Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday Season

This is from a black and white pen and ink rendering I did in 1989. I later inked it with color and used it as a Christmas card. Five years later, I digitized it, added snowflakes, shrunk the image, printed multiple copies and used them as name-cards on holiday presents. The image eventually made it onto a poster advertising my holiday art displays and is part of The Cotner Collection Poster series. Here’s a version once again as a holiday greeting. Have a safe, warm and joyous Winter Season.

My Mother, Audrey

My mother Audrey, her favorite bird dog, Suzie-girl (my dad’s spelling on the back of photo), and me. From the looks of it, I either missed my nap or am right in the middle of it.

Suzie-girl was one of two of my mom’s most loved dogs. The other being Billy-boy, brother of Suzie-girl. Billy-boy is pictured in the mast of this web site, second row.

Audrey was the wife of Artie C. “Jack” Cotner and mother of Jack, David and Janet Cotner.

This photo was taken in 1947 out front of our home in Booneville’s Hodge’s Addition. The Addition sits just north across Highway 10 from the Booneville Cemetery and east of the main part of the town of Booneville, Arkansas. Not sure if the old house is still there. Anyone know for sure?

If you have any memories or additional information related to this photo or anything in this post, you are welcome to post it here in Comments or send it to me via email. Hope to hear from you

Music For The Season

Our Cotner ancestors were among the many who brought to America their own brand of Celtic music and musical style, much of which is still with us today, not only in the traditional music of the Appalachians including the Smoky Mountains, but also in the Ozark, Boston and Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas.

I discovered this album many years ago while shopping in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. It has remained one of my perennial holiday favorites. For a fan of traditional acoustical instruments as I am, the music is a treat to the ear, with it’s rich, vibrant dulcimer, autoharp, mandolin, fiddle and banjo renditions of some classic Christmas songs.