Painting of Maya Henry
Maya is one of my granddaughters; yes, they are all beautiful, too.
Maya was once a famous model for many big designers, she is now in business for herself. She has walked runways all over the world, including the Couture in Paris, she has done a multitude of photo-shoots for a variety of different magazines all over Europe, so I have thousands of pictures of her ... but this one I do not have. Nor does she. Where it came from, no one knows. Here's how I came upon it.
One day while sitting in the common area of my cell-block watching TV a friend of mine named, Daniel Sustatia from Mission Texas, comes up and taps me on the shoulder. He hands me a magazine called "Latina", flips it open and asks, "Isn't this your granddaughter?" I took the magazine and sure enough, there was a page with pictures of four beautiful women and, one of them was Maya. Now the crux of the pictures was one of those fan favorite surveys; three of the pictures were at the top and one was separated below, "The Fan Favorite", all of the women were either singers or actresses and beautiful ... and yeah. I'm going to brag on my granddaughter. She of course, was chosen as the fan favorite.
I called Maya and told her about the picture and told her I wanted a copy of it to paint, she had no idea what picture this was. She didn't remember it ever being taken. Hell, maybe it was taken by the paparazzo without her knowledge. Anyway, no picture for grandpa to paint.
After giving up on ever seeing the source of this picture I decided, though only about two inches in size, very small, to use the photo in the magazine. So with trepidation and fear, it is difficult to get any detail from a photo this small, I began to paint this picture. Funny thing about any painting is: sometimes a painting just falls into place and almost paints itself, while others are a complete frustration to get right. This one was of the first category ... as I began to paint, the painting took its own life and leapt from my heart onto the canvas. To this day, it is one of my most famous paintings.
ONE GOOD THING TO SAY
My granddaughter, Maya, is a pistol! Smart, beautiful and she loves her family, most especially her grandpa. It always amazes me that with all she has going on in her life that she always takes the time to answer my phone calls and to message me ... sometimes just to say "I love you grandpa". She comes to visit me and when she comes she treats me to all kinds of snacks. For the record, I do not call her Maya, I call her "Bones"! No, not because she's skinny, though she is, but because she's got grit. I call her Bones because without bones the body would just be a pile of flesh. It takes bones ... bones in life, to be strong.
Now my family is what we Americans call, White Trash. We drink, cuss and fight. Hell my youngest son was married earlier this year and after his wedding a huge fight broke out, lol ... caused by the girls for Gods sake, lol. But one night a few years ago, on my son' birthday, they were all in a Club in San Antonio, well a fight broke out in the parking lot with grandson Thomas and another guy (Tommy whooped his ass by the way) but it turned into a drunken brawl. My sons were involved, it was crazy. Well ... you know who was out there in the middle of it swinging with the best of them? Yeah, Maya. Don't let that pretty face fool you, as we convicts say, "She'll go". Ever since then, I've called her Bones.
TWO SAD THINGS TO SAY
First: my friend Daniel Sustain, after 13 years in Federal Prison was released. But tragedy followed him home. Less than a year after being released he ... allegedly was under the influence, and at about one in the morning fell asleep and crashed his truck into the back of a car sitting at a red-light, killing a young couple. Danny is as we speak doing, I think, serving 25 years in a Texas prison.
Second: this painting of Maya, this treasure of my family has ... disappeared. If you or anyone out there knows of the whereabouts of this painting please contact me, or my son at, marcocrawfordlaw.com
Peace and love to you all.
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