Bernice

This beautiful work of art is entitled “And They Fade Away.” Dirty and in need of an extremely good cleaning, Kitty happened to notice it sitting high on a shelf at one of our local thrift stores. Someone most likely had passed, so their belongings had been donated to local charity.

It was cheap so I didn't grumble (to much) when she said she wanted to take it home. We got it home and I commenced to cleaning. The glass was left on the work, but the frame was taken completely apart. After a thorough scrubbing and reassembly we could finally see just how beautiful this work is.

It was signed by Beverly Sacoman in 1981. We searched a while but found no mention of her on search engines. Due to the subject depicted we took a chance and searched several native artist registries and found her. Ms. Sacoman is a Native American from the southwest. It took quite a while but we were able to find her email and phone number on Etsy of all places. Not really knowing what to expect, I gave her studio a call one afternoon. We had a great conversation before I passed the phone to Kitty.

It turns out she was in Alaska studying at the time of this portrait. Beverly had entered this in an art contest in western Alaska and received second place. In her words, the judge gave me second place because he didn't think the fade was enough. She sold it right out of the contest.

It was very enjoyable talking to this lady and to know she was thrilled Bernice was found and rescued. It just goes to show that you never know what treasures you can find if just look around.

Bernice just happened to be her mother.

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