This is the completed work demonstration painting. This painting is based on the experience of one of my major goals of my childhood in Detroit. It was a very cold January day not long after I had received my much longed for hockey stick from Santa Claus. It was always my desire since my mother pointed out the light house in the middle of the Palmer Park duck pond to skate up to it one winter, when I was old enough to skate and climb inside to the top of the lighthouse and look out the windows to the park below. One day my mother had some charity work to do at church so she dropped me off at the duckpond to go skating and try out my new hockey stick. I found much to my horror that I could not skate holding my prized possession unless I held it in my right hand. As soon as tried to skate using both of my hands to hold it I would fall flat on my face. Since hockey was out of the question that day I decided to climb the iron stairs to the the landing where the entrance to the lighthouse was and climb to the top. My heart raced to see that there was no lock on the door, and my long sought after goal of my young life was about to be achieved. I grabbed the latch to the door,raised the hasp on the latch and pulled, but the door could not be budged. To my utter disappointment, the door was nailed shut. There was nothing for me to do but just go skating and watch some high school boys there having a barrel jumping contest. I asked if I could try it, but they told me to beat it, so I hung around anyway and skated. Despite my failure at achieving my hearts desire that day, I still number it as one of the fondest memories and happiest days of my life. I realized what fun it was to try, and even if you failed, grand and treasured memories were still mine to carry the rest of my life. The only artistic license that I took with this work that differs from the actual experience were two and a half. First it was an extremely cold but beautifully sunny and clear day with not a could in the sky. The second was that the boys who were jumping barrels were jumping behind the lighthouse where the other boys on the painting are skating. Also I recall a structure where the house in the background is, but I don't know if it was the same structure that I found in a photograph of the duckpond and lighthouse from a much older image than 1956. I did take the trouble to research and include on the to boys in the lower left hand side of the painting the colors of the letterman's jackets from Cooley and Mumford High Schools.