Bay Place artist’s lacking get the job done returns right after 26 decades

Twenty-6 yrs back, George Sumner, an artist in Marinwood, misplaced two of his paintings in the Pacific Northwest.

Previously this thirty day period, by the workings of destiny and United Parcel Company, they uncovered their way again to his doorstep.

“I’ve usually believed in karma,” said Sumner, 82. “I constantly believed the lacking paintings would wind up in superior hands someplace. I’m deeply grateful that they finished up again in mine.”

The initially of the photographs, a 3-foot-by-5-foot oil portray titled “Knights of Aged,” shows orcas and rubbing stones in the ocean. It was valued at $15,000.

The second, at 2 feet by 4 ft, depicted an orca and two bottlenose dolphins. The portray, titled “Silent Knights,” was valued at $10,000.

Sumner made them as a favor to his pal Ken Balcomb, who was on the board of the Whale Museum, a all-natural heritage middle in Friday Harbor, Washington. Summer months specializes in environmental artwork.

“The tale that I have been attempting to paint for 50 many years is about protecting the environment,” he stated. “It’s principally to educate folks to respect and appreciate mother nature. That is what I’ve experimented with to convey my entire job.”

In 1996, Balcomb held a gain for the museum. Summer season and his spouse Donnalei, also an artist, packed up their van with about 18 paintings and drove to the gain. Friday Harbor is north of Seattle and positioned on the coastline of one of the San Juan Islands.

Immediately after the event was about, George Sumner loaded up the paintings, and the couple went onward to the up coming leg of their journey in Canada.

It wasn’t until months later, when they returned to Marin, that Sumner uncovered out that two of his paintings were being missing.

“He said, ‘I might have neglected one particular or two,’” Donnalei Sumner reported. “It’s not that we do not enjoy all our paintings, but often they get dropped in the shuffle.”

After creating phone calls to a number of close friends and contacts, they identified that a gallery owner in Friday Harbor named Doug Bison had picked up the paintings and showcased them in his gallery. Bison reported he would check out to sell the paintings or return them if he could not, but he and the Sumners did not keep standard contact in excess of the a long time. Bison afterwards moved to a new gallery in the spot.

In 2019, Bison’s associate contacted the Sumners to report that he had died, but that he had remained in possession of the paintings.

By their daughter and her spouse, the Sumners arrived into make contact with with an artist named Richard Nisonger, who reported he would get the paintings for them and endeavor to deliver them back again or market them. But sick-fortune struck once again – climate, COVID-19 and a wellbeing scare for Nisonger – and hampered the return of the paintings. For a further couple several years, the paintings lingered on Camano Island, an additional internet site in northwest Washington.