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Hours of Operation
The
Child Care Center
is designed for children between the ages of
2 to 5.
We are
open
Monday - Friday from
7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
For more information about our facility,
please call us at
(941) 484-4415.
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The Story Behind the
Praying Hands |
Back in the fifteenth century, in a tiny
village near Nuremberg, lived a family
with eighteen children.
Eighteen! In order merely to keep food on the table
for this
mob, the father and
head of the household, a goldsmith by profession,
worked almost
eighteen hours a day
at his trade and any other paying chore
he could find in the
neighborhood.
Despite their seemingly hopeless condition, two of the elder
children, Albrecht
and Albert,
had a dream. They both wanted to pursue their talent for art,
but
they knew full well that their father would never be
financially able to send either
of them to Nuremberg to study at
the Academy.
After many long discussions at night in their crowded bed, the
two boys finally
worked out a pact. They would toss a coin. The
loser would go down into the
nearby mines and, with his
earnings, support his brother while he attended
the academy.
Then, when that brother who won the toss completed his studies,
in four years,
he would
support the other brother at the academy, either with sales of
his
artwork or, if necessary,
also by laboring in the mines. They tossed a coin on
a Sunday
morning after church.
Albrecht Durer won the toss and went off to
Nuremberg. Albert
went down into the
dangerous mines and, for the next four
years, financed his
brother, whose work at the
academy was almost an
immediate sensation.
Albrecht’s etchings, his woodcuts, and his oils were far better
than those of
most of his professors, and by the time he
graduated, he was beginning to
earn considerable fees
for his commissioned works. When the young artist
returned to
his village, the Durer family
held a festive dinner on their lawn to
celebrate Albrecht’s
triumphant homecoming. After
a long and memorable
meal, punctuated with music and laughter,
Albrecht rose from his honored
position at the head of the table
to drink a toast to his beloved brother for the
years
of sacrifice that had enabled Albrecht to fulfill his ambition.
His closing
words were, “And
now, Albert, blessed brother of mine, now it is your turn.
Now
you can go to Nuremberg to pursue your dream, and I will take
care of you.”
All heads turned in eager expectation to the far end of the
table where Albert
sat, tears streaming down his pale face,
shaking his lowered head from side to
side while he sobbed
and repeated, over and over, “No…no…no.” Finally,
Albert rose
and wiped the tears from
his cheeks. He glanced down the long
table at the faces he
loved, and then, holding his
hands close to his right cheek,
he said softly, “No, brother. I
cannot go to Nuremberg. It is
too late for me. Look,
look what four years in the mines have
done to my hands! The bones
in every
finger have been smashed at least once, and lately I
have been suffering from
arthritis so badly in my right hand that I cannot even hold a
glass to return your
toast much
less make delicate lines on parchment or canvas with a pen or a
brush. No, my brother,
for me it is too late.”
More than 450 years have passed. By now, Albrecht Durer’s
hundreds of
masterful portraits, pen and silver-point sketches,
watercolors, charcoals,
woodcuts, and copper engravings
hang in every great museum in the world,
but the odds are great
that you, like most people,
are familiar with only one
of Albrecht Durer’s works.
One day, to pay homage to Albert for all that he had sacrificed,
Albrecht Durer
painstakingly drew his brother’s abused hands
with palms together and thin
fingers stretched skyward. He
called his powerful drawing simply “Hands,”
but the entire world
almost immediately opened their hearts to his great
masterpiece
and renamed his tribute of love “The Praying Hands.”
~ Author Unknown ~ |
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