World's Greatest Medicine

9 X 9 oil on Canvas Board $125
Includes Shipping and Insurance

I really need to improve my still life set up. The lighting is terrible and I have no backdrop. I enjoy doing still lifes, and I would do more if I had a better set up. For some reason I needed to do this one.
I found this pretty ironstone pitcher in Cuchara, Colorado 2 summers ago and bought it specifically to paint. The little bottle is an empty vanilla bottle, but it looks like an old medicine bottle. The cross is the special part of this set up. There's a man in our church named Wesley, and he is probably the most unpretious, uncomplicated and direct man I have ever known. Wesley is over 70 and still lives in the same small, neat farm house that he and Barbara have lived in for over 50 years. He is a man of many talents, his most recent being woodworking. He also knows a lot about farming and ranching and still builds and repairs fence, although Barbara gets on him for doing it in the 110 degree Texas summer heat - especially since his bypass surgery.
Wesley makes all kinds of wooden things, but my most favorite are his crosses, and he always has a supply of them in his truck to pass out to first time visitors to our church. They are made of native mesquite and if you offered to pay him for one, you would greatly offend him. He gave me mine nearly 10 years ago when I first attended the Morgan Mill United Methodist Church and I have treasured it ever since. My cross has a story, too. Soon after I received it, I noticed an odd little ticking noise coming from it periodically. It was almost as if the cross was speaking to me! I came to discover that my cross had a wood worm in it, and it eventually ate its way out. Hopefully he is not now in my piano or another beloved piece of furniture! The hole in its side makes MY cross special and easily identified!
God Bless ya'll on this Christmas Eve. I'll be back soon, I hope.
Isaiah 51:8
For the moth will eat them up like a garment; the worm will devour them like wool. But my righteousness will last forever, my salvation through all generations."