Rob painted Charlie Painter...

[Mark M]

Someone Jane and Rob met in a nursing home as I recall:

https://markmgiese.blogspot.com/2020/03/charlie-painter-by-rob-butts-1970.html

[Deb]

That seemed familiar to me—not long ago I read somewhere that Rob was visiting his father in a nursing home or hospital and there was a man, possibly a roommate, who was uncommunicative but left an impression on Rob. Enough that he painted a portrait of him. Does that sound right?

Update: I tracked down a "Letter From Rob" in Reality Change Magazine, Fall 1995. Here's an excerpt:

"Charlie Painter was a patient at the Bradford County Infirmary – read county home – for Sayre, Pennsylvania. My father was also there till his death in 1971. The Butts family had no money for private care. Jane and I used to pick up my mother in Sayre every other weekend and drive down to the infirmary to visit my father. Charlie would be sitting in his wheelchair next to my father in his wheelchair in the visitor's room. Both men had given up speaking. WE would go through the motions of visiting for an hour, then leave.

"Charlie fascinated me, and as soon as I'd get home in Elmira I'd make drawings of him from memory. These eventually led to my two portraits of him. I sold both 'cause we needed the money.

"We heard that not long after my father died, Charlie got out of his room in his wheelchair one night, unattended, rolled down a flight of metal stairs, and was killed in the fall."

[Mark M]

Thanks for the RC quote of Rob's.

Here is a tiny bit more:

"(The data re the paintings—Bega—Tom M, was interesting, etc. On July 17 Tom M. purchased the painting of Bega as designated by Seth. [On July 16 Carl & Sue Watkins bought the oils of Charlie Painter, the dream hands, & Moses.]"

—TES9 Notes By RFB