My kids gave me a spectacular Christmas present.
They knew all my siblings and I went in on a painting by one of my (and my Mom’s) favorite artists. They’ve heard me say for years that owning one of his originals is a dream of mine and they saw how excited I was to buy one for my parents. So they went in together and gave me one of my own.
On Christmas morning, I opened a small, jewelry box and inside it found a wad of cash and directions to go pick out my own painting.
It just so happened that in the month of December, Rick had a show of over fifty works hanging in the community center of the town he lives in, which isn’t too far away. We all (me, my Mom, sisters and an assortment of kids) wanted to see it but we were so busy we hadn’t taken the time to do so until the last day of the month. Out of time, we finally just packed into cars and a parade of us went down the road to Chaska.
There were seven or eight of us (aged 1 to 81) and we had the gallery to ourselves. We must have spent an hour running up and down the well-lit hall, comparing and contrasting paintings, picking our favorites and changing our minds. We all love impressionist art. At least three of us fancy ourselves as artists and three others of us have taken lessons from Rick. For the first time ever, I was actually in a position to buy one.
So I did. I loved so many, it was very difficult to narrow it down to one favorite. All of them were gorgeous and I’d love to hang in my house but I wanted one that I could learn something from every time I look at it and I wanted it to be indicative of Rick’s work. I wanted anyone familiar with him to see it from across the house and say “that looks like a Kochenash!”
In the end, I chose a wonderful 11x14 landscape of a creek in early spring time. The water is rushing and reflecting between banks still covered in snow. A smear of pale blue/pink sky lights the tree branches. It’s the best thing I’ve ever owned.
I have lots of art on the walls of my house, mostly my own. I also have a very high quality giclee print of a winter scene by Monet. Its beautifully framed. I found it at an estate sale a few years ago and paid $40.00 for it. The sale agent told me she been told not to let it go for under $150.00 but it was the last day of the sale and the client said everything must go.
On Christmas, my niece Janelle asked me about it. She said it made my house look like a rich person lived there. I told her that was exactly the effect I was going for!
Wait til she sees what I’ve got on my wall now!
When I picked the painting up, I planned to hang it in my porch. It’s my favorite room in the house and I spend a lot of time in there and I have a wall that I thought it would be perfect on but when I hung it there…
The space didn’t do a thing for the work. The light was too harsh and the room too small. This painting looks completely different when you’re standing three feet from it than it does when you’re fifteen feet from it. That’s part of why I love it so much. It needed more space. So I took it off the wall and walked around the house, winding up in my living room. Most of the walls in there already have several pieces on them but not the small space between the door and the picture window. I have a watercolor illustration I did years ago hanging there. I love it but I took it down just to see…
I hung the painting there and stepped back a few feet…
My heart nearly stopped, it looked so perfect. The size of the wall is just right, the light source is perfect and I swear, it looks like I painted my walls August Morning by Benjamin Moore eleven years ago just to pick up the hint of leaves peeking through the snow in the lower right hand corner of the painting. In short, the room has been waiting for that painting for a long time.
I have a lot of original paintings on my walls, including one by Katie McCollow and one by Peter Om Pir. I have some antique hand painted porcelain I inherited from my uncle. I have books autographed by Louis L’Amour, John G. Hubbell and Kareem Abdul Jabar.
But I have only ever owned one thing I would run back into my burning house to rescue and that’s Chaska Creek.*
Thanks, kids!
*I wouldn’t have to: it’s hanging right inside the front door, I could grab it while standing on the front steps.