Meet Jim

For several years, we've been feeding scrub jays at the bird feeder Al built beyond our kitchen window. This year, a juvenile scrub jay has felt audacious enough to come right into our workshop to beg for his peanuts. He'll perch expectantly on the band saw, frames tucked in the ceiling, workbenches, or one of Al's wooden patterns, waiting until we satisfy his craving. We caught him on camera the other day, grabbing a peanut off some fluted frame molding while Al was building easel add-ons in the shop. We call him "Jim" in honor of the crow who keeps the Sycamore family company in their family workshop in the 1938 film, You Can't Take It With You.

Deseret Book Company recently used Al's second painting of Eve, The Joy Of Our Redemption, as the cover for a booklet by Camille Fronk Olson, Giver of Life: Lessons From Eve.

Ancient Roman Wax Tablets

Elspeth is working on a painting of Pilate's wife. Within the composition, the wife of Pilate will be depicted writing the hasty warning she "sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him" (Matthew 27:19).

In Roman times, it was typical to write messages on wax tablets using a stylus. In preparation for the painting, we have built and decorated a wax tablet of our own, pictured here. We inscribed the wax with a Latin translation of her words (translation courtesy of T.K. Edlund, Professor of East European Local and Family History, Brigham Young University) :

"nihil tibi et iusto illi multa enim passa sum hodie per visum propter eum"