GaryOsberg.com

In December of 1984 I was employed at Dayton’s Commercial Interiors in downtown Minneapolis.  I was sleeping on my dad’s couch in St. Paul during the week. My family was still living in the home that we had built on Cedar Lake west of Upsala.  My daughter Kerry was 16 years old and her art teacher in Upsala was pushing her to produce a lot of work.  For Christmas that year Kerry presented me with a pencil drawing of a Golden Retriever with a pheasant in its mouth.  She had an uncanny ability to make the eyes so very lifelike.  She had reworked one of the eyes to the point that there was almost no paper left. 

I took it to Vern Carver Frame Shop near our office in LaSalle Court across from the Dayton’s department store.  One of my co-workers begged me to have Kerry draw another one so that he could present it to a client as a gift.  Kerry tried but finally we had my friend Dave Oswald print 130 copies and we sold them as limited edition prints for $25 or $95 framed matted and glazed.  I simply carried the original in my trunk and if someone was interested, I would go back out and bring it in to show them.  We sold most of them.  I have the original hanging in my office in Wimmer Hall at St. John’s University. It was awarded a yellow ribbon at the Zapp Bank art show.

In 2002, Kerry’s first born, Kaylin Marie, created a picture of an angel. Kaylin was 7 years old at the time.  (It started out as a Christmas tree). I marveled how she was able to capture the puffed-up cheek on the angel blowing on a horn.   It was a gift for Kaylin’s grandmother Marcia.  I borrowed it from Marcia and that year I sent out the very first “Angel Christmas Card”.  ( pdf attached)  

In 2008, Kaylin’s younger sister Christen created her first “Angel card”.   She was 5 years old. I have attached a jpg of this year’s angel card drawn by Christen age 20.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours.

“Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind, and the third is to be kind.”  Henry James