Thursday January 3, 2019

Breakfast Food

My wife’s father, the late Joseph White (1922-1991), was a commercial artist in Shoreview, Minnesota. He was an artist who painted and sketched his whole life. Through his WWII years in the U.S. Army, including  several weeks in an army hospital in London, England recovering from frozen feet suffered during the Battle of the Bulge, he drew cartoons of army life. In civilian life, he drew characters for the Catholic Digest, created the Green Giant’s little green son, “Sprout,” and sketched pin-up girls, sometimes using his lovely wife as a model. His beautiful works are divided among his children and grandchildren and live on in various old collections possessed by family friends.

We have a small painting of his that hangs in a corner of our dining room above the table. It’s of a power boat, possibly a shrimp boat, out of the water and supported by jacks, in what appears to be a field with a woodland in the distance and small building in the background. Although I look at it frequently each day, it stirs my imagination, lending itself to an intrigue that seems so tangible, so real,  as though its begging to be written about. I share it with you today for just that reason.