Something Around My House: My Renoir

I like a painting which makes me want to stroll in it.

~Renoir

I love this quote!

That is why I always get a certain calendar each year:
 I want to look at a new picture every month
that inspires me to wish myself into the painting......

Today, in response to a question by one of our commenters, Vicky, asked of me in a comment: 

what Renoir print do you have hanging in your living room?

I will play "show and tell" with Willa.


This is the Renoir print hanging above our couch in our living room.

Young Mother (Jeune mère)
1881
by

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1841–1919

Here is the framed print in my home:

(please excuse the messy house......lots of company just left in the last two days)

There is a story of how it got to my wall. Of course.

I love to tell stories.



One day, maybe 15 years ago, a friend and I were shopping at the mall in Reno, Nevada. 
It was more like window-shopping. 
Somehow we found ourselves in the furniture department at JC Penney's.

Looking through the large, framed prints, we were imagining each one in our house.
Of course, they were out of our financial ability to purchase.

Until we got to this Renoir.

My friend decided that she must have it. 
I think it was about $200 dollars.
She might have had a 50% off coupon.....
I could not talk her out of it.
I tried.

So, she bought it and placed it in the family room at my dad's house
because she was kind of a housemate there.

And there it hung for almost a decade, where I enjoyed it whenever I was visiting.

In the meantime, we recieved a baby grand piano, which caused an upheaval in our living room arrangement. This opened up a large wall space.

I spent at least a year looking for something to place there......but everything was out of my price range.  How could I  justify spending $100 or more on a decoration?

I finally decided that the "fine art" on my wall was going to have to be five Impressionist prints I had picked up at the National Gallery of Art, when they were only $1.00. I bought the frames, got the pictures into those frames.......and only needed to get the nails placed on the wall......when......

This friend was making plans to move out of my dad's house. 
She was packing and purging.
And, I was there for a visit with my dad.........having a conversation with her,
when she suddenly said: 

Do you want that print?

Do *I* want that print???

And, just in the nick of time, before the first nail made that first hole in my clean, blank wall.......

I received that painting that I could not afford, way back then, or now.......for FREE.

Her timing was most convenient for me.

I have yet to tire of this Young Mother.

This painting is a nice memory of the time when my friend and I were young

and our children were young and best friends.

We were kindred spirits and had much in common.

That is no longer the case......but the picture and the memories remain.

Please whisper a little prayer for their family.

Thanks.

Blessings,

            Chari