View from the White House

As gigs go, getting an invite to paint the White House Christmas card is pretty great. "I received a call last February out of the blue," Maine artist T. Allen Lawson told us. Next thing he knew, Lawson, who lives in Rockport, was on the Truman balcony with his easel. (It wasn't the first time he'd been to the White House - his wife, Dorie, is the daughter of Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough.) "I met Mrs. Bush in early March and spent about five hours on the balcony drawing," said Lawson. The final product, which the president has mailed to more than 1.3 million people, is the wintry view from the Truman balcony with the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial in the background. Lawson didn't get paid, but the painting will become part of the permanent White House collection. And might he make a few sales as a result of the worldwide publicity? "I don't know how it works. I've received a lot of calls and comments," said Lawson. "It's a little daunting, to be honest."

Shonda Schilling, wife of former Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, made the rounds at Children's Hospital Boston yesterday, handing out teddy bears to patients. The plushy bears were collected during the Four Seasons Hotel's Teddy Bear Tea fund-raiser. Meanwhile, Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield got a present from the kids at the Franciscan Hospital for Children yesterday: a plaque dedicating the hospital's new baseball field - "Tim Wake-Field" - in his name.

JoJo Bojanowski, a student at Nichols College in Dudley, is suddenly in the midst of a heated controversy over his role on the new NBC reality show "Momma's Boys." Turns out his mom, Khalood Bojanowski, of Washington Township, Mich., has a huge problem with her son dating anyone other than a "petite" white girl who cooks, cleans, and "does what I tell her." The show features three possessive moms, their complacent sons, and 32 single women in a house together. "Mrs. B.," as she's known on the show's very heated message board, detailed her preferences during her introductory video, which the horrified contestants saw on the first episode last week. The list of people her son can't date includes: Jews, African-Americans, Asians, non-Catholics, and children of divorce. JoJo Bojanowski, on break from school, said his mother's words didn't surprise him. "I know how my mom is," the 21-year-old hockey player said. "I think she offended all 32 girls in the house. But basically, she wants a girl within our own culture." Khalood Bojanowski is half German and half Chaldean, or Iraqi Catholic, JoJo said. His father is Polish and Italian. JoJo said he respects his mom, but he took pains to give every girl in the house a chance. "It was important to me to get to know everyone before I made a judgment," he said. "I would hate for people to judge me on the color of my skin." Andrew Glassman, an Emerson grad who's producing the show with Ryan Seacrest, said he found Khalood Bojanowski's words "despicable." But the show has confronted race head-on, unusual for reality dating, he said. "It was a creative risk," he said. "You will see her take a very emotional ride." The Nichols College website, probably on winter break too, seems oblivious to the drama, stating it's proud to have "one of our students and his loving Mom featured on this show!" We didn't hear back from the school yesterday, but we're betting that release gets a rewrite.

Martin Scorsese can't make up his mind. Initially, the famed director was calling his next movie "Shutter Island," which is the title of the Dennis Lehane book on which the film is based. But while Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, and Max Von Sydow were shooting the movie here, the title was switched to "Ashecliffe." Now, the name's been changed again. Paramount Pictures has created a website for the film: www.shutterisland.com. We dropped a line to the film's publicist Larry Kaplan, but he didn't respond yesterday. Whatever it's called, the movie is about two US marshals who are summoned to an island off the coast of Massachusetts to investigate the whereabouts of a murderer who's disappeared from the island's hospital for the criminally insane.

Timothy Hutton is the cover man on Boston Common's next issue, which hits stands Jan. 1. In the mag, the Cambridge native confirms he is still a "major" Celtics, Sox, and Bruins fan. "I was born in 1960 so you can imagine what it was like to be a little kid during the Celtics run in the '60s," he said. "That kind of solidified me." And he still proudly sports his green jersey in LA.

Organizers of the annual mid-winter hoedown known as Hot Stove Cool Music announced this year's lineup. No huge surprises. Kay Hanley's Letters to Cleo will reunite once more, joining Peter Gammons and the Hot Stove All-Stars, American Hi-Fi, the Figgs, Buffalo Tom's Bill Janovitz, and the evening's MC, Mike O'Malley. The show, which takes place Jan. 10 at the Paradise, benefits Theo and Paul Epstein's Foundation To Be Named Later. Yesterday, Paul Epstein hosted a pizza party at Kings for some of the kiddos served by some of the foundation's beneficiaries, including West End House Boys & Girls Club, Steps to Success, Roxbury Youthworks, and City Year.

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