Dr. Dean VanTrease

[John Reidy]

Thank you, Chris,

This was my most interesting commission to date. The school was very cooperative and open to suggestions once I learned their particular requests. Normally the tall, narrow format would have not been my first choice but when I discovered the idea of the chairs I grew to love the challenge.

Again, thank you. I'm working now on a large commission and, as it turns out it will be posthumous. I'm about half way through and I learned the subject passed away last week. Although I always try to make each painting worth $100,000.00 (Marvin's idea, I'm quite the plagiarist) I can't help but feel a strong personal desire to excel.

I met the subject last fall. He was in his eighty's and the commission is to be of him in his earlier years. He was very much alive and he still had all of his buttons, so to speak, as well as a sparkle in his eye. We have corresponded by mail, too. I grew to know his personality.

This is a very demanding job as the best photos of him were in black and white.

Thanks to some early lessons I picked up here at SOG and have employed I felt up to the challenge.

When I am done I will certainly post it here with the full story.

I apologize for adding this latter post as it doesn't deal directly with the criteria of this category but it helped me to get this off of my chest.

Thank you.