Ruth Thompson Edstrom - The Greatest Artist Who Ever Lived

My mother, Ruth Thompson Edstrom, is the GREATEST artist who EVER LIVED.

I say that with no qualifiers. Anyone who disagrees with me is going to have a problem :-) 

How can I make that statement?  Easy, my mother is a long time professional artist who is an EXCELLENT artist who ALSO has found the perfect market segment.  The market segment is custom paintings of loved ones in particular scenes where this is no single photo to paint from. 

I will give you a real life example that has happened to me countless times that will drive home the overall point.  I will run into a friend of the family who my mother has painted one of her custom paintings for.  This person will say, "you know David, I cannot thank your mother enough for that painting of my granddaughters playing in the backyard of our farm house.  That farm house no longer exists and when I see my grand daughters playing there it gives me and my husband such great joy.  Your mother took a photo of my grand daughters along with a photo of the farm house and painted them together just as we remembered and it is the most precious thing we own."

The logic is absolutely brilliant!  She has done hundreds of these paintings and everyone is incredible impressed and grateful.  Think about this for a second, EVERYONE has a memory of a loved at a particular event BUT they may not have a photo of it.  People often think, I wish smartphones would have been invented then or I wish I would have owned a nice camera that could captured my son catching his first fish, my daughter playing in her first softball game or my grandmother sitting on the porch swing with her five youngest grandchildren.  The list goes on and on. 

How does it work?  People bring them photos of their children, grandchildren, moms, dads, brothers, sisters, friends, pets, you name it ALONG WITH scenes where they have the most fond memories of those individuals.  They then ask that my mother paint those individuals maybe sitting, playing, running or whatever they remember these individuals doing and put them in a particular scene such as on vacation or at a ball park.

There is study after study that talks about happiness.  The bottom line is that you can go buy the latest Corvette Stingray and that will give you some happiness for a short period of time.  If you take your entire extended family on a memorable vacation, such as a cruise in the Mediterranean along with a European vacation, those memories will give you happiness the rest of your life.

Why is alzheimer's disease such a cruel disease compared to even cancer?  Because it takes away who we are and who we are is nothing more and nothing less than our most precious memories.  To have those precious memories captured in a painting is priceless!

What my mother has found is that the best ROI for happiness is the ability to give people their most precious memories in a medium that is timeless - a painting.  Not just a painting, but a painting of someone they love in a scene they remember most.

Yes, it is nice to have the background image on your smartphone of your kids playing with your first dog, Spike, when he was just a puppy.  But that image on your smartphone pales in comparison to a painting of that same image where you are able to add the grandparents in the background who are also watching because when you took the photo grandpa and grandma had not yet arrived.

Just as there is something timeless about a black and white photo versus a color photo, there is also something even more timeless about a painting.  Most of our walls at home are fantastic paintings that my mother has done.  I have told my family that if there is ever a fire and you have the time, grab grandma's paintings and leave everything else behind.  My two Corvettes can burn up in the garage and I would be much more upset if something happened to the paintings my mother has created.

I should also say that my mother is not limited to these custom paintings, it is just that these are the ones that truly touch people in ways that words cannot describe.

Here is my mother, Ruth Thompson Edstrom's Art Site ( RuthEdstromArt.com )  

Give your friends, your loved ones or yourself the most priceless gift of all - a timeless painting.  Go visit Ruth Thompson Edstrom's Art Site ( RuthEdstromArt.com ) today!

 RuthEdstromArt.com was designed and created by middle son Michael Edstrom.