In March, Arnold Sheinis, 84, a retired psychiatrist who has dedicated the last 25 years to painting, asked the owners of Gallery 55 in Natick to come to his house to see his work. They found a modest split-level Cape where watercolors, drawings, photographs, and sketches covered walls, hallways, desks, and tables from the basement to the bedrooms on the second floor. It was in one of those rooms that Anet James and John Mottern, co-owners of the gallery, found a colorful drawing of anthropomorphized woodland creatures, evocative of “Frog and Toad” or pre-Disney Winnie-the-Pooh.
“Under a pile of laundry that was on a bed there was a beautiful illustration of the cover of a children’s book that was just kind of peeking back at us,” Mottern recalled recently. “We moved the laundry, and we looked at it, and we asked Arnold, and he said ‘Oh, that’s Betty’s book.’”
Sheinis introduced the gallery owners to his wife, Betty Abbott Sheinis, a painter, an illustrator, and a dreamer, who had started working on the book decades ago. But she was suffering from dementia and did not recognize her own work. Nor could she say where she kept it.
Image from Rhoda's Ocean courtesy Gallery 55 via Boston Globe video
It's hard for me to image why the Boston Globe does not link out the the main subject of hte story, Betty's book, to make it easier for readers to find and buy it.
Here are the Amazon.com links to buy the book (affiliate links):
Buy Rhoda's Ocean at Amazon.com
You can also stop by Gallery 55 at 55 South Main St, Natick MA to get your copy, order online at www.rhodasocean.com, or call for a gift Certificate to be emailed to you 508-740-0260.
I'm not sure why the Boston Globe does not allow embedding of Dina Rudick's beautiful video that's online with the article.
There is embed code on the Boston.com Video page, but you can't choose a size, and the video auto plays. Two good reasons why no one is going to embed it. :-(