My friend Roxanne just moved into a new house (well. . . new to her ) in mid-August. We met up for lunch a couple weeks later, and I wanted to give her a little housewarming somethin-somethin. I didn't know of anything she really needed ..this wasn't a first house for her or anything.
I decided to make her some art. Nothing so creative as like, what you see on those HGTV shows where they enlist the aid of their carpentry team, get out in the yard with a 4ft wide canvas, and paint rollers. Muuuuuuch smaller scale, much less effort, but she seemed to like it. I got a couple of cheap frames at the Dollar General and I printed out some art from The Athenaeum and framed them. I actually printed out a lot more than I framed, but I wound up giving Rox all the print outs in case she didn't agree with my picks for the best-of-the-best/ most frameworthy. Anyway, it worked out well..particularly with my ever-present budget constraints. I also think it's a good idea for those people you know whose lives seem to be overflowing with gadgets and trinkets and tchotchkes...those ones that demurr "Oh I REALLY don't need anything!!" (and it's true) . Usually even they can find a 8"x 10" patch of real estate on the wall..unless they've already done their abode up like an Applebees, that is.
Here is the art I picked out. I was trying to do a home & garden theme (Rox is an avid gardener--I do believe she loves her 10 acres & gardens even more than she likes the new house).
I was digging around the internet for nice art for this project and I suddenly was struck by a memory... a ubiquitous bit of mass produced art that I'd seen in umpteen mobile home living rooms throughout my formative years. Not limited exclusively to mobile homes as my uncle still has this hanging in his dining room--of his modified Cape (not my cup o' tea, his house, but it's for certain an immobile home) Anyways the scraps floating through my mind's eye was a shady area with very red water mill, boy fishing, additional boy or girl skipping rocks. I was thinking it would be amusing, in a kitschy sort of way, to print that and give it to Roxanne, but I quickly dismissed the idea because she just doesn't have the taste for kitsch that I do. She would probably think I was 100% in earnest and either really LOVE it or love it because it came from yours truly. It's quite difficult to tell with her, she really seems to adore everything I buy her...but she has *got* to be lying some of the time.
Anyway, even though I wasn't going to print it out, I was still very compelled to look at the picture. Sometimes I feel a very pressing need to fact-check my memory. Like, do you recall that time on Sesame Street when the girl took her llama to the dentist?? If your answer is "NO" , I am not shocked because for aaaages, I would reminisce over this and nobody knew WTF I was on about. I was starting to suspect my parents of slipping hallucinogens into my apple juice. But thank heaven for YouTube!!
I finally found my answer on eBay (where else?). It wasn't easy though. I searched for the better part of an hour (pausing once to proclaim via Facebook that I had stumped the internet). I looked for--
- red mill fishing boy mass produced art
- mill boy kitsch painting
- gallery of kitsch art (throwing a wide net here)
- red mill mass produced print
- boy skipping rocks red mill
In the painting of my memory the boy from this picture--
Was in the below picture (but on the right side). I had forgotten entirely about the girl and the dog, covered bridge & horse& buggy.
But as soon as I clamped eyes on these they were instantly familiar and I knew--Eureeka!!--I'd found 'em.
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