A New Painting by Ben & Bennie

Title: "Forever Young"

Size: 8" x 10" canvas panel; standard frame size.

Price: SOLD (please read the stuff after the next paragraph)

Completing this ended up being an emotionally uplifting experience. I received a phone call today from one of Ben's doctors commenting about the blog. They were fascinated by several things including the pictures of Ben painting and the love Jessie shows toward Ben. However they were moved to tears viewing the "Jen & Ben Painting" video which shows Ben working on the above piece. One of the staff noticed that the song playing in the background was " Forever Young."

I had no idea that a radio was playing at the time so I reviewed the video with Nurse Lisa and Joan earlier this evening. Sure enough we can hear the song near the end. If that wasn't enough to get us teary-eyed Lisa had us play it back a few more times. As you watch the scene Ben says very distinctly (to us at least) "I love you" several times as he is painting. These are the moments: 1:05, :57, and :49. About 5 seconds later you can hear Ben say it once again. "I love you."

Instead of the usual how-to-pay-for-it-stuff let me explain that this painting was pre-sold. I had promised the buyer a "viewing" of the painting before it went public. The buyer had really wanted one of our previous paintings and barely missed the opportunity to purchase it. Ordinarily I always accept the first e-mail I receive as the purchaser and will send an e-mail back to those that did not get a chance to buy our paintings and then offer the next finished painting for them to purchase.

Fortunately for me and Ben a waiting line has now developed. I have to say that we are humbled (at least I am). I never expected us to achieve the success we've been blessed with already. Unfortunately my "busy season" is now here. I honestly do not see us completing anything until the second week of April for reasons you'll soon read about.

The bottom line: I want our artwork to remain affordable to anyone that wants to purchase our paintings. The problem: at the moment we cannot keep up with demand.

Don't get me wrong. Ben will be painting as furiously as he's been the past few months if not more. Lisa and Jenny (Ben's nurses) get the biggest kick out of all of this notoriety. In fact there is healthy competition between them and Ben loves it!

I guess my point is that I don't want to make my son into some kind of a carnival feature. All of us that love and support Ben think this is wonderful therapy. Yeah, we could use the money but not at the expense of making my boy a joke and a chance to make a quick dollar. What we do is more than therapy. It's a chance to to let the rest of the world know that exceptional people have more to give than just a smile and a nod.

***Update***
Let me share the idea put before us yesterday. A very close friend suggested we put our collaborative work up for bid on E-Bay. The thinking behind this is that our art might be worth more than what we ask and we could also raise more money for our donation target. While I think this is an interesting scenario I have some reservations which are stated in the above post.

If we were to do something like this we would use ArtByUs.com as the auction site. Peter and Conni Togel, the owners of the website, are good friends of ours. They know the purpose behind our blog and are very supportive of using the sale of art for generating funds for charity. Although I'm hesitant in trying this I'd really like to know what you readers think. Please share your thoughts with us and be as honest as you'd like. Use the comment link or e-mail me.