J's dad

[The following post is of a personal nature, and therefore one that might normally appear instead on my Region Between page on Live Journal, but I think more people happen to look at this site and the topic is very important to Jeff and me.]

Ten years ago today Jeff’s father, Hal Lund, passed away suddenly from a brain aneurysm. Though I did know Jeff at the time, we weren’t quite yet a couple, so I hadn’t met his parents and therefore never had the chance to meet his father. His legacy, however, is with us all the time both in the essence of Jeff’s own character and talent and in the beautiful artwork that Hal left with his family.

Hal Lund had a very successful career as a commercial artist, but he was also an inspired fine artist who created a fantastic array of portraiture, still life, illustration, and other works in many media including oils, pastels, pen and ink, and acrylic. We are fortunate to have displayed in our home a number of his pieces, a couple of which we took pictures to show here.

This romantic oil painting hangs above the mantel in our living room. It has always been the centerpiece of every living room in which we have lived in our time together. I usually refer to it affectionately as “The Lion” because I used to see, under certain lighting conditions, the vague impression of a boy cradling a stuffed lion toy (but that’s not what it is, of course). The fruit still life below is the one that we sometimes call “The Funny Face,” because if you look at it the right way those apples seem like eyes sitting above a mischievous smile.  We have frequently joked that perhaps all of Hal’s paintings might contain subliminal images. Further evidence is found in a gorgeous painting hanging in the home of Jeff’s mom Karen. I wish I could show that one here. It’s an image of a woman in a long black dress with white cuffs. In the background is a bed with a large headboard, and window with a dead tree outside, and the only intense color in it is a colorful checkerboard quilt on the bed. Jeff says that he always saw embedded within the headboard the faint image of either a “gnome” or a “hippy.” Of course he pointed out that imagined image to me and now, when we are at Karen’s house, that’s what I see, too. It’s spectacular.

Jeff says that, as a child, he would sit quietly for hours watching his dad at work, drawing storyboards and painting pictures, his dad never complaining about it or sending him out of the room. Given Jeff’s serene demeanor as an adult and his quietly burning creative flame, I can easily imagine it.

[The images below are highlights from the pics above showing more clearly the "Lion" and the "Funny Face."]

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