39-5 parents' memorial:  When our parents passed away years ago, we established a small garden area in our front lawn, with a few flowering trees and bushes.  Eventually I built a stone bench that sits under a flowering dogwood.

For sometime we talked about Lois painting the image of a cane fly rod on that bench.  The rod chosen was not any rod, but an Art Weiler 39-5 Leonard model.  I first flexed this bamboo more than a decade ago at The Fly Fishing Show in Somerset, NJ, but resisted the temptation to purchase it then.  However, when my father died I acted as the executor of his will and my sister arranged for us to utilize a Pennsylvania attorney she knew, who resided along the Delaware River.

Well, the trip to the attorney’s office to sign/notarize paperwork took us almost past Art Weiler’s place.  Thus I called Art inquiring if he still had a 39-5 Leonard model, and he replied in the affirmative.  So I purchased the rod in my Dad's memory.  Memorial Day weekend 2020 Lois painted an image of that bamboo fly rod, and a Hardy reel, on the stone bench, in an area set aside in memory of our parents.

Shandaken:  This northwest corner of Ulster County was originally part of Woodstock before it was established in 1804.  To Native Americans the name meant “rapid waters” and incidentally the mountainous town is the fountainhead of Esopus Creek.  The 32 by 48 inch acrylic Esopus landscape, and its rapid waters, below was painted for Christ’s Lutheran Church in Woodstock, to inspire by-passers in the Glory of God during these difficult times.

Shandaken 32"x 48" acrylic (DtC):

A watercolor version of the same scene above: