This image may seem a little odd. I painted it in 2000 as I was contemplating the many layers of Christmas and how it was celebrated. It depicts myself as a child, looking at the tree with the gifts below. Jesus hangs on the tree. When I was a kid, of course it was all about Santa Claus and getting the goodies even though one of my favorite things to do was also to visit the creche in church and see the baby Jesus. In my adult life as a more mature Christian, I pondered the correlation between the tradition of the giving of gifts as it related to the magi bringing gifts to the Christ child. I don't know where the tradition of the Christmas tree originated, but I was thinking that in a way the tree foreshadowed the crucifixion as Jesus was hung on a cross of wood, the greatest gift of all to mankind.

Autumn Cows 2

One of a few paintings inspired by the Autumn leaves. I like to imagine all sorts of things with cows obviously and this is one that often gets a chuckle. This original is still available. Also available as a print and giclee'. Please visit my website for details. :0) Happy Thanksgiving and many blessings to you and yours!

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil....

This one is from an outing with my brother and nephews when we went for lunch in South Jersey several years ago. My older nephew's girlfriend was also with us as we waited in the booth for our food to come. True to form, my brother had told an off color joke which caused everyone to squirm in their seats including his sons. I was somewhat oblivious since I was taking a picture. I was simply documenting our time together since I lived in Philly and didn't see them that much. It wasn't until I had developed the film and was going through the pictures that I realized the total humor in the photo and had to paint it. My brother just has that kind of charm :0)

Toddler with Bunny

This one was painted between 1995 and 1996 when my daughter was around 16 months old. It's a very large painting, 24x48 on masonite. As with most new parents, I was in love with my child and being a mom was a totally new feeling and experience, so I wanted to paint her. Along with the joy came her innocent ability to stir up feelings about my own childhood. Also, as with most new parents, I would sometimes feel a great sense of being overwhelmed by this new presence in my life and this accounts for the large size of the painting as well as her appearing as something of a giant between two roofs in the background. She confronts the viewer with her direct gaze making it impossible to ignore her... hmm much like a toddler! :0)

Jesus Enjoying a Good Laugh

In my spiritual walk, I had begun to think about who the human Jesus really might have been when he walked the earth and what His moment by moment experiences might have been like. Certainly, he came to complete a somber task, but in His 33 years, would His life have been all serious? I started to think about Him in an extremely personal way, like if I had met Him at the wedding at Cannan, could I have shared a good joke? In His human-ness, wouldn't he have had a laugh from time to time? Surely, humor is a gift given to us that I don't think God would have denied His Son. So, in my imagining of this, I developed the scenario depicted here. Kids being kids, they have just pulled some kind of harmless little prank and there they are giggling in the background. Jesus and one of His apostles are in the foreground enjoying a full belly laugh at the children's antics.

Fallen Idol

This is a painting which has perplexed many a visitor to the Hahn household. It is one of a handful of self portrait "People on the Couch" paintings I have done in recent years. Allow me to dissect.... The scene takes place in my living room on my comfy green couch. There I lay in my fuzzy white slippers, a book in my lap. The book is a biography about Bob Dylan, someone whom I had idolized since childhood. Having fallen in love with his music and never really thinking too much about what kind of a person he might actually be, I am shocked and disheartened by the picture painted of him in the biography. Hence the title "Fallen Idol." There is Bob, stiff, like the marble god I had made him out to be, falling off the pedestal I had planted him on in my mind since I was young. For anyone who has listened to Bob Dylan's songs the rest of the imagery is fairly self explanatory. There is a train coming in the distance through my window with crosses as railroad ties (Slow Train Coming) On my head is my (Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat) The blood from my heart falls on to the railroad tracks reflecting both my sadness at the book's revelations and is the (Blood on the Tracks). My desert island album. To the left is my big brass bed (Lay Lady Lay, the first of his songs I ever heard) and above it, the jack of hearts. (Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts)
There, not so strange after all, hum? :0)

My Neighborhood

I have decided to jump around a little bit with the paintings I show here instead of plodding through my various phases in groups.
This one was very much influenced by and similar in style to artist Red Grooms. It depicts my working class neighborhood in Upper Darby, Pa where my husband and I bought our first house. It was painted around 1992-93.On the porch at the right were our neighbors, an elderly Italian couple who spoke very little English. He was about 70+ and used to crack me up with his big pompadour of white hair and missing tooth. She was a very sweet lady who was always knitting which is how I portrayed her with her head bent down and knitting in her hand. To the left on their porch were our other neighbors, Tom and Helen, a toll taker and teacher, respectively.
In later years my family bought a Christmas tree angel who reminded us of Helen and has always been referred to as such as she emerges from her box every year. In the center is my husband looking at me. You will notice I painted myself pregnant which I was not at the time but hoped to be soon. That wish came true in the form of my beautiful daughter who was born two years later.

Holy Communion

This week's painting is another in the series of my first black and white's. I hope I won't bore anyone by presenting this series together but they represent a whole period of reflection on my life fueled by my Mother's death. This painting was done from
a snapshot of myself, my brother and my father the day of my Holy Communion. I don't particulary remember anything about the day, except for our priest taking my purse and tucking it between his legs under his cassock to hide it for another picture. This one in some ways reminds me of the Grant Wood painting "American Gothic" in it's stiffness. I don't know if it was because of my state of mind at the time I painted it or some underlying feeling, but whenever I look at this one, there appears to be a sinister feeling which seems to have come from my unconscious into the painting. I would really appreciate your comments and feedback. Below it says "Post Comment" in pink, if you click on that you will be able to leave your comments . I hope you are enjoying my blog thus far and look forward to sharing more with you.

Easter 1949

I have been making art all of my life but I didn't start painting seriously until 1985. Actually, I didn't know I was serious at the time, I just started this painting as a way of holding on, I suppose, since it was painted in my mothers apartment where I was caring for her as she was dying of cancer. It was painted from an old photograph that I found in a box. It is my Mom and my oldest brother in front of Saint Joseph's College which I believe is the one in Philadelphia. Amazingly, I went though my high school years of art without even being taught the color wheel and so when I started painting, I had no idea of how to use color, let alone mix it with oil paints. This painting is in black and white 1. because it was from a black and white photo,2. I didn't know how to use color at the time, and 3. I was so dirt poor, I could only come up with enough money to buy a canvas, a few brushes and a tube of black and a tube of white oils. I am primarily self taught as you can see in the crudeness of this painting. After so many years, I am a little better at what I do, yet this painting and some that I will share in the future, I feel are among my best work.