"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.