Guess what??? This blog is old enough to have developed a tradition. \u00a0Welcome to our second annual Mother’s Day greeting from artist Michael Jorogue Johnson<\/a> and his manager -mother Robin.<\/p>\n

I interviewed Robin when I was doing research for What Kids Need to Succeed… her son Michael is an artist<\/a> who was featured in the “Giving Back” section of the book. \u00a0Michael also has Down Syndrome.<\/p>\n

We’ve not met in person ‘yet’ — Robin decided we should hold out for an Oprah appearance. \u00a0Together. \u00a0Despite having been told that I was “the only author in America who didn’t put ‘get on Oprah’s show’ in my marketing plan” I look forward to it.<\/p>\n

Anyway, when I got the following note from Robin, the idea for our new tradition was born. (I posted some of Michael’s art last Mother’s Day.)<\/p>\n

Hi Andrea,<\/p>\n

If you know some folks in Grand Rapids, MI they can be a big help to\u00a0Michael and have some fun at the same time. Michael’s painting\u00a0“Enough To Share?” will be displayed in the lobby of the Grand Rapids\u00a0Civic Theater on Thursday May 13, 2010. The Civic Theater is located\u00a0at 30 Division Avenue in downtown Grand Rapids. From 12 noon to 5:30\u00a0pm people can vote on their favorite artwork.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Recently ten of his paintings were auctioned at a Kentucky Derby Party\u00a0fundraiser. In a few months when we get the thank you card we will hear\u00a0how much Michael’s paintings brought at auction yesterday.\u00a0The executive director of the Down Syndrome organization just said they\u00a0were very happy with the results.<\/p>\n

Michael loves horse racing and is looking forward to watching The\u00a0Preakness on TV. He has two Arches watercolor blocks and is doing\u00a0thank you paintings for people in the thoroughbred industry who\u00a0gave him resource materials to use in his paintings this year.<\/p>\n

Today we entered 2 of his quarter horse watercolors in the American\u00a0Academy of Equine Art juried exhibit in Lexington, KY.<\/p>\n

Happy Mother’s Day,<\/p>\n

Robin<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even though artist Michael Jorogue Johnson, his mother and I have yet to appear on Oprah we join together with our Mother’s Day tradition. Friends in Grand Rapids MI can get to know the work of this generous and talented artist soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[194,338,361,515],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-8203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-four-foundations","tag-giving","tag-mothers-day","tag-oprahs-show","tag-success"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8203"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=8203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}