Mixed Media

Created as a wedding gift, "Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue...And a Six-Pence in her Shoe" is a collection of four paintings with a secret. Each gallery-wrapped canvas features five individual paintings depicting aspects of the bride and groom's courtship. Nestled inside the fourth work is a small bronze sculpture of the bride's wedding shoe with a six-pence tucked inside. (24 images)

In elementary school we used to sing the song "Friends are Like Flowers in the Garden of Life". When my mother retired from her decades-long career as an elementary school teacher, I wanted to celebrate her accomplishments with a painting and the song sprung to mind. Mom's first year of teaching was in 1970 and her first class photo shows her wearing a blue jumper with a Peter Pan collar. She was especially proud of that class because one of her students went on to become a quarterback in the NFL. She would frequently parade the photo out when we had company, and as kids we were able to brag that our mom was Bernie Kosar's Kindergarten teacher (which won us points with all of our Browns fan friends). She would go on to cultivate the minds and manners of thousands of children by teaching them to read, add, subtract, and strive for perfect penmanship. To this day I try to lace my handwriting as beautifully as she did her own. To create the painting I enlisted family members to fold the origami flowers and cranes. If you look closely you can pick out ten digits and the first three letters of the alphabet in the background. "The Kindergarten Teacher" or "Friends Are Like Flowers in the Garden of Life" was presented to Janette Crowley at her retirement party in 2014.