“Attend the church of your choice.”

I’m having a bit of fun with these advertising photo thermometers. So far, I’ve successfully extracted one kitschy photo from an advertising thermometer, and replaced that photo with one of my own.

So let’s see if I can do this again. This time …

I found this little doozy.

Aw, look at this little treasure. Approximately eight inches wide and four inches tall. And compliments of Stucky & Sons, Inc., who after further research appears to be a trucking and construction company from Kansas.

So let’s figure out how to open this bad boy up. And I found a clue in one of the artwork’s corners.

It’s a foldover metal clasp. Loosened that up, and the entire frame slid right open.

Now this is interesting. Look at the lower left corner of the artwork, now that the frame has been removed.

It’s hard to read, but that flowing scroll at the lower left corner says, “Attend the Church of Your Choice.”

So let’s remove this cover mat overlay and see which “church of your choice” this really is.

A bit of detective work revealed that the photo, now identified as “Chapel in the Glen,” is actually the St. John’s Episcopal Church in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. And yeah, somewhere down the road I’ll add a photo of St. John’s Episcopal to a possible autumn foliage capture.

But when I removed the overlay … HOO BOY there’s a lot of fading and aging. The reds and greens and browns that were exposed to decades of sunlight and sunshine are now faded blues and whites and greys.

That kind of image just does not work for me.

But hey … I’m allowed to “attend the church of my choice,” right?

Right.

And it’s my artwork, so I can add any church I want to this piece, right??

Right.

So I choose … THIS church.

Okay. I just have to shoehorn this photo into the sizing requirements for this frame, and we should be golden.

I re-sized the image to a 3×7 exposure, then went over to the drugstore to print a couple of test prints.

Yep. One big white church and a tiny little green-roofed red church. I mean, the photo was taken in Vermont.

I trimmed the photo and taped it to the original backing plate, making sure not to cover up the thermometer with the photo print.

And from there, all I had to do was re-apply the original overlay, put the original glass on top, wrap the original metal frame rail around the perimeter, and we’re done.

Yeah, I left the Stucky & Sons nameplate. And I kept the original St. John’s Episcopal Church that was part of the original print; you never know if I get the urge to drive to Cold Spring Harbor and get a fall foliage photo there at some point in time.

I’m liking this advertising thermometer wall art concept. And I may work on more of these going forward.

We shall see.