High Hopes: The Old And The New

                                                       An original acrylic painting on illustration board
                                                       11x15", unframed   (mat size, 17x21")
                                                        $1,200.00  (plus $35.00 pack and ship)


    This is a painting which tells the old story of immigrants who cleared new land and
proudly built their home on the crest of a hill, and then with the passage of time,  their
unsustainable farming practices led to the need for a more thoughtful stewardship of
the land, by a younger generation.  That new love of the land is perhaps represented
here by a boy launching his new kite.

                                                                        (click on image to enlarge)

     Way back before our electronics entertainment revolution, kids had to create their
 own amusements and pastimes, such as flying kites. When my brother and I were boys,
before the suburban sprawl encircled the city, most neighborhoods still had dime stores
where for a small coin or two, boys could buy comic books or a variety of toys, including
kites, but my brother and I would often make our own.  All we needed, to make a simple,
quadrilateral kite ( which derives it's name from kite birds ), was a couple of reasonably,
straight sticks, a ball of kite string, a large enough piece of paper to cover the stringed
breadth of the kite, and a strip of old bed-sheeting to use for a kite tail.
     I don't recall that we ever bothered to paint our kites, because as soon as the
 paper-paste was dry, we were always anxious to get them out into the wind
 and see how high our kites could fly.  

     Giclee fine-art prints of this painting are available.