A few years back, one of my cousins had a small consignment shop for handmade art and crafts. Occasionally I would stop by to look around and visit for a few moments. The last time I was there before he closed the shop, I came across this Christmas Tree painting. I was walking along, doing the quick scan over all that was there and almost kept walking by it, till something unusual caught my eye. Although it appeared to be professionally framed, the picture also appeared to be painted on a piece of corrugated box. I found that unusual and asked my cousin what he knew about it. He said that the man who had brought it in said his family had run a home for adults with mental difficulties when he was growing up. There had been a woman there for a time who loved to paint and he said that she would paint on anything and with anything that she could find. He said she could see a picture of something once and then paint a version of it herself that would look very similar to the original. At such time that she passed away, she left this painting to his father. I don't know if her family already had it framed at the time or if his father did it, but he indicated that his family had it for many years. His parents were long gone and he had fallen on hard times, so he was forced to find ways to pick up a few extra dollars any way that he could, which included letting go of personal possessions that he had kept for many years.
I almost left that day without it. I got in the car, but it would not leave my mind, so I went back in and purchased it. Whether that particular story was true or not, I was still fascinated that it was painted on a piece of corrugated box and if the story were true, it made it that much more fascinating.
I spent a lot of time wondering on it in the days after I brought it home. The tree on the corrugated cardboard, that had been special enough to someone that they had it professionally matted and framed. It has a signature in gold glitter below the right side of the tree, but the glitter makes the letters fat and it is not really clear. I tried to google the name, spelling it in all the ways I thought it might be spelled and found nothing. Later I realized that there is a gold glitter circle beneath it that may have a "C", in it, although it really looks like a circle with an "E".... and I considered that this may not be the woman's signature who painted it, but the signature with copyright symbol that may have also been on the picture that she saw. In looking at the details over and over, the black background,the tree mostly in blue, two lighter trees in the background lightly dotted in with blue and gold and in the front a small icy pond....with snow all around. The other major detail is the gold glitter garland that winds up the tree, where at the top, a red bird is holding the end of the garland in it's beak, as if it were just about finished putting it on the tree. I made my best guess that if this story is true and if this mystery woman painted her perception of things that she saw, that what she saw was a Christmas card, as overall, this picture fits a general classic design that has been used forever and still now.
The year I brought it home I took multiple pictures of it, but the glare and reflections on the glass made it impossible for me to get a solid photo. I still loved this one where the picture of the long ago painter's tree is reflecting the lights and star from my own tree that year. It is special to me in it's mysterious corrugated way and each year when I take it out, I begin to wonder on the story of the mystery woman who painted this picture and I am fascinated all over again.
