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 A great day on the farm
W.W. Muir

Oil on board

16 x 20 inches

(date unknown)

Much as I love my father now, in retrospect I didn't
know him very well, the way children know their
parents today.  He'd been brought up in a formal
environment, and although we ate meals together,
and as a young adult I loved his humour, I
did not have the kind of closeness with him that
I might have enjoyed today.  But looking at his paintings
the other day when I visited my mother in Ottawa,
I noticed such a joyful, and playful spirit in his
work that I felt the closeness to him that I
feel when I look at paintings by some of the greats
like Monet and Mary Cassatt, who I only know
through reading and seeing their work.

The painting by my father I'm featuring today is of
our little farm in Flesherton, Ontario.  My Dad only
owned the farm for a year, but he really loved it,
and that spirit is evident in this joyous painting.

Have a loving-the-people-in-your-past day.
P.S.  When I say formal, I do mean formal.
We frequently called our father, "father" and
only started calling him Daddy as young adults.
It was a big deal when my father started wearing
jeans on the weekend in the last few years of
his life.  A sea change.