"Island Dream" or Sunset by Mae Hatfield Manduke c.1990

This oil painting was painted by my mom in 1990 or 1991. She painted it from an photograph I took while on my usual vacation to Kona, on Hawaii's big island in those days. My mother always enjoyed natural lighting and natural hues of gold, yellows, and plant inspired greens, sky blues. It is really from her that I got my appreciation of nature and is really the root, in my Bucks county childhood years on the farm that placed me in the environmental industry. In fact, HTS funds paid for the materials for the project. It was always displayed in a magnificent gold frame, which is now lost.

oil on canvas
approx. 36" wide
1990

I gave this painting to my second wife as a memento upon my departure from PEI in fall, 2008. She is Michelle Rene Sexton, of Charlottetown, PEI. It is a fitting gift as Shel was the heart of my life, and the root of the new life I lead in Arizona from fall 1994 until March of 2004. The painting along with "Scarecrows" was always displayed in the family mansion in Maryland. Later, Arizona, our apartment on PEI, now in Shel's place there. It is a powerful image of wealth, nature, two marriages, and a bygone era.

"Scarecrows" by Mae Hatfield Manduke c.1968

This oil was painted by my mother on our Buck's County farm in the 1960's. It represents the corn field behind our house, then called Stone End Farm, on Curley Mill Road, in Chalfont, Pennsylvania. The scarecrows meaning is illusive as they are added by the artist. My mother and father struggling through life? My sister and I facing the unknown future. Salvation? Sacrifice? Death? Life? Perhaps all.

oil on canvas
approx 36" wide
The painting was given to me to hang in the family mansion at 6600 Isle of Skye in Highland, Maryland around 1990. Later, after the divorce and dissolution of the HTS empire, the painting was in my Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania home at 1351 McCormick road and then in Glendale, Arizona, at 4344 West Ocotillo Road. Then onto Prince Edward Island and 67 Central in Summerside, PEI. Finally now back in Pennsylvania, winter of 2008.

The "Scarecrows" was always displayed with "Island Dream", the sunset picture of a similar genre also to be displayed on this blog. I gifted the Sunset to my wife, Michelle Rene Sexton, in Charlottetown, PEI as a parting gift. Mom had painted the sunset for Rhonda, my first wife from a photo I took at Kona, Hawaii around 1989. More on that later.