FOUND: THE ART OF BENJAMIN TODD HARTMAN

My Dear Husband and I had lunch at the Trillium Cafe in Hood River last Monday. It's fun trying new places, and when I spotted the name of the restaurant, that was all it took to decide it was The Place. (I'm a Trillium Artisans member, and years ago played in a flute trio called Trillium.) Besides, the whole front of the restaurant was painted with wildly colorful art. The inside, too, as we found, with the walls covered with gigantic Maurice Sendak characters from Where the Wild Things Are.

So we took our seats, ordered, and began to look around. There were paintings. The first one, spotted by DH, seemed to feature our little Scotty dog:

Then I noticed another painting, with what appeared to be a white picket fence in its background, deciding on the spot to make it part of a Friday Fence Post. I didn't see the slinking figure in the foreground until I got closer, and didn't realize until I looked at the photo I'd taken that the "fence" was actually the spaces between tree trunks. Doesn't matter. This artist has a vivid, and slightly spooky-tuned, imagination.



"Run, Jonathin Greenleaf, Run"


After that, I had to take a tour of the cafe, to see what other paintings Mr. Hartman had hung. There was just one I couldn't get a shot of, darn the hanging light fixture that prevented it.



Yow. What is that thing?


Another painting with a feature, a very long-legged person, that went unnoticed until I looked at my photo (Well, it was a dim room, and I was trying to shoot quickly!):



I love the way Mr Hartman does trees!


I'd like to thank Benjamin Todd Hartman for painting, and the owners of the Trillium Cafe for hanging his art so their customers could enjoy it!