1994 and 1995
The first card reproduces a gorgeous landscape painting by our very talented buddy and John’s college roommate Philip Koch (rhymes with “watch.”) Phil is unrelated to the Koch (rhymes with “broke”) Brothers.
Phil’s painting of spouse Alice Jonas in Edward Hopper’s cottage on Cape Cod graces the front of the 1995 card. Phil enjoys a bi-annual residency at the cottage/studio where Hopper’s spirit continues to inspire Phil. Phil taught at The Maryland Institute of Art in Baltimore for many years. He continues to paint landscapes feverishly. In 2015, Phil became the second Artist-in-Residence at the Burchfield Penny Art Center in Buffalo.
Alice is a psychotherapist who does her best to help her clientele keep a grip on sanity!
Here is a recent painting by Phil of Hopper’s cottage on the dunes.
Phil’s website is: philipkoch.org.
For the next 14 years, we collaborated with Alfred Gonzalez who has owned and operated Gallery 71, two blocks from our apartment, for 26 years. Each of these cards features a work by Marion Welch. Together, these cards provide a sort of virtual tour of New York City in Winter - Central Park in particular. Alfred provided and printed the cards and we provided the content. You can read about Marion Welch and see some of her watercolor paintings at Gallery 71’s web site: gallery71.com.
Gallery 71 celebrated its 25 Anniversary last year with a show of Alfred’s photographs. Alfred’s Dad inspired Alfred’s work. We acquired Alfred’s photo of his Dad, with his camera bag next to him on the bench, featured here.
1996 - 2009
Over the 26 years we have known Alfred, he has framed innumerable mezzotints by yet another very talented friend, Robert Kipniss. More about Robert below. We’ve also acquired from Alfred a number of etchings by Alexander Befelein, which capture the essence of European cities we have visited over the years - in kaleidoscopic and evocative images
For most of these cards, we worked with Mary Ann Rimes, who set the text and the photos inside some of the cards. Mary Ann’s Mom Jeanne Northrup was my indispensable, very talented, and always reliable Administrative Assistant during the years I was Chief Litigation Counsel at International Paper Company.
Jeanne and I have remained close friends since we both left IPC in 2006 - respectfully declining the invitation to relocate to IPC’s HQ in Memphis - despite the attractions of Elvis, barbecue at The Rendezvous, and the Blues! Jeanne contributed to each of the cards that Mary Ann worked on and has continued to do so to this day. Importantly, Jeanne typed the entire manuscript of Dad’s “Poems Across the Season’s” (available on Amazon), somehow deciphering Dad’s pieces composed on his manual Royal typewriter dating back more than 50 years. It was a painstaking task and Jeanne did a remarkable job! Kudos!! Dad’s book could not have been published, and our cards would just be figments of our imaginations, without Jeanne’s invaluable contributions over the 20 years that we have been friends.
2010 - 2017
In 2010, we began an 8-year collaboration with another friend and very talented multi-media artist - the whimsical and endlessly-imaginative Karen Rossi.
During these years, Karen designed and brought to fruition each of our cards. We just provided the content. The imagination and skill - and endless patience! - were all hers. A couple of the cards feature Norfolk, CT where we have been particularly fortunate to enjoy and share with family and friends a second home since 1983. Karen’s work “Route 66” is reproduced on our 2019 card as well. We also have the wall hanging of that work which Karen crafted with an acetylene torch - a skill inspired by her Dad. I once watched Karen “draw” with her acetylene torch - no erasing possible! Here is another one of Karen’s “Fanciful Flights”:
Karen’s website is: karenrossi.com.
Each of these cards featured Family and followed the 90+ year saga of Bob and Martha. During these years, Mom and Dad celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary surrounded by Family at Norris Lake (a TVA “creation”) in Tennessee.
Mom “advanced in years” - as she so gracefully put it - to 90, still singing and cooking brisket at Christmas and vegetable soup for family, friends or any stranger who walked in her door.
Dad observed that he never wanted to be 90 - until he turned 89! We celebrated that milestone with a lively discussion among all of Dad’s extant History Department members who returned to Wittenberg for the grand occasion, joined by Witt’s former president Bill Kinnison.
Gala festivities followed - with Mom and Brother T-Bone (aka “Tom”) harmonizing on “Me and Bobby McGee,” among other tunes in their repertoire, on stage.
My HS classmate Patty Athy In Witt’s Advancement Office at the time deserves major credit for making this such a successful and memorable occasion. Thanks Patty!
Beth and Gina wed, thanks in part to The Supreme’s landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, in which the Court belatedly, but happily, saw the light of marriage equality. Mom brought the house down, and received a standing ovation, when she sang The Lord’s Prayer.
And great grandkids continued to proliferate!
Mom and Dad celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary, joined by family and Mom’s younger sister Freda and her Clan. Mom made her last recoding on her 95th birthday on Phil’s cell phone - a cappella, perfect pitch, not a single missed word! A month later, Mom moved on peacefully, and then Dad relocated to Dayton, Ohio where, after publishing his poetry collection, he became know as “The Poetry Man” among the residents at One Lincoln Park.
Dad’s book was expertly published by Four Directions Press. It’s principal Sean McCarthy’s skill and imagination brought the book to press in Dad’s 96th year.
2018
This year, we shared with you “Alleys, Springfield” by our very good friend Robert Kipniss whose painting inspired Dad’s poem “Alleys of My Life,” also included in the card. The Hartje Kids grew up in Springfield where alleys are ubiquitous and were the concourses connecting us each day as we ran and biked to friends’ houses. Those alleys continue to resonate.
We met Robert and soon-to-be spouse Laurie Lisle in line at the U.S. Airways gate in Dayton, Ohio, more than 25 years ago and have been fast friends ever since. Robert attended Wittenberg in the late 1940s. Returning to Witt many years later to receive an honorary degree from President William Kinnison, Robert experienced an epiphany of sorts when he was struck by the eye-opening impact of Springfield and the Midwest landscape on his subsequent paintings and prints.
We first happened onto one of Robert’s prints, years before we met him, in a gallery on University Place in NYC. As John was leafing through a bin of prints, one in particular caught his attention and he said “Carol, this looks just like Springfield, Ohio.” On the back of the print was the title: “Morning, Springfield.” At the time, we had no idea who Robert Kipniss was and that he had a connection to Springfield.
Here’s one of Robert’s drypoints - “Springfield, O”:
Robert’s works are in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (displayed in recent years next to a Rembrandt print!), The Cleveland Museum of Art, The New Orleans Museum of Art (Where his works were featured when the Museum first reopened in the wake of Katrina - we were there!), and a host of other museums.
You can view Robert’s works and learn more about him at his website: robertkipniss.net, and at a number of other online venues. His works are available at The Old Print Shop in Manhattan.
Laurie and Robert now live in Sharon, CT, where Laurie wrote a very engaging memoir about how she transformed her over-grown and undisciplined backyard into an enchanting and inviting garden. Here’s the cover of Laurie’s book “Four Tenths of an Acre”:
2019 and 2020
As noted earlier, Karen Rossi’s great take on a couple gettin’ their kicks on Route 66 is on the cover of our 2019 card and an excellent pic of Dad - at 97 with a full head of hair! - and his poem honoring Mom’s Christmas brisket are inside.
2020 features a work by life-long friend Barbara Leventhal-Stern, painted not long after 9/11: “Everything’s Up In the Air.” We chose Barb’s painting because we’ve all been “up in the air” as the 2020 pandemic continues to dominate our lives, balanced just a bit by the strength of Barb’s bear. You can view some of Barb’s other works online. We coupled Barb’s great painting with the evocative and hopeful poem by Barb’s friend since child-hood Linda Zitsman Chernick: “Through the Crevices.”
This year we also included one of Vee Kausel’s watercolors encouraging all of us to “Hang in there.” Vee, whose nom de plume is “the checkered lady,” paints marvelous one-of-kind cards and crafts any variety of other objets d’art and beautiful hand-knitted scarves, available from The Artisans Guild here in our town Norfolk, CT and from Vee directly: vkausel@charter.net.
2021
Here’s some background - mostly true - about the very talented contributors to this year’s card.
Tom Hawkins: Tom has been a friend since our teen years. We bonded on a cross-country junket in Summer 1969 in Tom’s bright red fast-back Mustang - with only a couple hundred bucks, a gas credit card and, most important, a AAA Membership Card. We bought gas in Texas for 21.9 cents/ gallon. We snuck into camp sites at 5 am to shower and we slept on the beach in LA. But that’s a story for another time.
Tom met Susan in my folk’s house when she was house-sitting the brood while Mom and Dad were away. Tom and Sue now split their time between Springfield, Ohio and Beaver Island - on Font Lake on an island in the middle of Lake Michigan. Tom is an accomplished photographer who captures Island birds on film. He recently captured on “film” the remarkable pic of a soaring Starling in this year’s card. Along the way, Tom was a reporter and then an editor at the Springfield, Ohio News. Susan herded - and taught - kids for years in the Springfield Public Schools.
Susie Combest: Susie and Brother James have been an “item” for 30 years, finally making it “official” a couple of years ago in a ceremony in Portugal officiated by their good buddy Alan “Boomer” Martini. Susie has been painting watercolors for years. She has crafted one-of-a-kind cards for any number of occasions. Reproductions of her works appear on the front and back covers of Dad’s collection “Poems Across the Seasons.” She and Jim visited Paris with us many years ago and she painted Notre Dame soon after fire decimated the Cathedral.
Lorna Farmer: Lorna hooked up with Larry - an Oberlin College section mate of John’s - 3 kids and 2 grandkids ago. After more than 40 years as a Jersey Girl, she and Larry recently opted for California Dreamin’ in San Diego. In between sessions counseling clients on how to keep their psyches healthy - or at least relatively in tact - Lorna has been an accomplished painter for many years, in particular creating unique collages, layered with paint, paper, fibers, and other objects. You can view her works at her website: lornafarmer.com.
Barbara Ryniker Evans: Barb has been a good friend since she and John met in law school in Buffalo. A Long Island Girl growing up, Barb migrated to NYC where she practiced law until Robbie charmed her and whisked her away to his home venue of New Orleans. Barb had her own firm there until Katrina literally washed it - and much else in NOLA - away. When, sadly, Robbie left us way before his time 4 years ago, Barb took up the reins as CEO of the family’s steel import/export business, weathering the commercial storm wrought by Covid 19. Still, she finds time to paint from time to time, capturing the camel’s expressive countenance on a trip to Egypt in recent years.
Jan Honick: Jan and Eric have been our close friends for over 40 years since John and Eric were Associates at the law firm of Kronish Lieb in NYC. Eric regularly kicks John’s butt on the golf course. Jan has been dedicated to her painting craft over those years, more recently, with the aid of an antique easel which we inherited with our house in Norfolk, CT and happily bequeathed to her. She paints across the spectrum of landscapes, still lifes, and figure painting. Jan paints in NYC, where she and Eric have an apartment, and in their getaway down the road from us in Salisbury, CT. We have known their boys David and Daniel since their births, and in recent years have become acquainted with Dan’s spouse Jenna and their beloved pooch Janie.
Brother Tom Hartje: John taught Tom how to escape from the confines of his playpen before Tom could walk. Better known as T-Bone, Tom has flaunted convention and constraints since then, capped in his senior year at North High with the campaign speech that vaulted him to President of the Student Body in which he pleaded to his fellow students: “How can I free you from these frightful fetters?!” The audience went wild - and elected him President!
Tom played and sang lead in his rock bands. First, in high school, The 5 Pak (Tom made 6!). There followed: The Jondo Band; Woodpecker Clan; Free World; Tommy and the Turnipgreens; Billy Buffalo and the OK Corral Boys; and F.O.G. (F*ckin’ Old Guys).
Sister Beth introduced Mary Shide to Tom and he and Mary merrily married 22 years ago. Mary honed the patience needed to keep T-Bone corralled teaching autistic children and infants and their parents for more than 40 years. She now gardens, cooks and keeps Tom on track in Capitola, CA. Mary’s marvelous videos which she created for T-Bone’s 70th and 71st Birthdays (Yikes!) are not to be missed.
In and following college, Tom perfected the art of pottery. But Tom quickly realized that he would need gainful employment if he hoped to pay the rent. So he joined Jim in Santa Cruz, CA where James Hartje Construction builds and remodels homes and Tom Hartje Painting guilds Jim’s houses with only the finest gloss. A true artist, Tom’s original works - each one-of-a-kind - stretch from coast to coast: with his crew, Tom has painted a couple of thousand houses and buildings in the vicinity of Santa Cruz, a church in Saluda, NC, a home in Arizona, and, on five trips East, our apartments in NYC and our home in CT.
Andrea Fry: John met John Fry when they traveled to Europe together on a student tour in Summer 1964 - at 15 and 18 respectively. They have been the best of friends ever since. John and Andrea married in our NYC apartment on the eve of The New Millennium - December 31, 1999.
Andrea has been writing poetry all her life, publishing her first collection of poems “The Bottle Diggers” in 2017 and her most recent collection “Poisons & Antidotes” this year.
Andrea’s poems have also appeared in more than 15 journals, including “The Stanford Literary Review,” “Barrow Street,” and “Plainsongs,” to name just a few. When she isn’t writing poetry, Andrea is an oncology nurse practitioner at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan.
Andrea’s website is: andrealfry.com.
Philip Koch (rhymes with “watch”): John and Phil were roommates at Oberlin College - true children of The Sixties! As a freshman, Phil had the good sense to forego dual majors in Political Science and late-night German translations and, instead, to take a studio art course. And he hasn’t stopped painting since then.
After a stint in graduate school at Indiana University and then in Washington State, Phil settled in Baltimore where he taught at The Maryland Institute of Art and has painted - largely landscapes - which continue to engulf him every day.
Phil and I reconnected in the 1980s after a hiatus just before Phil and Alice Jonas married. We attended the nuptials in their muddy backyard - with the “Gorilla Girls” - Phil’s daughter Susan and Alice’s daughter Louisa - 10 and 8 respectively - stealing the post- ceremony show!
We have collected a number of Phil’s paintings and enjoy them daily in our NYC apartment and our Norfolk home - depending on where we happen to be. Our first two Christmas cards featured Phil’s paintings - the second inside Edward Hopper’s cottage on Cape Cod where Phil enjoys a biannual residency.
Phil was resident artist at The Burchfield Penny Art Center In Buffalo 2015 - 2018 and has an exhibit scheduled for The Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Summer 2022. Here is Phil’s latest card:
Alice works assiduously to bring some balance to Phil’s artistic ways and to the lives and psyches of her psychotherapy clientele - a particularly challenging endeavor in these pandemic times.
Robert Kipniss: We met Robert and Laurie Lisle over 20 years ago by happenstance - at the US Airways departure gate in Dayton, Ohio, after Robert’s exhibit at Wittenberg University in Springfield where Robert had been a student for two years in the late 1940s. We connected and have been good friends ever since. Robert and Laurie have a home in Sharon, CT about 30 minutes from our place in Norfolk. We have overcome the isolation imposed by the pandemic in part by getting together every couple of weeks to share conversation and ice tea on their marvelous porch - framed by blossoming crab apple trees in the Spring - and over hot tea and Robert’s delicious vintage red wines at their kitchen bar table looking out on Laurie’s garden.
In earlier days, Robert made a living in NYC’s pool halls, behind the counter of a bookstore, and at nights in the US Post Office to support his family and his painting “habit”! Since those earlier days, Robert’s painting habit has paid the tab.
Robert’s works are in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cleveland Art Museum, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The New Orleans Museum of Art (The Museum reopened with his exhibit after Katrina.), The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The British Museum, Bibliotheque National, Paris, and numerous other museums which are listed at his website:
and on Wikipedia. Robert has written a memoir “Robert Kipniss: A Working Artist’s Life” and “Paintings and Poetry - 1950 - 1964.”
Painting and drawing were Robert’s first passions, which he first supplemented with lithographs. Then, in the 1980s, Robert became enamored with mezzotints - “The Art of Darkness.” At 90, Robert toils daily over copper plates with burnishers and burins - and the like. We believe he is the finest mezzotint artist of both the 20th and 21st Centuries. His lithograph of “Streets and Alleys” in John’s hometown Springfield, Ohio, was reproduced on the front of our 2018 card.
Laurie Lisle: has authored multiple books, including definitive and engaging biographies of Georgia O’Keefe and Louise Nevelson and two memoirs - “Four Tenths of an Acre” which recounts how she transformed her untamed backyard into a gorgeous garden and, recently, a personal memoir about her writing life - “Word for Word”
Laurie’s website is: laurielisle.com
“Everything that’s fit to print!”
For the past 10 years or thereabouts, our cards have been printed - and folded! - by Mike Glynn and his company Prentis Printing Solutions in Meriden, CT. Mike and his sidekick Jim have done a marvelous job transforming our pictures and text (typed by Jeanne Northrop) into lively and eye-catching cards that never fail to garner attention - ours and, hopefully, yours too. You can reach Mike at: mike@jlpgraphis.com.