Faith and Gloria B. Godde Painting

Faith and Gloria B. Godde 10"x8" in vintage frame, oilpaint on masonite panel by Kenney Mencher (based on a vintage photobooth photo) ______________________________________________________________________ This painting of these two ladies was made from a vintage photobooth photo. Create your own instant ancestor with this image. Tell people it's a haunted portrait of your great grandma! YOU COULD WIN THE PRELIMINARY DRAWING (see the last detail) FOR THIS PAINTING BY WRITING A VERY SHORT STORY ON MY BLOG VISIT: http://kenney-mencher.blogspot.com/2011/07/new-flash-fiction-contest-faith-and.html Here's the winning story: A Loss of Faith by Patrick Nelson Faith. What a name for a faith healer, right? It sounded made up but it wasn’t. It was on her birth certificate-if that was real. She had the gift all right. Everyone she touched was healed even if they didn't have ailments: they seemed to remember that old football injury didn’t pain them like it did, or when the storm front moved in they wouldn’t wake up with all those aches and pains. They seemed fit as a fiddle. All of them even the bad ones: Virgil Clements had the cancer real bad and all she had to do was lay her hands on him and he was doing back flips down the aisle while he praised the name of the Lord his God. Virgil never set foot in a revival tent let alone an honest to God church. He was a womanizer, drinker, brawler and thief, yet when Faith used her gift on that old crusty son of a gun, why he was her new spokesman. He was the poster child for what the Lord could do through the nimble hands of Faith Godde as long as you let the Lord into your heart and a few dollars out of your wallet. There was no color barrier in the tent, either. It was the only place in the state where black and white sat wherever they could find a seat. Gloria B. was a different story, she traveled with her sister for years and would do the books and manage the crew, but her heart wasn't in it. She had been jealous of the attention at first, but when she saw how much it took out of her sister, she thanked God he hadn’t seen fit to bless her with the gift. She had spent the years listening to the praise that people would heap on her sister and when the lights went out and the crew wrapped up the tent and the organ and the chairs, she would tend to the damage the day had done to Faith: her poor sister had become thinner and more sickly. The depression had started to turn to dementia and then to pure delusion. Soon Faith was sure she was the right hand woman of the Lord Jesus. It wasn't as if she took in their illnesses so much as when she made someone better, she got worse. Making a poor country bumpkin the spirit of health, she became a little bit more of the specter of death. People in all the counties of Southern Alabama would come to be touched and healed. They didn't even have any real complaints when they lined up, they just thought of it as preventative medicine when she graced them with her touch. Why go to a doctor and see if you were going to get sick? Just have Faith Godde do her connection to God trick and you never had to worry. It was better than the fountain of youth or a sip from the Holy Grail because it was real and it was there. “You know these people are just using you, and a couple days from now, they’re gonna be back to their old evil ways” Gloria B. said one night while she cleaned up her sister’s vomit. “I don’t know any such thing” Faith said as she looked at her with her sunken and ghost-like eyes. She was combing her hair and noticing how much was staying in the brush these days. “Well I do know that whatever you give them, they take even more” Gloria B. replied. “one day you’re gonna give too much and that’s gonna be it.” Gloria B. was tired of the revivals, of the hot days of traveling and setting up the tent but how in the world could she complain when her poor sister was giving it all in the name of the lord? She prayed to the Lord to forgive her for wanting it all to be over, not just for her but for her poor sister but she did want it to end. She wanted her poor sister to stop suffering and have it done with. She would find some way to support herself and her life could begin. How could she be so selfish. There it was, though. One day the revival found itself in Montgomery. They had gone north so Faith could see a good doctor in that big city. Faith had finally succumbed to Glory B’s constant nagging. The hospital was busy and they had to wait quite a while. As they were waiting a group of black men and women entered in a panic. It seemed one of their group, a reverend, had suffered a heart attack and was dying. Due to his being black, he was made to wait on a gurney in the hallway. Faith, who was slumped over in a chair in the waiting room, suddenly came to her senses and rose up and walked to the group of black men surrounding the reverend. They looked cross with this frail little white woman who insisted on speaking with the dying man, but when Gloria spoke to them they seemed to admire these women's spirit and broke their circle around him. Faith held her sister for support and said some words as she pressed her frail hand against his neck. The reverend gasped for breath and opened his eyes and at the same moment, Faith had been freed from the Lord's work as she collapsed. Gloria waited for hours only to have the doctor tell her Faith could not be saved. Before she left the hospital she learned from a custodian that the reverend was expected to recover fully. Weeks later she sat in a coffee shop reading the paper for jobs when she went back to the front page and saw an article about the same man that Faith had given her last ounce of God's gift to heal. He had been shot and killed in a motel in Memphis, Tennessee. This saddened her almost as much as the loss of her dear sister. "Why, Lord?" She thought "why let her use the last of your gift on a man only to let him be shot dead weeks later?" The loss of faith was upon her until she continued to read the papers over the next few days: this man's death had energized the nation it seemed. It now dawned on her that this man was great but his sacrifice was greater just as her sister's had been. If he had died on that gurney instead of by an assassin's bullet... She never once doubted God's choice of using her sister again. But still, she now had no Faith. __________________________________________________________________________ Here's a little bit about me, Kenney Mencher, the artist. Originally from New York, NY, Kenney Mencher earned a BA and MA in Art History from City University of New York and University of California, Davis, respectively, following which he went on to obtain a MFA in painting from the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. He has taught at a number of institutions including the University of Chicago and Texas A&M University, and now teaches at Ohlone College in Fremont, California. I have an extensive national exhibition record that includes solo and group shows. My work has been featured in newspapers, as well as the "Artist Magazine." It has also been published as cover art for four paperback noir novels and on the cover of the Laredo Philharmonic playbill, Lullaby Hearse Magazine, and the Oregon Literary Review. I maintain strong relationships with a large group of collectors in several states. I am a professional and will live up to any and all commitments I make both socially and professionally. To learn more about me please visit my website at: http://www.kenney-mencher.com/

Painting:Oil on Wood

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:8 W x 10 H x 1.5 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.