I was out shopping about a month ago and I saw a painting similar to the one above at Sacred Art, a store a few blocks from the apartment that sells affordable art by local artists. I thought it was cool and symbolic and would make a great gift for Jen and Chad when Quinn was born. And it was about how much we would have spent on a gift. Perfect. But I didn’t get it.

Fast forward a few weeks. Quinn shocked everyone by arriving early! And we were invited to his baby shower. I went back to Sacred Art, not having had come up with any other cool ideas for a gift, but the painting was gone. I thought it wasn’t meant to be.. and was bummed.

Then I was talking to Jessica at work and she suggested I try to find out who the artist was and contact them directly. It took some digging, but figured out that the artist is Christine Olson and that she has a blog. I left a comment on her blog telling her what happened and she emailled me back right away saying she’d be totally up for doing another painting for me and selling it for the price I saw at Sacred Art. Awesome! We talked a bit about what colors to use, being that Quinn is a boy and I knew the color of his room.. not that the painting necessarily had to go in his room. I just liked it as a symbol of family and thought it’d be cute anywhere.. on the wall or on a shelf or whatever Jen and Chad wanted. In the end Christine painted 3 canvases for me and dropped them off at Sacred Art so I could pick whichever one I liked the most. I chose the one above, which I like even more than the original painting I saw at Sacred Art.

It’s fun to support my very local art store and local artists, too!