Robert A. Nelson: Bring Your Imagination

In Robert Nelson’s work, there’s everything from flying monkeys to really big dogs.
By MARYALICE BITTS
Published: Dec 23, 2007 12:10 AM EST

LANCASTER, Pa - A Robert A. Nelson exhibit is no place for the unimaginative.

Representing the artist's rather gleeful disregard of the laws of time, natural order and reason, Nelson's works present a sometimes playful and sometimes vaguely unnerving imagined world where allegory, mythology, classical and historical figures, mechanical locks and machines and oddly anthropomorphic representatives from the animal kingdom impossibly collide.

"Some people ask me, 'Where do your ideas come from? Are you on drugs?'" says Nelson, a former Lancastrian whose award-winning work resides in several noted museum collections."They aren't always able to accept black humor and a certain level of surreal strangeness."

Those who can, however, are in for a small treat. That's because a modest show of Nelson's recent work is currently on display at Lancaster's Criswell & Shreve Gallery, 112 N. Prince St.

In it, you'll find studies and paintings that show classically precise renderings of larger-than-life animals in the driver's seat of antique cars; an unruly flock of pigeons being fed by a traditional Greek statue; and, in a nod to what's over the rainbow, the well-named "Flying Monkeys Capture Alexander the Great: Unrecorded Events in Oz.

"There's also the acrylic work "The Really Big Dog," which shows a clearly amused terrier atop a vintage auto (a companion piece show two such dogs climbing over an antique Rolls Royce).

"He has such wild juxtapositions," says gallery co-owner D. Robert Fenninger."There really is no limit to where his explorations can go. His imagination doesn't seem to stop."

This is a great departure in style for the relatively new gallery, which typically shows antique artifacts and works by art history greats such as Gaugin and Cassatt. But, says Fenninger, the exhibit represents a happy collaboration.

"This show highlights what we've enjoyed about his work for the past 25 years," says Fenninger, who befriended Nelson some two decades ago, while Nelson taught art at Millersville University."He has great talent and humor, and he is a master draughtsman."

Crafting and drafting
That mastery is the result of a lifetime of dedication to the craft.

An inquisitive child who grew up fascinated by images he found in comics and children's books, Nelson later refined his drafting skills in the Air Force, during World War II, and when the war ended, he spent a year drawing maps for Rand-McNally, and working as a draftsperson for a meat packing firm.

By the time he entered the Art Institute of Chicago in 1946, he had several years of professional experience honing the techniques of realistic drawing. He received his master's degree in 1951, and launched a full-fledged artistic and scholarly career.

Over the next 55 years, Nelson earned a doctorate in education, taught art at several colleges, and held approximately 150 solo exhibits across the country. In 1961, the French government awarded him that country's coveted Cezanne award, and today, his work is housed in the Washington's Smithsonian Institute, New York's Museum of Modern Art and the Seattle Art Museum.

Although he briefly flirted with abstract expressionism in the 70s and 80s ("I learned that paint and texture alone is not a message,"), he soon returned to the figurative style that he sharpened as a soldier and draftsman, paying nearly honorific attention to the detail and mechanics of the ideal human form.

"He has an incredible mastery of the human figure, and he's interested in finding out the way things work. So, he's able to push and pull the features a bit to communicate certain ideas," says gallery co-owner L. Scott Paden. "He finds a little bit more than what the eye would normally see."

Namely, Nelson might slightly enlarge a subject's shoulders, to subtly and economically denote power, strength or resilience. The body of a sluggish or beleaguered figure may seem to house a loose sack of stone-like objects, under the surface of the skin.

Read the note!
In his studies, Nelson augments these visual clues with written notes and explanations that not only remind his future self of the precise details of the painting he hopes to someday complete (for example, "longer body," or "bring forward"), but also tell viewers how to interpret both the sketch and the finished work.

His sketch "Movie Making: The Emperor Who Hated His People No. 2," for example, shows two traditionally dressed figures in motion.In a penciled note, Nelson characterizes the figures as "Chinese Actors in an 18th-century film," and helpfully writes the explanatory, if odd, note: "Hidden jacket pads hold fake arrows."He also writes the state, season and year in which the piece was created."

The explanations are done to set up a kind of empathy for the viewer," Nelson explains."You take a school kid into an art gallery and you show them a 10-by-12 painting that has a white line down the center, he will get bored very quickly. You will find him in some Dutch still life room, looking at a lemon that has been pared very carefully. There's a desire to understand and connect."

And this is part of what makes his work so compelling. As fanciful and bizarre as Nelson's scenarios can be, they are also rooted in the recognizable: Children's book characters, historic figures, mythological beings, pets and everyday objects evoke certain universal responses, no matter how incongruous their settings may be. And any pet owner can tell you that their dog or cat would love to argue for possession of their masters' meals.

"It's this business of the animal world taking on aspects of our world, because they sort of already do," explains Nelson, who owns four dogs, and several cats, horses and donkeys at his Oregon horse farm.

"It's like a dog standing in front of you with a toy, wanting to play, or a cat, at night, wanting to sleep very close to your head so it can be close to your breath.

"These are almost like human behaviors. So it's not difficult for me to let a cat argue with a person over a piece of meat. They can be insistent. It seems logical."

Speaking from his Oregon horse farm, Nelson underscores this point when he notes that as he speaks, miniature donkeys are braying outside his window, in the hopes of being fed.

Art of farming
This farm life is demanding, he says. But, now in his 82nd year, he says that he remains committed to producing as much artwork as he possibly can, chores withstanding.

"I have horses that have to be cared for, and a blind stallion that has to be led around. And, there are thousands of books to read," says Nelson, who is currently steeped in books about the Greco-Roman world, and who visits his local library several times a week. "There's just so much to enjoy. But, in the twilight years, you're a little more conscious of the work you need to do.

"I have so little time left that I have to guard it rather preciously, because life is precious to me. I'm out there on a limb, and somebody's sawing on it. If I I finish a piece of art, I say at the end of the day, 'Thank God I got that in!' Then I start the next one."

Artist/activist looks to homeland Mexico for inspiration

Sunday News (Lancaster, PA)
Publication Date: October 21, 2007
By MaryAlice Bitts
________________________________________

For Calixto Robles, creating art is more than a means of personal expression; it's an opportunity to change the world.

Robles' mission as an artist began more than 20 years ago, when, in his mid-20s, he moved from his native Mexico to San Francisco. There he began to do some cultural soul-searching.

"I didn't know many people in California. I was mostly by myself," Robles recalled in a recent telephone interview. "So, I went to the library, and I started reading books about my roots."

In those books, he learned about the culture, traditions and myths of the Aztecs, Mayans and other ancient civilizations that lived in Mexico centuries ago. Between working several jobs and taking English classes at night, he found time to express in paintings what he'd learned.

Living in a humble room with little ventilation and several roommates, he started small, using only acrylics and watercolors, which don't give off strong fumes. Three years later, his artistic world blossomed when he discovered a community center in his largely Latino neighborhood where he could paint freely and experiment with other artistic techniques, such as silk-screening and clay sculpture.

He was hooked, and he was not surprised.

"In [the Mexican state of] Oaxaca, there were many great artists who built cities in the mountains and painted murals on houses," he said. "I think all of these things are in my genes, in the genes of all of the Oaxacan peoples."

Robles drew on that history, producing a series of dreamlike paintings, silk screens and pre-Colombianlike clay sculptures that combine magical and spiritual elements, such as angels and traditional mythical creatures, with ancient symbols to create a joyous celebration of the land of his birth.

In time, he attracted the attention of art experts in Mexico, America and France, and, according to Millersville University gallery director Jessica Hill, it's easy to see why.
"It's very exciting, intricate and multilayered work," Hill said. "There's a lot of movement and symbolism, and the colors are so vibrant."

"Calixto Robles: Colors of the Wind," an exhibit of 21 Robles pieces, will be on display at Millersville University from Monday, Oct. 29, through Dec. 14. as part of the university's yearlong celebration of Latino culture.

While his pieces are richly textured and highly emotive, Robles is more likely to point out the functionality of his work. For more than 20 years, Robles and other artists in his community have used artwork to raise awareness about issues impacting the greater Latino community.

"We did posters about the revolution in Nicaragua, and to protest against the governments in El Salvador, Chile and Cuba," he said. "Lately, we've been doing posters against the gentrification of neighborhoods in San Francisco because a lot of people are being displaced."

Other topics of concern to Robles are the recent debate over U.S. immigration laws and the continuing struggles in Oaxaca, which has been a hotbed of political strife for more than a year.
A prominent player in the Mexican Revolution and in the resistance to French intervention, Oaxaca also is the historic home of the pre-Colombian Zapotec and Mixtec peoples, and is reputed to house more speakers of indigenous languages than any other Mexican region. Because of its rich history and culture, as well as its architectural attractions, year-round springlike weather and well-known archaeological digs, Oaxaca is popular with international tourists.

That changed in spring 2006, when teachers and revolutionaries in Oaxaca city protested against what they deemed to be a repressive, corrupt regime overseen by the state governor. Federal police intervened last October, using force to restore order in the city.

"It's very depressing. Last year, there were 21 people killed by the police," said Robles, who organized an educational exhibit about the protests and raised funds for the families of people who died in the struggle. "We do what we can do. We keep hope."

Accordingly, Robles often uses culturally significant images of the jaguar in his works.
"For me, the jaguar represents the resistance of my country," he said. "The jaguar is like a warrior, ready to defend our ancient culture against globalization and commercialism."

Robles hopes his pieces will move others to reflect on Latino current events and culture, as he was first inspired to do when he emigrated to America.

"I am told that there are a number of Latinos in the [Lancaster County] community," Robles said. "Maybe this exhibit will inspire them to celebrate their roots."

Warhol, Basquiat and Wyeth: 3 Deep

Sunday News (Lancaster, PA)
Sunday News (Lancaster, PA)
Publication Date: September 10, 2006
By Maryalice Bitts, Correspondent

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The splashy, high-profile partnership between pop-art icon Andy Warhol and neo-expressionist graffiti artist Jean Michel Basquiat is well-known among fans of postmodern art, but few know of Warhol's equally interesting collaboration with contemporary realist painter Jamie Wyeth.


A new exhibition, "Factory Work: Warhol, Wyeth and Basquiat," running at Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford through Nov. 19, examines the intriguing dynamics between Warhol and these two younger, very different artists and the singular works of art their friendships produced.

"Andy Warhol's associates called him Drella, a combination of Dracula and Cinderella, meaning that he kind of sucked the energy from young people, and Basquiat told somebody that he was recharging [Warhol's] batteries," said exhibit curator Joyce Hill Stoner, who, as the Wyeth family's longtime conservator, has interviewed Jamie Wyeth extensively about his collaboration with Warhol. "Andy Warhol really was rejuvenating himself through these younger artists and their very different worlds.

"Basquiat was such a creature from another planet, as was Jamie. Andy Warhol definitely enjoyed that."

Wyeth and Basquiat were the only two established artists to have been invited to Warhol's Factory studio in New York.

During the course of their friendship in the 1970s, Warhol and Wyeth enjoyed carriage rides along the Brandywine and went antiquing in search of collectible toys and taxidermy animals.

"Andy Warhol once told a reporter that Jamie Wyeth was more peculiar than he was," Stoner said. "Jamie told me he thought that this was because he loved taxidermy animals more."

The two compared notes on art, hearses, funerals and other topics, and they held joint shows, which included no less than 30 Wyeth portraits of Warhol.

Ten years later, Warhol and Basquiat exercised together (Warhol, who did not do drugs, reportedly tried to encourage Basquiat, who did, to adopt a more healthy lifestyle), got manicures, attended parties, dished about Basquiat's love life and painted over each other's artwork.

The Brandywine exhibit chronicles these offbeat relationships through interviews, clippings, audiotapes and related artifacts, such as antiques that Wyeth and Warhol collected jointly; a photograph of Warhol clutching a carriage as it plunged into the Brandywine River; Warhol's leather jacket, as decorated by Basquiat; postcards from Basquiat to Warhol; a three-dimensional work that Basquiat created in Warhol's memory; and a tape-recorded conversation between Wyeth and Warhol, one of many Warhol recorded in the 1970s with his then-ubiquitous tape recorder.

The show also contains numerous drawings and paintings by Warhol and Wyeth, such as their contrasting portraits of Rudolf Nureyev, Jimmy Carter, Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Kennedys. It likewise includes a graceful minimalist likeness of Wyeth by Warhol and largely unflattering portraits of Warhol by Wyeth, in which the steadfast realist diligently recorded Warhol's sometimes splotchy skin tones and the black hair that occasionally peeked out from beneath Warhol's signature white wig.

Their friendship survived Wyeth's portraits of Warhol, although Stoner noted that Warhol once told Wyeth he was "using too much pimple color." She also said that when a reporter asked Warhol what he thought of a Wyeth painting of him, Warhol quipped that it was a "closet portrait: If it belonged to me, I would keep it in a closet.'"

Warhol's works with Basquiat represent an equally fruitful pairing that, by some accounts, developed when the 20-year-old Brooklynite sought out Warhol, reportedly to learn not about painting, but about how to become a celebrity. Under Warhol's influence, Basquiat experimented with silk-screening and donned $800 Armani suits, which he flamboyantly wore while painting.

The two did each other's portraits, including Warhol's famous portrayal of a jockstrap-wearing Basquiat as Michelangelo's David. Warhol also created an oxidation painting of Basquiat, a technique that mixed Liquitex paints, copper metal powder and urine. The exhibit will include these works, as well as a paneled demonstration by a Warhol Museum conservator, showing how to create the chemical reactions found in an oxidation.

Warhol's motorcycle jacket, on which Basquiat painted a self-portrait, will be shown along with a picture of Warhol wearing that jacket.

Another noteworthy inclusion in the show is a found-art piece Basquiat created in response to Warhol's death in 1987. Basquiat hinged together three doors, which he found on the street, and decorated the piece with a flower, a cross and a skull-like mask. Across the work he wrote the word "perishable" in ghostly, etched-out print. It was an important piece in the young artist's brief, yet prolific, career.

"Andy Warhol was the only authority figure whom Basquiat actually got along with, and his death really affected him. Afterward, Basquiat seemed to go downhill a bit," said Stoner, noting that Basquiat, who had long battled a drug addiction throughout his meteoric career, died of a heroin overdose just shy of his 28th birthday, within a year of Warhol's death.

Stoner will discuss Basquiat's relationship with Warhol, as well as the friendship between Warhol and Wyeth, in an illustrated lecture Oct. 15 at the museum, located along Route 1 in Chester County. She said she hopes the lecture and exhibit will broaden the public's understanding of each of the artists' lives and careers.

For example, while Wyeth and Basquiat each undoubtedly looked to Warhol as something of a mentor, Stoner said the inspiration flowed both ways. According to those who knew Warhol well, she said, the artist was "back to having fun with painting again" after working with Basquiat. Stoner also noted that Wyeth inspired Warhol to explore new subject matter, including death masks (Warhol was fascinated by Wyeth's morgue paintings) and chickens (he enjoyed Wyeth's stories of the chickens at his family's farm).

"Most people in this area know a great deal about the Wyeths, but they may not know of this side of Jamie Wyeth's work. Jamie Wyeth's collaborations with Andy Warhol are sort of buried by Warhol historians and writers," Stoner said. She said she hopes the exhibit will "punch a hole in the image of Andy Warhol as described by a limited view.

"There are also Warhol and Basquiat fans who may have never had thought to go to the Brandywine Museum," she said. "I hope so. This exhibit is varied and wide-ranging. It really is something to see."

Artist Judy Glantzman: The face of things

Sunday News (Lancaster, PA)
By MaryAlice Bitts

Judy Glantzman's constantly evolving, 25-year art career began in a big way - with a splashy initiation into the buzzing, often glamorous art scene of New York City's East Village in the 1980s.

The name of the game was neo-expressionism, a raw, primitive, sometimes violently emotional artistic style influenced by German expressionists of the 1920s. It was a style designed to chafe against minimalist works of the previous era.
From the early to mid-'80s, East Village galleries were routinely packed with the fashionable elite, and artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Eric Fischl and Julian Schnabel became instant celebrities.

Glantzman, a young artist producing heavily textured, abstract, graffitilike work, was at the right place at the right time. Five years after graduating from art school, she was showing her work in trendy galleries and tallying up the sales.

"It was a great thing for me," Glantzman said in a telephone interview from her New York home. An exhibit of Glantzman's work opens this week and Pennsylvania College of Art & Design. "There was a lot of youthful exuberance. I think I did 25 group shows and five one-person shows in one year. It was an anything-goes kind of time."

She kept that frenetic pace for the next four years, but everything changed when a new, more cerebral postmodern movement became all the rage. It was, she said, a blow.

"I had no idea it could all end so fast," Glantzman said. The stylistic shift was partially due to a changing political climate that emphasized the relationship between art and commerce, she said, and partially due to the impact of the AIDS epidemic on the New York art community.

"Many of the people in the East Village were gay, and suddenly they were dying of AIDS. All of a sudden, some of the best and brightest were no longer there," she said. "We were going to funerals all the time."

It was a life-changing experience.

"If you see people dying, you say to yourself, 'What do I really care about? What's at the core of my beliefs?' It can strengthen your resolve because you know what matters to you. It's about allowing yourself to take a tremendous risk. In my case, it's the risk of really exposing yourself."
So Glantzman secured an inexpensive studio in Jersey City, N.J., and got to work.

Over the course of five years, Glantzman reinvented herself, with the simple aim of creating art on her own, newly honed terms. The result was haunting drawings and paintings of solitary, fragile human forms.

She enjoyed a second round of success in the late '90s, and when that cycle ended, Glantzman literally went back to the drawing board.

"We have all of these preconceptions about how we make our own work. I had to get past that," she said. Glantzman began to rethink the works that had brought her some success over the previous 15 to 20 years. A revelation came during a working summer vacation.

"I drew a circle, and the more I worked on it, the more I wanted to include in it," she recalled. "It was like I couldn't stop."

A new style emerged, but this time, her transformation was informed not by the sobering loss of loved ones, but by the equally transformative creation of new life.

Glantzman and her artist husband had a daughter, Lila, in 1997. Motherhood made all the difference, in her life and in her work.

First, there was the practical issue of giving a young child the intense, continuous attention she required. "It wasn't easy to focus on one thought, without distraction, with a young child in the house. The universe becomes very small. It was almost like I could create a giant world that I could enter into. And I could put into it anything that I wanted. The possibilities were unlimited."

As she expanded the world on her canvases, she noticed a similar expansion of her focus on life.
"I think that, having a child, you become progressively less the center of the universe. You become less egocentric," Glantzman said.

In her paintings, Glantzman's solitary women gave way to depictions of mothers and daughters and interweaving, disembodied heads, feet and hands.

Her images of perfectly intertwined mothers and daughters create a striking depiction of the complex bond between mother and child. Faces seem to simultaneously emerge from, and recede into, the background, as if vibrating in and out of an alternate spiritual plane.

Glantzman said she realized recently that these autobiographical works depict not only impressions of her relationship with her daughter, but with her mother, who also is an artist.
Glantzman obsessively works and reworks these figures, giving them a ghostly aura that makes them appear at once distant and sharp, in much the same way that the daily pleasures of parenting can occupy the same psychic space as the frustrations, worry and pain.

When asked about the uneasy vibe her paintings emit, the artist was matter-of-fact.

"All of the work is like a Rorschach test," Glantzman said. "If I give myself the freedom to really let things come out, sometimes what comes out is disturbing to some people.

"I think my work is both a real celebration of life that also shows the dark side. It's both sides of the coin."

Portrait of an Artist: Sy Mohr (character piece)

'Mohr' than meets the eye
Exhibit showcases artist whose life is as varied as his work
By Mary Alice Bitts
SUNDAYNEWS (LANCASTER, PA.)
June 2, 2002

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - Noted artist Sy Mohr has seen his share of both triumph
and struggle. Once a successful Lancaster businessman, Mohr lost his business
and home and later suffered a debilitating stroke, rendering him unable to read
or speak.

Then came a turning point: "When I was in the hospital, I got up and went to
everybody in the room -- everyone who was there to support me, because they
loved me -- and I began to touch everyone. And then I started to paint on the
walls," says Mohr, who has since regained his ability to speak.

"I found out I can no longer read, but I can paint. And I paint and I paint and
I paint."

Those paintings exude the color, hope and zest for living that perhaps only one
who has made it through such challenges can produce.

An exhibit of Mohr's work, titled "Contemporary Folk," opens Friday, June 7, at
Lancaster Galleries, 34 N. Water. St. A reception for the artist is scheduled
from 5 to 8 p.m. that evening; Mohr will also be at the gallery from 10 a.m. to
noon Saturday, June 8. The free exhibit can be viewed during gallery hours,
Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
It runs through June 29.

Visitors to the exhibit will travel at light speed over colorful cityscapes and
plains -- some as familiar as their own back yards and some as exotic as a
foreign-land postcard. From the jagged, steamy sounds of an outdoor rock concert
to the colorful streets of a San Juan village to the industrious efficiency of a
bustling Amish farm, all of these scenes teem with the artist's intoxication
with color, pattern and happy activity, as he captures the architecture and
vibrancy of people at their work and in the places they inhabit.

Mohr's large-scale, high-intensity works deliver an intriguing mix of
sophistication and innocence, offering the flat planes, simple figures and
bright palates of the folk tradition, with some dashes of Cubist perspective and
German Expressionist flavor. But then again, his paintings have an energy and
optimism that the German Expressionists never dreamed of, as seen in the quick,
bold brushstrokes; dark, lively outlines; and glowing, vibrating hues.

A cityscape shows layers of skylines, one on top of another, forming a complex
jigsaw puzzle of a city, outlined in thick Fauvist black, and featuring complex
patterns in the gravel, on tiling, and on fabrics.

A painting of an Amish farm offers simpler lines and more understated colors,
but no less energy, as Mohr depicts an active day of farming and chores near
Lapp's Dry Goods. Although the people in this painting do not wear clothing with
intricately designed fabrics, Mohr gives the grass and the ground touchable
texture, and lets some dry, raw canvas peep through, for an added, earthy feel.

Although Mohr is well known for his Amish and Mennonite-themed paintings, these
are only a few of his Lancaster scenes. Pieces depicting a Long's Park concert,
his former Lancaster business and various locations throughout Lancaster will be
on display in the exhibit.

"You can see that he especially loves painting Lancaster, since this was his
home for many years," says Lancaster Galleries' Deborah Fiedler, gesturing
toward several large, Amish-themed paintings. "Everyone who lived here in the
'50s and '60s knows Sy Mohr and his wife."

The owners of Mohr's Fabrics and Mohr's Gourmet, Sy, 79, and Berenice, 75, were
well-known both as prominent local business persons, and also as passionate
activists who fought for the historic restoration and preservation of downtown
Lancaster in the 1960s and 1970s.

Born in the Bronx, Mohr's artistic talents were recognized early. After winning
an art contest at 13, Mohr reports, he met Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred
Stieglitz, who hung Mohr's winning watercolor in his New York gallery. "They
said, "Youngster, you keep painting, but paint in your own way.' And I did. I
didn't stay in New York; I didn't go to Philadelphia; I didn't go to a big
artists' colony. I went to Lancaster, and I painted. And I painted my own way."
Mohr studied at the Stranden and Miller Textile High School for Fabric Design.

Following a tour of duty in the Army during World War II, Mohr designed sets on
Broadway for shows such as "Oklahoma," "Carousel" and "Porgy and Bess." After
visiting Lancaster in the 1940s and "falling in love with the architecture and
the beauty of downtown," Mohr and Berenice, a designer and stained-glass window
artist, moved to Lancaster in 1953, and opened their own fine-textile business,
Mohr's Fabrics, on South Queen Street.

Working in the store by day and painting at night, Mohr became a more visible
member of the community as he and Berenice took a stand against the demolition
of old buildings.

"When big malls like Park City started, and all the people started shopping
there, and (Mayor Tom) Monahan began to put in the parking garage, I fought him
all the way. We wanted to keep downtown the way it was," Mohr remembers. "So
Berenice and I said, "It's time for us to do something.' We decided we would
restore a building."

That building housed the Mohr's new business, Mohr Gourmet, a downtown deli you
can see captured in a wall-sized painting in the Lancaster Galleries show. In
the painting, the viewer is drawn into the a cheery bustle of a busy restaurant,
which is lit up in contrasting hues by the glamour of nearly lurid, Technicolor
delicacies. It is a visual depiction of delicious sensory overload, which is
only intensified by the bold, intricate designs on fabrics that recall Mohr's
training and experience in the textile business. At the top of the work, Mohr's
hand reaches out to the viewer's space and Berenice smiles out in welcome, from
below, as customers fill each table, along the sides.

In real life, however, business was not booming, and the Mohrs' efforts to
invest in downtown Lancaster did not pay off as they had hoped. After losing the
business, the couple moved to Gaithersburg, then Bowie, Md., where they
currently reside.

Mohr's enthusiasm for life -- and for Lancaster -- however, has not dimmed, and
his artwork echoes that ebullience.

"As rich as we were, as poor as we were, we were rich in creativity, we were
rich in having our kids, we were rich in having traveled. We've been to Haiti,
Trinidad, Puerto Rico, Europe -- and we took photographs in all of these places.
And then, in the privacy of our house, I made paintings of these pictures that
everyone can now enjoy," he notes.

This hopefulness and joy, reflected in his works, has generated some positive
response in high places. Earlier this year, his work was selected to be shown in
American ambassadors' homes, as part of the U.S. Department of State's Art in
Embassies Program. The State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg has recently
acquired his painting "Amish Farm" for its permanent collection.

"But wherever we are," Mohr said, "our home is Lancaster; it will always be the
place where I had a chance."
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