Father's Day

I happen to have grown up on the east coast. Both my parents are New England natives as well, one being born in Lynn and one in New Haven. Having spent time in the midwest, I had forgotten two very important characteristics of living back in New Hampshire: 1.) The Boston Red Sox are not just a seasonal baseball team, rather they are the life force of every walk of life New Englander from the gas station attendant to the college professor. and 2.) Getting rid of certain language characteristics, such as adding an "r" to the end of idea or saying wicked a lot, has slowly begun to worm its way back into my own language, yet, more so, I had forgotten that my mother, the native outside-of-Boston born, has completely converted back to her native tongue, one that removes all letter "r's" from speech only to replace the fine letter with the "ah" sound.
How this comes into play on a largely art-based blog you might wonder?
Because it was the day before "Fathah's Day" I decided to pass my Boston Red Sox ticket on to my friend Kim so that I could spend the day painting my head off with the following painting--a request from my dad who constantly pokes his head into my room to say, "Hey, when are you going to paint a picture of your mother?" when I am happily painting whatever project I am on for the moment. And so, while sporting my Red Sox hat, I painted my "fathah" and "mothah" from a scene in Florence when they visited my sister who was studying abroad. This painting proved extra challenging because I am not often interested in landscapes, or establishing the fine details that grant depth to a scene. Also for all the self portraits that I have composed this was the first time I have studied my parent's faces and attempted to transfer their images through paint. The way I figure, I have captured my "mothah's" family features well enough that one could peg her as a member, and my dad? Well, happy Fathah's day to him :)