Dear Ben is a nature print painting in my ongoing Invitation Series.  Each painting is an ‘invitation’ to an historical hero of mine. This invitation is to Benjamin Franklin.

To get to know someone we might invite them to dinner, or breakfast, or tea.  The invitations in this series are to some of my favorite, exceptionally accomplished people – whom I will never get to meet. They are alive only in our imaginations through their work, their words, and what others have said or shown about them.

I accept the fact that it is easier to want to get to know ‘the real’ person when it’s not likely to happen. No one is perfect, not even our heroes, so meeting them can be a disappointment as we discover even normal human flaws in their scruples, relationships, or misdeeds. It’s easy to aggrandize the people we admire.  It’s best to remember that we’re all mere mortals, subject to faults and weaknesses.

That said, Ben had a lot going for him.  He was the most accomplished person of his era.  A founding father, scientist, inventor, writer, publisher, printer, political theorist, postmaster and diplomat.  As a civic activist Ben began the first fire department, hospital, library and university in America. He printed colonial currency using nature prints!

This invitation nature print painting is based on a letter he wrote to Peter Collinson describing his plan to invite friends to a gathering near the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia.  Among various entertainments involving electricity, he planned to electrocute a turkey then roast it over electric fire.

I forgot to mention, Ben was also a great prankster.