MY JOURNAL: ... Then and Now

Three Hens And A Rooster     Acrylic  

I was reminded after my last blog entry about The Black Necked Stilts that once before one of my sold paintings had "come home to roost"!    The tale goes like this:

My good friends, The Duncans, who used to fly a small private plane quite a bit were out for a day trip to Florence, Oregon.  Once they landed they went to a popular local eatery in town called, "The Blue Hen".   When they were seated,  Ann looked up on the wall at the large painting just above their table.    The artist signature on the painting was mine, Pat Blair!   When they returned to Medford, Ann called and asked if I had ever done a painting of chickens for a restaurant in Florence.    The answer of course was yes I had done chickens but not for a restaurant.  I, in fact, had painted several different paintings with chickens (which was a popular thing to do in the mid-seventies! )  When I tried to determine which painting it might have been Ann could not remember the details of the painting... just the artist's signature on the piece.   The next time I visited Florence, Oregon was about 6 months later.  I made a point of having lunch at The Blue Hen so that I could see the painting.  It was not anywhere to be seen!  I asked the hostess about the painting and she did remember it and said "Oh that sold right off the wall!"   So I decided that I could not solve the mystery.   I told my ex next door neighbor about this story and asked if she still had the painting I had traded her for a kitchen range.  She did.  I asked another friend who now lives in California about the painting her mother-in-law  had purchased.  She told me that her in-laws had moved from Medford to Florence and that she sold the painting she had in a big moving sale when they down-sized for retirement.  Case solved.  Except I still don't know what painting it was... just that it must have been that one.    All was fine with my not knowing anything more and I let it go.   Then...my ex-neighbor, Fran, came into our Hot Pots! shop Anne Duncan, Arlene Kramer and I owned  with the large acrylic painting of Three Hens and a Rooster shown above.  She wanted me to have it back since she has no room for it now that she has down-sized in her retirement years!    

That is the way the chickens came home to roost!  The painting is happily hanging in the home of my youngest daughter who loves it!