She is one of my paintings, acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas, 35”x35”. Moona Lisa was consigned to Kyo Gallery in Arlington, Virginia. I kept the painting in our house.
Our friends Linda and Clifford (who live in Washington State) were visiting us last summer and Linda fell in love with this heifer. She said she was going to talk to Clifford about purchasing it but I heard nothing more. Much to my surprise, last fall I received an email from Clifford addressed to me and Kyo Gallery. He wanted to buy it as a surprise present for Linda, who had a milestone birthday coming up in April of this year.
So we had a big secret to keep for about six months. Clifford used his dad’s credit card so Linda wouldn’t see any charges to the gallery and I shipped the painting to one of their friends. To further add to the fun, I posted on Facebook that Moona Lisa had sold to a hereford breeder on the east coast. Linda said “no! I wanted that painting!” I apologized but, well, a sale is a sale, he who hesitates and so on.
With so many people involved in this subterfuge, it’s amazing that Linda never found out what we were up to.
The birthday party was recently held at a restaurant which displayed a number of paintings, including my own. However, before the party began, a white cloth was thrown over Moona Lisa with the excuse that it was covering damage to the wall and patrons wouldn’t want to look at it. The party started at 4:00 pm and it wasn’t until well after 5:00 pm that the big reveal happened.
It seems that Linda was really surprised:
And here is Moona Lisa in her new home:
Happy birthday, Linda! I’m delighted that your wish came true! And thank you also, Clifford, for making it happen.
2 comments:
What fun! She’s a lucky woman.
That is a beautiful painting. Linda looks very pleased.
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