Y’know, the blog gets upgraded, and I spent ten minutes trying to figure out where “upload” went — well, it “went” as an option under “Write Post”: a wonderful and sensible choice. As you’ve probably guessed, I was looking to upload the above image: Frederic Remington’s “A Dash For Timber.”

So, a few weeks ago, I saw some lovely maritime art by a fellow named Robert Taylor in a book I found on eBay: “HOOD and BISMARCK” by David Mearns and Rob White ($30 retail, $5 including S&H on eBay). Perusing some online art galleries for more maritime art, I stumbled across the above (by that point, I was filtering my search out to other genres, including landscapes).

That painting reminds me of my childhood. Why? Because for a very long time, a print of it — on canvas — hung on the wall of my parents’ home. They bought it after moving back to Mary’s Land from Texas (as my Mom said when questioned about living there, “Texas would’ve been great, if not for all the Texans”*).

Looking back, as an adult, it seems a little out of my place for my parents: Cowboys? Indians? And since I hadn’t remembered seeing it for, gosh, years and years and years, I e-mailed my Dad about it. A few years ago, he and Mom had taken some of their older furniture to an auction house and I wondered if maybe the print had gone with it. It hadn’t, although the print had never been, as I remembered it, contained within a gaudy gold frame. Meh.

In any case, since it’s just taking up room in their basement, I’m welcome to have it: as soon as I contribute some muscle to moving around furniture to get to it: that and other works of art are sort of stuffed behind some storage units. It’s okay though, soon, I’m going to have cowboys and indians over my bed. That’ll make it all worth it.

And, for the record, this is my favorite Robert Taylor piece.

*Don’t be a hater towards my Mom: turns out, your favorite neighborhood Snay was concieved in Texas, a fact I only recently learned about. Does that make me a Texan by heart?