Mother's Day Tribute

My mother. Where do I begin? How can I begin to thank you? You instilled in me a love of life, art, nature, freedom and country. My mother is a great patriot and always has been. She believes in America, Americans, hard work, honesty and never take any BS.
 
When she was young she was strong, talented, young, fiercely optimistic and very beautiful in a movie star way--and she still is today, even with Multiple Sclerosis. A tussle of long blonde hair, lipstick, usually a cigarette, black mini skirt and boots that is my mother. She raised us alone without any help from anyone. She pulled us through. She made her own dresses and clothes for me and my sister. She knitted us sweaters, hats, mittens and even sewed stuffed toys from scrap pieces of material from patterns she drew herself. She collected soda bottles in the street for the five cent return deposits. It was the only way she could pay for the subway from the Lower East Side of Manhattan all the way out to the World’s Fair in Queens where she worked as a waitress.

She waited on tables for a few years until she got her start in animation. She got her first job hand inking and painting animator’s drawings onto animation cels for television commercials at Stars & Stripes Studios. She went on to work for animation studios like the Academy Award-winning Hubley Studios and others that created some of the most recognized American television icons from Punchy in the Hawaiian Punch™ commercials, to Schoolhouse Rock™ to Beavis and Butthead™. That’s what saved us, cartoons. She often brought work home and stayed up late in her painting room surrounded by careful piles of drying cels for Cheerios™ and Twinky the Kid™ commercials.

The headshot / glamour photos of my mother were taken by my father and developed and printed in his own dark room. The Christmas photos at Tompkins Square Park were shot by my mother and our babysitter who is seen in the top right photo kneeling next to me.

Please click to enlarge.

A photo of my father is in the top left corner of this photograph.