Last May, Rachel and I came up with a little art project.
You may remember that Rachel first noticed Dick Pinney’s work on a visit to the Cedar Rapids Art Museum. She liked it best of anything we saw. I told her that he had done quite a number more of those things and we decided to see how many we could find. The Cedar Rapids airport was the next place we visited. You saw these two murals in my first blog on the subject.
A few weeks later we went to see another two. Our next visit was to the Vernon Inn Restaurant.
After that we went to Mercy Hospital. This one was fairly difficult to photograph. It was at a T intersection of two hallways, the mural being on the cross of the T. It was much wider than the hallway that led to it. That meant I could get no farther away than the width of the hall that it was in. I had to take it in three different shots and stitch it back together in Photoshop.
And here it is cut into a couple of pieces so you can see some of the details better.
Just today we went to see two more murals. Cedar Memorial Cemetery has one just inside its front door. The receptionist who greeted us seemed very interested in our project and suggested a couple of places to look for more murals, unfortunately I already knew about all of them.
After we were done looking at the first mural, I called Xavier’s Restaurant where the next mural was. The manager said that they would be opening in about 10 minutes and it would be okay if I came right then. We were already on our way so we got there about five minutes later. It was fairly difficult to take a picture of this mural because the light was so dim. I wasted several exposures on blurry images, but once I figured out to use the timer I had much better luck.
We still have quite a number on our list that we can go to see. The problem is many of them were in downtown establishments. I don’t think any of them were ruined by the recent floods because they were on the upper floors, but in many cases the businesses haven’t reopened yet. So we will probably be able to see them in future, just not yet.
We’ll keep trying though.
You are such a good Grandpa!
XXX
I admired that mural when I was spending so much time at Mercy. I did not know that was done by the artist you had been talking about.
On another art note. The landscapers who are doing the house next door asked where I had gotten your sculpture. I told them and gave him your website. He went to it right away on his I – phone. He saw several that he said he liked. Don’t know if he contacted you or not.
Which restaurant was it that had the picture?
Rachel and I did an art project of our own last Wednesday. We made a chocolate chip cookie and a blueberry pie out of Play-Doh.
It was Xavier’s. I have since corrected the entry.
I know this may seem late but, Mr. Pinney was a friend of my parents when I was growing up. I have several of his works, wood carvings, watercolors, and sketches, even a portrait he did of me when I was 14 as a gift for my birthday. It’s good to see that others like his work.