My friend Rita and her husband Henry’s son Frank is a talented young man and a gifted painter and is now working in Germany as an architect.
One day when discussing just how “wonderful” our children are Rita invited me to her home to look at a few of Frank’s paintings, some from the portfolio he had to submit when applying to Cornell university.
In the style of Emily Carr.
The painting that most caught my attention was the one of his paternal grandmother he painted at 16 years of age working from a 2.5 X 2.5 black and white photo.
The painting is so realistic that on his next trip to China his father Henry carefully rolled the portrait and in China had eight hand painted copies made and gave one to each of his brothers. These paintings now hang in each of their homes in Guang Dong city to honor their grandmother.
While we were looking at the paintings I noticed some beautiful wooden boards and when I inquired Rita told me they were boards for playing Go. She casually mentioned she is a champion player representing Canada in international amateur contests, one in Japan in 2018.
The beautiful bowls and the semi-precious playing stones were a wedding gift from her parents
To complete this story I have to mention that as a child Frank followed his mother around the kitchen, making notes and learning to cook.
When he first took up his position in Germany in 2018 his employer won a major contract to renovate and upgrade one of the then luxury hotels in Beijing and Frank traveled there frequently to work on the project. Being a creative young man he took the opportunity to make friends with the hotels head chef and added greatly to his own international culinary repertoire.
Last year, 2023 for the birthday of a friend, a young lady who is Korean-German, I love that detail, as a gift designed the menu and prepared her a meal served by himself, the master chef.
Lucky lady