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Life can definitely be strange sometimes, but sometimes it is a wonderful strange. I was named after my mother's father Chris as I was due to be born on his birthday. For three generations back in my mother's family there was a Chris or a Christine born on our given day in April. I would have been the 4th generation but I got in a hurry and came two days early. My mother still gave me the name. They were all artists of one sort or another; musicians, actors or painters. So it helped confirm my desire to be an artist when I grew up.

In later years I married and took on the last name of Bass. When I was first married I traveled to Illinois where I visited one of my cousins and his family to find that I had a second cousin also named Christine and named after her great grandfather, my grandfather. As life would have it she also married a man with the last name of Bass. Over the years we lost track of one another raising our families and living life. Then one day last fall, I got an email from someone wanting to know if we were related. I almost didn't open it as it looked like one of "those" type emails we tend to ignore. But I did and was pleasantly surprised to find it was my cousin. She had found my website on the internet and contacted me. We've been catching up on family stuff and exchanging daily thoughts through Facebook since then.

She is a wonderful photographer. She took the photo I used for reference material for this painting so I named it after her.  It’s quite fun to share the same name and be in the same family. It’s a nice gift of life to be in contact with her again.