My fabulous friend and artist Ellen Orseck is hitting the big time with representation from the Wade Wilson gallery in Houston and a show at their new gallery in Santa Fe.
Does this success have anything to do with the fact that we found each other last summer, after 20 years lost?
Oh, all right, she found me…although I’d been looking hard.
Probably not. But it’s thrilling to be part of her life again so I can have a box seat at her “overnight success”.
And now, on my doorstep, is a birthday painting! And not any old painting, but her representation of my young father on his Vespa. I was five years old and the picture was taken at the “new house,” the first day he started teaching. Daddy always rode me to Sunday school on the scooter and I’d hug really tight, right around his middle.
I just kept staring at the painting. My first thought, I have to share it with you.
But…
Intellectual property law is tricky. Even if I own a painting, I don’t own the right to publish
The original photograph.
Charlie Ray, 1961
and reproduce the painting. That right is retained by the artist. So, here I am, with the painting in my hot little fingers for just a couple hours and I’m breaking the law by sharing it with you.
Hoping Ellie will forgive me.
So glad you got your present. I was worried you thought I had forgotten your b-day. Are you a criminal…far from it dear one. XO Ellie
whew….was worried. Don’t know how to pick handcuffs.