Prints

The Pumpkin Patch

A former professor and mentor, Leonard DeLonga, left a huge void in my life when he died. After his death a show of his work included a painting of a field of pumpkins that I really liked. This print, though nothing like his painting, was a salute to Leonard.

The Red Lily

The red lily was the first plant I added to the garden at my house. The natural composition of form and color it made at the corner of the house made me produce this print, one of my earliest Mills scenes. The flag doesn’t really have blue stripes, but that was the color they needed to be - I think that’s what’s known as taking artistic license.

The Screened Porch

For fifteen years my home base was in Oxford, Maryland, a wondrous small town on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Our house had a screened porch that featured this hammock in the corner. On hot summer evenings this porch became a second living room where one could cool off, read, converse, or listen to the sounds of the coming night. It was truly a place of refuge, commemorated in this print.

The Sentinel

Sunflowers have an unending fascination for me. Each summer I try to develop my own crop, sometimes in pots, other times in beds. All manner of pests that roam the acreage at night work against my efforts, so when I do succeed from time to time, it is a great victory. When they endure, these horticultural wonders are sentinels, indeed, following the sun through the day and keeping silent watch into the early Fall.

The Snow Family

Following a late spring snow, I drove around a bend in the road near my house past a rock so huge it's become a directional landmark. There, someone had sculpted a family of miniature snow people sporting twig arms and expressive poses that made them look as though they were dancing. My amusement at the sight made this print a reality.

The Star Barn

In central Pennsylvania there is a well-known, most elaborate barn with a number of decorative stars in its structure. This bird house model of that star barn appeared one day in a garden shop in Maine, having been made by a man in Pennsylvania, and my mother decided it needed to live in our garden. To date, no bird has dared move into it despite the consistently open door, but it is a hopeful reminder, in our Maine garden, of our Pennsylvania roots.

There’s a Rabbit Running Through My Garden

These garden stakes a friend made were a feature in my garden in Oxford, Maryland. The running rabbit always fascinated me, so one summer I did his portrait among the marigolds and iris foliage. Fortunately he was running too rapidly to eat the plants.

Three Boscs

All prints in this edition have been sold.

A friend did a series of paintings of pears one year, most of them single portraits. Her pictures made me see them in a new light. Then, last March I went to the market looking for flowers to draw. The pears caught my eye, and I came home with pears instead of flowers. The more you look at them the more anthropomorphic they become. Here is a singing trio, The Three Boscs.

Tree Tunnel

I still recall taking trips as a child to visit relatives in a little village in Pennsylvania called Maytown. The route we took involved driving along a road lined with huge old trees. We called this the tree tunnel because it was just that, and riding through this cool, dark, avenue was both fascinating and magical. Years later I found myself driving a similar road and decided to do this print to return to my past.

Tulip Study

One snowy Saturday in late February I was at the market gathering the week's vegetables and found myself considering the extravagance of a bunch of tulips. Spending the afternoon drawing their image proved to be not only justification of the purchase but the hopeful gift of the eventuality of Spring's arrival. Thus, this print reminds me of late winter grayness and the annual assurance that Spring does, indeed, eventually arrive.