mom who was beginning to need some help with things at age 78-79. After New York I had found some interesting work with publishers, both full time and freelance. I began to hone my Photoshop skills but by this time I found myself managing a Sir Speedy copy center in New Haven. It turned out to be one of the best times of my adult life. My mom would die in '99 and then things began to percolate, lol.

Looking Forward Towards my Future Past

Kodak Instamatic photograph I shot in June of 1979, Point Clear, Alabama. It was just after I graduated from Vassar on my 22nd birthday, and I was driving across the country with my late friend, Toby Caron. She had graciously offered me a place to stay in Los Angeles to begin my new post-grad life, and we were stopping in various locations to stay a night or two with friends. This stop on the coastline of Alabama was to see our friend Ellie Crosby, whose parents owned a vintage beach house here. We ate Hush Puppies and Shrimp Grits, and were soon on our way to the west coast. Toby's roommate, Andy Hixson, soon became my best friend for the rest of his life, and I like to think of this photo as the beginning of the rest of my life. I was hopeful then, completely unaware of all the tragedies that befall almost everyone's life, but at this point in time, I was nothing but optimistic, hopeful, and very, very thrilled to be starting a new chapter!

The French Open and Mom

Me and Mom, 1957 or early '58.

Aw, I just turned to NBC to see the usual Sunday morning fare,  the Chris Matthews Show and then Meet the Press. It's early June though and thus the French Open was on instead.

Exactly fourteen years ago, a Sunday in early June 1999, I watched the same tennis tournament on TV with my Mom. She was an avid tennis fan, and her "boy" Andre Agassi was two sets down. You only need three sets out of five to win, so it wasn't looking good.

Mom was ill, quite ill. It had been a struggle to get her to the family room but she was insistent that she get out of bed and not watch TV in her room. We watched together. Agassi won the third set, so the Open continued. Agassi won the fourth set so it was tied! I don't think either of us really thought he'd do the Great Thing and win the Fifth and final set, too, coming all the way back from 0-2, but suddenly he did! I remember him kissing the clay court the second he won. My mom had tears in her eyes because her "adopted son" as she laughingly called Andre, had won. I had tears in my eyes because I also realized for the first time the Inevitable was upon us.

I helped my mom back to her room—she was smiling and laughing even as she had to increasingly lean on me, metaphorically and literally, her weakening body just not working for her anymore. That was the last Open she watched. It was the last time she watched anything from the family room. From that point on she didn't leave her room. I moved a recliner into her room and we watched TV together while she was awake. We listened to opera at 3am if she wished. I slept in that recliner most nights so she wouldn't be alone. Just ten days after Agassi's amazing comeback win she was gone, dying of an inoperable brain tumor and cancer which had spread throughout her body. In less than three months total, she was diagnosed in early March and died in mid-June of the same year, she had gone from delivering Meals-on-Wheels to senior citizens, to needing full-time nursing care at home for herself. She wished to die at home and I gave her that final wish, just as I had for my Dad thirteen years beforehand. Both of them died as peacefully as possible in their own room, in their own house, in their own time.

So the French Open is happening right now, 14 years later. Rafa is leading Ferrer in the second set, having won the first. He's not unstoppable like an oncoming freight train, but he's damn close. Like Life.

Ultimately we ARE stopped, we all are, but we celebrate the wins when we get them. We learn from our mistakes. We are capable of Comebacks. We do extraordinary things when called upon. We live Life until our very last breath.

FashionColour: Early 1990s

I recently found this original drawing packed away in a closet. It's by Steven Stipelman, one of the wonderful illustrators at Women's Wear Daily when I worked there. If we didn't care for the photos of the fashions we were featuring that day in the newspaper, we could assign one of our illustrators to render them instead. They were consummate professionals and could "whip up" illustrations like this in just a few hours for that day's front page. Stephen gave this drawing to me when I left the company. It dates to the early '90s and was I believe, RTW, or for the Ready-to-Wear section that week.

• For a bit more on Steven Stipelman, click here.

SepiaColour, Veterans Day

Veterans Day 2012. I've posted many photos of my dad from both his Navy and his Army days. To honor today, I'm posting my maternal grandfather, Charles R. Sanborn. This photo is the day he left from the Leete's Island CT train station for the first world war, the "War to End All Wars." He was 29 years old when he enlisted in 1917 and came back from France in early 1920.

From his diary:

August 11, 1918, Front Line Trenches

Under artillery fire today, and me thought, 'twas like a blast of dear old Beattie's quarry, only I was thinking it seemed a terrible long and loud blast when a shell whistled by close to my good ear. I'd like to have changed places with Uncle John Wireless and done "my bit" in some other branch of the service.

Today She Would Have Been 94

My mom is the little girl standing. I'm not sure who her friend is. This was taken around 1921 by her mother. I've used versions of this photo in two pieces of art, so far.

Today, August 7th, would have been my mom's 94th birthday. She was quite a woman, not marrying until 32, not having me until she was almost 40, and was a life-long caregiver, professionally as a nurse, and in "regular" life, too. She was the person everyone that knew her called for support. There was a time I brought her home from her elderly cousin's house after taking care of her all day. She reached into her pocket and realized she still had Minnie's dentures in her pocket. She reached into her other pocket and found a pacifier from the little 2 year girl she nannied in the mornings. She could take care of an 82 year old and a 2 year old on the same day and still have time to make sure I was fine. Happy Birthday, Mom!

My mother, probably around 1920-21, sitting on the hood of her mother's Ford Model T. I've used this photo in a piece of art called, "Nita's Little Hood Ornament."

Mom, 1939, way before marriage and children sapped the life out of her, lol.

A few years later, mid1940s. I like this photo because her eyes look more like they actually did—they were very pale blue. The 1939 photo's lighting makes them appear to be brown. Her pale eyes were very striking with her black hair and almost-olive skin. 

Another 2-3 years, later 1947. Kodachrome really suited her!

A Man Among Men (x2)

"A Man Among Men: Don't Get Caught" (in the fine print at the bottom)

This is one of my late friend John Larson's paper collages from the 1990s. John was an artist, a character, a friend. He first came up to me in a little dive bar in Manhattan, the Tunnel Bar, while I was playing pinball one afternoon. I was quite the pinball player back then—I knew every machine inside-and-out in the bars and clubs I hung out in. John and his boyfriend, Bruce, became two of my best friends that day and for years after, in fact, Bruce and I still email each other these days. The times we enjoyed together in the East Village, the West Village, Chelsea, all around the town, will more than fill a chapter. We wandered the streets of the Village at all times of the day and night, on our way here, on our way there. We knew so many street characters they called us by name when we went by. We took cabs everywhere, too, and once picked up a hitchhiking RuPaul before she became famous. John and Bruce came up to Connecticut for a visit once and no one could organize a closet faster or better than John, lol.

I can't help but smile whenever I think of John even though his life was taken too early. I think that's the sign of a life well-lived and lives touched in a great way. This collage dates from the time President Clinton was going through the Monica fiasco, and I'm so happy to still have a piece of John's work. I've "framed" it in a vintage basket, and my largest Wishnik Troll, sitting in a needlepoint pocketbook, keeps watch over it. RIP, John, you were a man among men, too : )

My 1991 late night/early morning pencil, marker and crayon sketch of the Tunnel Bar in the East Village of New York City where I met John and Bruce in the late 1980s.

Semper Vigilans

A small May remembrance of my mother. These are the two varieties of Lily-of-the-Valley that grew in both my mother's and grandmother's yards—the normal white, and a less well-known pink version. They're in a tiny vintage glass bottle next to my mother's 1940 nursing school graduation pin, "Semper Vigilans," or "Always Watchful." This was the motto of Grace Hospital School of Nursing, which was eventually taken over by Yale. Also in the photo is an ashtray on the left, a souvenier of Freedom Land, a defunct Wild West amusement park in New York, and on the right, a few vintage hunting- and pocket-knives. In the background is my ten-year old indoor fern. They're all sitting on a piece of glass that was once the back window of a vintage family car, probably one of my great uncle's mid 1920s Buicks.

You Know You Ought to Slow Down . . .

You Been Working Too Hard and That's a Fact!



The past couple of weeks I've been working on the production of a book in a series new to me. I've  been using a new iMac and a new version of the paging program I'm used to, CS InDesign 5.5. It's really been a strain on my old brain learning all of these new things throughout the 350 pages, lol! I'm down to just details now, and I need to wait until morning for a few answers before I can wrap it up and send it off via the electronic Pony Express.

As soon as I quit the program and switched to checking email, this old Disco song began playing in my mind. I haven't heard it for years, but it always put me in a good mood and I have no idea why it suddenly popped into my head. This dance song made me smile a long time ago hanging with my friends, and it makes me smile tonight. My friends may not be here next to me, but they're even closer now—they're inside me—young as we ever were, loud as we ever were, bright-eyed and bushy tailed as we ever were. Opening a Sam Adams Alpine Spring and gonna slow down tonight. Enjoy!

Take Your Time (Do It Right)
by the SOS Band

You know you ought to slow down,
You been working too hard,
And that's a fact.
Sit back and relax a while.
Take some time to laugh and smile.
Lay your heavy load down,
So we can stop and kick back.
It seems we never take the time to do
All the things we want to, yeah.

Bit of Ugly, Bit of Pretty, Bit of Touching

Beware the Ides of March. Born on this day was a person most responsible for the early childhood trauma in my life, and responsible for unspeakable pain to my parents and aunt and uncle, truly ruining all of our lives. I hate this day more than any other day of the year.

Wallowing done for this year, let's celebrate the day honoring a truly innocent artist taken from us far too early, Keith Haring, 1958-1990. Just a year younger than I am, it was always great fun to find "new" Harings in the East Village in the 1980s, painted on walls and sidewalks and lamp posts, really every surface imaginable. I had no idea he would become not only popular and collectible, but iconic. I can hardly look back to those days without his distinctive figures dancing in my head right alongside my memories of friends and jobs and clubs and days and nights wandering around "Gotham." I never had a chance to meet Keith, or buy him a beer and laugh about our world, but due to the incessant marketing machine of our world, his work stares at me every single day—I have three refrigerator magnets of his work given to me by my late friend Andy. Here's to both of you!

• I found this video through a link at Joe.My.God, the most important political blog there is for LGBT rights, and one that is proudly listed in my blog roll listing. This video was made by a friend of Keith's, Marcito in Omaha. The music is perfect, the artwork is touching, and it's cut together perfectly. I'm sure Keith would smile seeing his work portrayed in this manner. THANK YOU Marcito for allowing me to share your work with my readers.
• Keith's early work, 1978-82 is being showcased at the Brooklyn Museum, beginning tomorrow. Information, here. If anything is going to get me back to the city after an almost ten-year absence, this could be it.

Forty Years Later—Grandmother's Last Afghan

This green and gold afghan and matching pillow is the last one my grandmother made. I believe she finished it in early 1969 and died in December of that year. I recently found some Polaroids of the family home from the '60s and '70s. This was "my" bedroom whenever I stayed over. I originally had a much smaller room, but when I got be about thirteen I "graduated" to this Red Room. I still have most of the items from my room, but I wish I had the house, the Daniel and Charity Leete house. Polaroid at top dated 1972, the digital image at the bottom is from this morning, and the wallpaper is a shred leftover from that room. I really do keep as much from my past as I can.

Casey and the Technicolor Dream Sweater

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Rainbow Boy, lol—Looking spiffy on my bright red bicycle, wearing bright red sneakers, starchy dark denim jeans, a rainbow-colored sweater, and a navy blue beret—from France, of course. My grandmother knit that sweater for me. I remember she told me I could pick out whatever color wool I wanted for the upcoming sweater—even a rainbow variegated version—as long as I didn't tell anyone I knew she was going to make it for me. She wanted it to be perfect and I think it was a win-win situation. I would have loved anything made by her, but a sweater with every color in it was perfect! At about eight years old in this photo, in front of Art's closed store with Spring's first crocuses coming up behind me, I was styling!

Halloween Window Painting Contest, 1969

A Hoot and a Howl—This painting was a disaster from the moment I was assigned a large window instead of the small one I had requested. I really rocked those blue and white flowered pants and mini trench, though, didn't I?

Continuing with the "isn't it sad he still has the trophy" series, lol. this is my Halloween Window Painting Contest first place winner from 1969. I was 12 in this photo, holding my aunt Hoohoo's then 6-week old Miniature Schnauzer puppy.

This window painting experience was a horror show for me, lol. From what I remember, you could ask for a small or large window. I had asked for a small one, had planned my painting around a small one, had bought my painting supplies for a small window. Saturday morning when the window assignments were given out, I had been given a large one. From the get-go, I had to change my tightly planned layout and spread out the elements. In hindsight, I should have enlarged all the separate elements, but wasn't thinking too quickly on my feet that cold morning. I also had to have my father bring a ladder for me, to use on that slightly angled sidewalk, and I'm terrified of heights. I ran out of paint due to the larger size of the window and had to run out and buy more—which didn't match the original blue I had picked for the sky. I held it together until the clock had run out and I had to stop, but then I had one of my rare tantrums. I had really messed up the painting, was sure I had disappointed Hoohoo and my parents, but in the end, I won first prize anyway. I wasn't upset a week later, though, when it was washed off and gone forever. Until now, lol.

Elements in my original smaller vertical layout included a flying witch, a pumpkin inspired by Edvard Munch's The Scream, an owl, and for some reason, an outhouse, lol. It just didn't hang together when it was enlarged. I really should have had much larger details, and much less sky, but live and learn, I suppose. I roll with the punches a bit better now. Most of the time.

You Never Forget Your First

 

This faded and scratched Polaroid is just about the only photo I have of my first car. Originally black-and-white, I subtly colorized the image in Photoshop tonight and suddenly it looked just like it did the first time I set eyes on it in 1973.

1969 Mercury Comet Sport Coupe—Looking through a carton of old photos tonight, I was so happy to find this almost 39-year old Polaroid of my very first car. You'd think that I would have lots of photos of every part of my life, lol, but I just don't. This is only the second photograph of my first car I've ever found, and the first one is so faded and was so blurry to begin with, it was like not having any photos of it at all. 

My father came home with this Comet for me June 28, 1973, the day after I got my driver's licence. It was bought in town at the local Peugeot dealer, a friend of my father's. It was four years old with 44,000 miles. Even though the Comet was the bottom-of-the-Montego-lineup that year, this navy blue metallic example was equipped quite well. It had a 302 V8, automatic transmission, power steering and brakes, factory air conditioning and an electric trunk release. What it didn't have was carpeting, the first car I had ever seen with just a textured rubber floor covering. It simulated the look of carpeting, with a blue and black texture, but I always thought it was an odd omission for a "Mercury" level car! The poverty-spec dogdish hubcaps were soon replaced with four matching wire wheelcovers from a mid-Sixties Ford product, but that was it with the non-factory extras. 

I really liked my Comet—its pillarless coupe styling and simple lines, the deep dark blue paint and  medium blue cloth interior, and the air conditioning! Being an inexperienced first time driver, I dented the passenger door one day at the high school, cutting a corner too tightly as I backed out of a parking space, but my father was understanding, and it was soon repaired. I probably would have kept my first car longer if my Dad had not surprised me with the beautiful Caddy in the post below a few years after the Comet arrived—and if Hoohoo hadn't also surprised me with her Tbird at the same time, lol. I wanted to keep it, I really did, but my parents drew the line at me having three cars of my own, so my trusty high-school Comet was sold. 

But you never forget your first!

WooBoy, Almost Thirty Five Years Ago!

1968 Cadillac Sedan de Ville—My twentieth birthday present from my parents, early summer 1977. This very dark teal hardtop sedan, with matching dark teal brocade and leather interior, was nine years old with just 50,000 miles when my father found it. It belonged to an older widow in town that didn't drive anymore. It was really one of the most beautiful cars I've ever had the pleasure to drive, and I've owned some really nice cars in my lifetime. It rode like the proverbial flying carpet and it always got me home, no matter what. 

My almost twenty-foot long Caddy was stolen one night in New Haven, and used in an armed robbery!  I was able to  get it out of the police impound by 4 am but my parents were still awake waiting for me to get home . . . Another time it had to be hot-wired one afternoon at the beach in Newport after I broke the ignition key opening a bottle of wine with it. It didn't exactly lead a pampered life, although I also once used it to chauffeur tony guests at a shoreline house tour. I always kept it polished and vacuumed and it always looked like a million bucks. At 7-8 miles-per-gallon, it almost cost a million bucks to back down the driveway, lol, but I couldn't have cared less back then. I also owned a '64 Thunderbird at the same time, a gift from my aunt Hoohoo, for those times I felt "sporty," so gas mileage just wasn't on my radar back then. Believe me though, I've walked and ridden my bicycles enough in the past five years to make up for those "gassy" years!

For a night-clubbing sophomore at Vassar, life seemed good.

Halloween Window Painting Contest, 1968

"Even Martians Love Halloween"

R E M E M B R A N C E — My town used to hold a Halloween Window Painting contest every fall when I was growing up. It was usually one chilly late October Saturday morning, and the paintings, done on the store windows around our town green, would stay up for a week or so. I won First Prize 5-6 years in a row, every year I was eligible. I have to say though, that I always entered the "Singles" category, Hoohoo was adamant that an artist work alone, although we'd spend several nights planning my painting. Most of the kids, the vast majority of the in fact, treated it as a morning with friends, and painted in the doubles category. I did it for the art, though! For the year shown here, 1968, I painted "Even Martians Love Halloween" and have a little alien poking out from behind the large pumpkin. Notice his footprints which come from the bottom of the window and track over the pumpkin where he thinks he's hiding, lol. Also note my lovebeads. My father bought a lot of my clothes in Manhattan, and I was always up on the trends. Very few other kids in town were though, and I really was teased because of it. Well, that was one reason to tease me, anyway. On the right of the photo is the little trophy today! I still have the lovebeads, too, but am not quite sure where they are. I've seen them in the past few years.

Iridescence is Irregular and Irresistible

The vast majority of seashells you'll find on New England beaches are white, or off-white—it's probably the same throughout the world. I've been drawn to the iridescent orange and yellow ones since I was a child, though. They tend to be smaller, harder to find, and "prettier" to use the term I used as a child. Above, shells collected on my past few walks along the beach. I hadn't picked them up in years, and I was instantly transported back to childhood.

70 Years Ago: A Day That Will Live in Infamy

This photo, taken by my father, is dated 1943, so it's a couple of years after Pearl Harbor, but it shows just how young the brave American soldiers that fought in the war, really were. This is below decks, in the engine room of a destroyer. 

December 7th, 2011—Today is the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the beginning of the United States' involvement in World War Two. According to news reports, it's the last time the Pearl Harbor's survivors' group will meet on the island. There just aren't that many of these heroic Americans left, and those that are still with us, are well into their 80s and 90s, making the trip just too much for them. It's up to the rest of us now to remember this day which President Franklin Delano Roosevelt characterized as, "... a day that will live in infamy."

The text from FDR's December 8th, 1941 speech:

Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives:

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.

Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island.

And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

As commander in chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph—so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.

Though it sounds so small when you think of the sacrifices made by millions of people around the world, I give my profound thanks to all those brave men and women that fought for the free world all those decades ago.

Remembering ALL of Our Veterans

11/11/11, 11:11.11 am—Today is Veteran's Day, 2011. My dad served in the U.S. Navy from 1938-50 and the U.S. Army from 1950-59, being in both World War II and the Korean Conflict. This is a photo on my piano of my Dad from the early 1950s. Take a little time today to remember all of our men and women that have worn the uniform in the service of our country. I especially thank our gay soldiers, past and present, that with the repeal of the discriminatory DADT, can now serve openly and proudly.

This is a piece I've done of my father in 1946 at St. Peter's Square in Rome, on shore leave with many other sailors. He's in the center, with the cigarette and the swagger. This piece is on two joined antique chestnut floorboards.

This is another piece from his Navy days. These are six of his shipmates and their boat's mascot, a little puppy. This is entitled "What They Fought For" and has images of American life at the bottom, arranged in a sort of "service medal" form.