Flowers From Friends

It has been almost five weeks since my surgery, and still my dear friends are sending cards and an occasional bouquet.  This pretty arrangement brings some of summer's colors inside.

Orphans

I love old photos, especially candids, and spend too much time at my local consignment shop looking through pictures that come in as part of estates.  Usually the people in the photographs are unidentified, and I imagine the relatives who choose to sell the old images have no idea who they are, and aren't interested in investigating.  This week I found a couple dozen photos from a local estate, and each was carefully labeled and dated. These women, for example, were Dorothy Boynton and her friend Alice Clark, and little dog Billy.  Billy shows up in several pictures, as do some of their horses.  Boynton's family farmed near Emerald Grove, and according to Findagrave.com are buried there.  She was born in 1092 and died in 1991.

Here is Dorothy again, with arms around her friend Marion, probably taken about 1916.  I love the easy affection between the girls, and like the contrast in the way they are dressed.  Love those jodhpurs! There is something very sad to me about all these lovingly labeled pictures, cast off.  I can only guess that Dorothy and her husband, a man named Titus who worked for the Rock County Highway Department, had no children, or none survive.  There are photos of her parents, grandparents, siblings, the house and barn, pets, all images of rural Wisconsin life from the early 1900s.  All for sale to whomever finds them interesting.

I buy pictures like these, scan them, bump up the contrast and correct the image for spots and tears, and use them as reference in figurative painting.  But most often I have no idea who the individuals are - I don't for example know who this man with a rake (?) is, though he is probably related to the Boyntons.   But I like his posture, clothing and the way the sun hits his figure.   And I suppose I like these glimpses into a way of life that has passed away.

Autumn Vintage Photos

 Yesterday my husband and I spent the day in Madison with friends who have come to be known as the Badger Buddies - Two other couples we met when we first married, living in adjacent local apartments.  We started dressing in red and white and attending one UW Badger football game a year together, and have managed an unbroken string since 1976, except that the past two years we sat in bars and watched the game in warmth and relative comfort.  Part of the problem is just finding six tickets together when none of us is a season ticket holder. I remember some very cold and sometimes rainy Saturdays, often sitting in the raucous student section, or in obstructed view seats, where huddling in the stadium bathroom was the one of the best parts of the day, at least for me.  Still the UW band music, the friendship, the brats and beer, all are great fun.  College football, an autumn tradition.

Since I seem to not be getting a whole lot of artwork done this week (I'm blaming it on sniffles and a cough caught on the plane ride home from our cruise), I thought I'd share some autumnal vintage photos from my family archive.

Hunting is a fall tradition in Wisconsin, though I read in the newspapers that fewer and fewer young people are taking it up.  My grandfather, George Earl Pierce, was an avid hunter as a young man.  That's him, standing on the far left.  I know he collected bird eggs as well, because the framed collection was in his cellar for years when I was a child, and is now safe in the Walworth County historical museum in Elkhorn, part of a collection of taxidermy preserved birds from local hunter Howard Cook.  Anyway, I think these men look handsome with their vest, guns and decoys. I'm guessing the studio portrait was taken about 1910.

My dad, Ralph Pierce, also hunted, though he seemed to prefer the fall deer hunt.  Every November he and his buddies would take a road trip to the Rhinelander area for a week of hunting.  He brought home a few trophies, though certainly not every year.  I'm not sure he hunted very seriously.  He mostly liked taking a few days off to spend time with his high school friends, be outside, drink some beer, and play some cards.  I took this photo about 1960.

Fall on the farm and harvest go together.  To tell the truth, I'm not sure who the man is in this photo, though the picture belonged to Grandpa Pierce.  From the iron wheels I'm guessing this photo is from the 1920s or early 1930s, and that the man was a neighbor who was part of a crew who came in to work.  This wouldn't be a corn harvester; I'm guessing it had something to do with oats.  Even in the 1950s when I was a girl individual farmers did not own all their own equipment.  Neighbors went in together, sharing equipment, working in crews to harvest crops.  I especially remember summer haying crews, and my mother making huge noon meals to feed the hungry and thirsty crews of farmers working in our fields.

My grandfather raised and sold hybrid seed corn for a local family.  Here we see him and Sicy Simons, owner of Simons Seed, standing outside with harvested corn, stored in bins made from snow fencing. We also grew field corn that was chopped and blown into the silo for winter feed for cattle, and some was dried and ground into feed. The photo is probably from the 1930s.

This last photo is of me, taken about 1954.  It might be the last time I smiled raking leaves.  Actually, we didn't rake much on the farm.  I imagine that Mother probably handed me a rake to get me outside, hoping I'd get some exercise and maybe make a leaf pile for me and my sister Patty to jump into.  These days my husband rakes the maple leaves that fall into our little back yard, and I manage to stay away from rakes most of the time.

Friend Honored

Our friend Tom Kautz is a nice guy.  My husband and I know him and his wife Rosemary as good friends with whom we occasionally share a meal and tell stories.  We've gotten to know Tom as a man who likes woodcarving, hiking, fishing, hunting and generally being outdoors.  He helped me catch and clean my first bluegill.  But he is also a man who has spent much of his life in public service.

Recently we were happy to see a notice in the Janesville Gazette that Tom was being honored by having a boardwalk and nature trail at Beckman Mill Park near Beloit named for him.  We headed over to the park yesterday to find the pavilion filled with friends and well-wishers, and also some regional television reporters.

This reporter was busy interviewing Tom.  We checked out the Rockford station that night at 6 p.m., but although they mentioned the event, we never saw the actual interview.  We did see, much to my chagrin, a shot of two people, from the back, walking on the boardwalk.  Their faces didn't show, but it was us.  Gotta say, my backside isn't my best feature; I would have rather heard what Tom had to say.

Here he is.  Tom retired in 2004 after spending thirty years as Rock County Parks Director.  During his tenure in that position he managed to almost double the amount of parkland in Rock County, and was instrumental in acquiring grant money to help restore the Beckman Mill.  So it's a darned good thing that he was recognized in this way.   Hard work and dedication may be their own reward, but a nod from other people is a fine thing as well.

Summertime, Summertime

It was a cool and wet spring, but summer is turning out to be nice so far.  The other day my friend Lyn, visiting from Florida, emailed to say she is visiting her mother in town and to ask if we could meet for coffee.  Of course!  I drove us to nearby Milton, where an old church and former daycare has been transformed into a coffee shop and garden center.  I couldn't resist sharing some pictures.

This is Lyn, partially hidden behind a summery display of plants and garden art.  Everything is on sale, but, alas, my plantings all require shade, and my hostas have pretty much taken over the yard.  So, I enjoyed just looking and taking some photos.

The garden center is called Patty's Plants, and one of the things I enjoy is how nicely she displays her flowers and veggies.  I like the way she uses wheelbarrows,  garden seating, and rusty tools in creative and artistic ways.  Inspiration abounds!

New Painting and Poems

8x10, mixed media

completed for Wilderness Art Challenge

I guess I am getting old, because I looked forward to the memorial service yesterday of a friend who passed away a couple weeks ago.  This woman was a good person, a teacher, a poet, an avid reader, and an activist; the world will be poorer with her gone.  I was pleased to have a chance to hug members of her extended family, her husband, daughter, sisters, nieces and nephews, all of whom I have known for more than twenty years.  Tucked in between the tributes, songs and prayers were a couple of lovely poems, and I thought I would share them here, along with a short quote I found today.

Everyone once, once only. Just once and no more.
And we also once.  Never again. But this having been
once, although only once, to have been of the earth,
seems irrevocable.

Rilke, Duino Elegies


Is the soul solid, like iron?
Or is it tender and breakable, like
the wings of a moth in the beak of an owl?
Who has it and who doesn't?
I keep looking around me.
The face of the moose is sad
as the face of Jesus.
The swan opens her white wings slowly.
In the fall the black bear carries leaves into the darkness.
One question leads to another.
Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg?
Like the eye of a hummingbird?
Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop?
Why should I have it and not the anteater
who loves her children?
Why should I have it and not the camel?
Come to think of it, what about maple trees?
What about the blue iris?
What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the
moonlight?
What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves?
What about the grass?

Mary Oliver, Some Questions You Might Ask


Guests of my life,
You came in the early dawn,
And you came in the night.
Your name was uttered by the spring flowers
And the showers of rain.
You brought the harp into my life,
And you brought the lamp.
After you had taken your leave
I found God's footprints on the floor.
Now I am at the end of my pilgrimage,
I leave in the evening flowers of worship,
My salutations to you all.

Rabindranath Tagore, Guests of My Life

Good News, Bad News

watercolor, Riverside Park, Beloit, painted 2008

It has been an interesting week, full of ups and downs.  The weather has been inspiring, cool and right, the air scented with lilac and lily of the valley.  One night we used some free tickets I won by participating in our local Big Read event, a concert at UW Whitewater by a Chicago group called Sones de Mexico.  We had no idea what to expect, but were delighted by the combination of Mexican folk music, pop, and even classical music interpreted with a Latin flavor.  I also enjoyed a group excursion of our local art league to Chicago to the Art Institute to see the current Matisse exhibit.  We soaked up the art, strolled in Millenium Park, and caught some excellent Italian food at Paisanos on Madison street.

But it wasn't all good.  The saddest part of the week was when I learned that the woman who led our local Tuesday painting group for many years, who was talented, kind and generous, lost her life to lung cancer.  Marilyn Keating  was a woman who had shared her talents and upbeat personality with our entire community. She and two other friends started a communal studio where they taught classes, and offered workshops by many other fine artists as well.  Our group will miss her tremendously.  I was also disappointed to learn that I was not selected to submit a plan for a local women's history mural, a project in which I was very interested.  I am consoling myself by remembering that the project would have consumed much of the upcoming summer, and now I will have time for other pursuits - like a life painting class I signed up to do in Madison, and a watercolor/collage class up in Door County in June.

Happy New Year

From our house to yours, we wish you a happy, healthy and safe new year.

I plan to post some of my favorite books and activities from 2009 and my goals for 2010 very soon. In the meantime, thank you to all of you who read and post here. I love hearing from you, and you make me feel more connected to the world. But right now I have to make an appetizer for New Years Eve!

Platform Boots

12x12 inches

watercolor on Yupo synthetic paper (available)

At least a couple time a year I like to paint something in response to an online subject. Maury Kettell has a site called Watercolor Passion, and four times a year he posts a challenge. This one, which ends December 31, is "Shoes."

My interpretation of the theme was to use my friend Rich Fletcher's photo of a big city shop window filled with platform shoes. I painted fast and loose with bright saturated colors. The nice think about Yupo, a synthetic plastic surface, is that the colors stay bright and are easy to lift. I had a good time lifting out the reflections on the window.

Here's the link to the site:

http://www.watercolorpassion.com/Projects/Project.htm

There's still time to submit a painting of your own if you'd like to give it a go.

Sledding Santa

I decided not to put up a full-sized Christmas tree this year, but I did dig out some favorite ornaments and decorations. I bought a little wooden Santa Claus ages ago, and he has become a favorite. The old guy still has some child alive in his heart, apparently. Just so I could look at him more carefully, I decided to paint him in my sketchbook. Who knows, maybe he'll end up on a card some time.

I had a good surprise yesterday when the English pen pal I started writing to in 1961 and hadn't heard much from for several years wrote me an email. When I was about ten I sent fifty cents in to some magazine and got back an address for a pen pal. This boy and I wrote a couple times, but didn't have too much in common. However, his mother started writing to me, and to my mother. I met the family in 1972 for the first time in London. Then over the years we met several more times. Through weddings, divorces, deaths and births we kept writing, though not so often in the 1990s. Then five years ago both my mom and the woman who had written so faithfully died in the same week. I didn't hear from the son and his family except for a Christmas card with signatures until yesterday. Now the boy I wrote to so long ago is a grandfather, and he promises to catch me up on their family via email.

It's a wonderful world, eh?

2009 Christmas Letter

I spent most of today updating my address book and working on Christmas cards and the annual letter. Then I thought, why not post it for everyone to see?

Christmas greetings!

I’m discovering that Christmas is, as much as anything, a time to keep track of friends and family, and an opportunity to look back over the year that is rapidly coming to a close.

Dick and I are both well and doing what we said we wanted to do when we retired. We both are reading up a storm, and we enjoy taking trips. This year in March we traveled with UW Whitewater to Peru. I don’t have a formal “bucket list,” but if I did, seeing Machu Picchu would be on it. In August we flew to Colorado and spent a couple days in Rocky Mountain National Park, then went on to join our Badger Buddies in Breckenridge for a few days of companionship and hiking. We took smaller trips too, to the UP of Michigan, up and down the Great River Road as far as Red Wing, and we spent of week of Thanksgiving in Key West, Florida.

I took a trip with DIck’s sister Sandy in May that I’ll never forget. We took Amtrak’s Empire Builder west to Washington State. In Spokane we met quite a few distant cousins related to my Grandma Tess. I was thrilled to find one of the houses she lived in as a little girl in Hillyard, and to see the old Adams family farm in Fairfield. I was particularly happy to meet these Smith and Adams in person, and to be able to help secure a stone for my great grandfather’ Adams’ unmarked grave. I also got to collect more stories, photos and family history information. After that we drove along the Columbia River gorge, and up into the Olympic National Park. We ended up in Seattle and took the train back from there.

Other highlights of the year included Dick riding another couple thousand miles on his bicycle (he’s much fitter than I am), my 40th Elkhorn High School class reunion, and my painting. This year I continued to work and take workshops in watercolor and acrylic, but also began experimenting in oils. I have some art in a local gallery, entered several shows with the Wisconsin Regional Artist Program. In June we had a reunion of UW Whitewater roommates and their spouses in McFarland. It has been a real joy to be able to keep up with these women and men and their lives for more than thirty years, I have also been writing my Late B(l)oomer blog, where I post some of my artwork, photos from trips, family stories and an occasional recipe. I’d love it if you would stop by and take a look. Here’s the web address: http://sherry-latebloomer.blogspot.com/.

There were other fun things, meetings and trips with my doll collecting group, lunches with teacher and fellow reading friends, trips north to visit my aunt Ellen, our annual Badger football outing in Madison.

I can’t close without showing you our ”furry child” Bucky. She is our little friend and lap-warmer, and she reminds us that life at a relaxed pace can be a very good thing..

Warm wishes to all of you for for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,

Sherry

The Mystery of Agnes - Solved

I know I posted this picture before. All Grandma wrote on the back of the photo was "Agnes." I asked my aunt who Agnes was, and she thought Agnes was a friend, but didn't know any more. Then tonight as I was typing the tape Grandma made for me in 1994, I heard her talk about Agnes McLean. You just wait.

This is the house on Diamond Ave in Hillyard, now part of Spokane, she describes in the tape. When we visited in May we drove all over trying to find the place, and I think we did. This is an old photo of the time it was one of the Smith undertaking parlors. There was a much larger one in downtown Spokane, but this one served Hillyard, which was more working class.

Here is what I typed.

Carol: Tell about when you were in the hospital when you had - what was it? Scarlet fever?

Or what was it? And about how they didn’t tell Grandma Smith what it was.

Well, I think that’s in my autobiography, but when I was going to school in Milwaukee, both DuRell and I came down with scarlet fever. I got it first. Probably I passed it on to him and being that we were in the hospital with a lot of other people, so they quarantined the whole house. If we stayed there, but we had to move to the isolation hospital. And, I never saw my mother again from the day I went in that hospital until eight weeks later when they finally let me come home.

My brother got better but I developed heart disease and they didn’t think I was going to live. I can barely remember being put down at the end of the long corridor where they put those who die, and having a sheet wrapped, turned around all of my bed so that nobody could see me. And of course we were not allowed visitors, but my father would come up with the doctor because he was a junior doctor,. I guess by then he was an intern, so they would allow him to come up once in a while. But all the time Mother was calling and asking about me they would tell her, “As good as can be expected, as good as can be expected.” And she thought that meant I was getting well.

Well, she went to the dime store one day and she met one of the doctors and he had met her socially with Dr. Smith, so he knew her. And he walked up to her and shook her hand, and she in the course of the conversation she very casually asked him how I was, because DuRell had gone home quite a while before this. He had gotten over it and went home. And he said, “Well,” and he put his hand on her arm, and he said, “We think maybe we can save her now. We have hopes that she will...”

and Mother said everything got black and she thought was going to hit the floor. She grabbed a hold of the nearest counter and she said “What are you talking about?”

And he said, “Well, it has been several weeks and we haven’t known if she was going to live or die.” But he said “Now she is getting better.” and that was the first she knew of it or heard of it. And I had wondered all this time why I never heard anything from her, in any way shape or manner. But of course we couldn’t get any word through either. And Dr. Smith wasn’t about to tell her.

But it all ended all right. I came out with a bad heart, and I’ve had one all my life, and I’m still here, so I guess it doesn’t matter. I have a pacemaker, and also a patch, a nitrogen patch,. But I’m still here. I think my long life is due to my ancestry, because I come from the Adams family on my father’s side, and his brothers all lived long long lives. My aunts and uncles were into their late 90s, some were over 100 before they died, which was very unusual in those days when there were no antibiotics or anything to keep people healthy. So I think I inherited some of those genes. I don’t know why else I’d be here today, at 92.

Carol: She asks here about jokes and tricks. I remember you telling about DuRell and some flowers. Didn’t DuRell paint some flowers or something?

Oh yes.

Carol: What was that?

When we were in Troy, we lived at the cherry orchard, that belonged to the Dewitt family. And they - the boys - had kind of a flower garden out in the front lawn. And it had lilies in it. Some kind of, variety of lilies that I didn’t know anything about. And over night they got painted. Beautiful colors, pink and red and green, every color there was. And the boys were not too appreciative of it. They were very upset because they were their prize lilies. And they found out that Durell had found some paint out in the barn, and had decided to liven them up a little bit, so he painted them. But he wasn’t very popular around the Dewitt place after a while.

Carol: I think DuRell was a little spoiled,

Yes, he always liked pretty things,

Speaking of jokes...

Carol: Go on, tell us some more.

Speaking of jokes. this practical joke I didn’t commit, but it was played on me when we lived in Hillyard in the undertaking parlor. My step grandparents owned a very large undertaking parlor in Spokane. Hillyard was a suburb of Spokane, and we had the Hillyard, suburb, undertaking parlor. Well, two things happened there that were very weird.

The first one was when we moved the fat man out of the embalming room. Mother called me from school and had me come home to help her because she had gotten a call, an emergency call, from Dr. Smith that the wife of the man, or the corpse, who was in the embalming room, was coming to visit him. And he was in no position to be visited. So we had to get him into the living room, out of the embalming room, and that was quite a chore. There was a step there, where you had to step up. And oh yes, I said I was equal to the occasion, I was strong, I was strong as mother was, and we could do it. So come to find out, he was quite a heavy man, and sort of round in the stomach. And we put a sheet over him, and we pulled him out as far as the porch, this was the back porch of course, not the front, and we had to turn him around, and lift one side of him so we could get him into the door that went to the undertaking parlor living room where they showed the caskets and had the funerals. So we started to lift him up and he started to roll. And we wanted to grab him, hold him, but it was terrible. We thought we were going to lose him for sure, over the sidel, and both of us somehow or other we managed and we got him back into the room. And then we tried to put the sheet over him, because we couldn’t dress him. It was impossible for us to lift him him and put clothes on him, so we improvised. We put the sheet over him and used his arms to hold the sheet down, because it kept sliding off his stomach. And then we improvised and we decided we had to put something around his neck and chin because his top part looked so bare. So we got a pillow case, and draped it around his top and tucked it under his shoulder blades, and then just his bare arms stuck out holding the sheet on. So we straightened everything all up, and we decided he didn’t look too bad, and we waited for his folks to come. And they were coming in the front door when we were putting the sheet around his shoulders, and we had to explain the reason he wasn’t dressed was because we couldn’t dress him, But they were very nice about it, and that ended. But I have never never forgotten moving that corpse.

Carol: Wasn’t there a story about a casket and the lining...

Oh yes, yes. That was my two best friends. One of them was two years older than I was, They were the McLeans, who had a little house in Hillyard when we were married to my father. When we were married to my father, that’s the way I always thought of it.

I had two best friends. And they were the McLean girls, that lived next door. So when we came back married to Dr. Smith and running the funeral parlor, they were delighted to come a visit me. And the first place they wanted to go was the casket room, So we showed the caskets, and they were very pretty all lined and soft looking, and the girls were very impressed. Well, Agnes was supposed to go home that night for supper, but Evelyn was going to spend the night with me. She was the one my age. So we had a very nice meal and we talked til late at night, and finally we turned the light out. And we hadn’t gotten to sleep,, and we heard this terrible - we were talking about the casket room, and Eveylyn said she would not like to sleep next to it. She wasn’t sorry that she lived in a big house because she would not like to live right next to a casket room.

“Oh,” I said, “there’s nothing to it.”

With that we commenced to hear moans and groans, horrible ones, from the casket room. I said, “Oh, that’s just the wind blowing.”

“No, no it isn’t, Evelyn said. “ That’s no wind. It doesn’t sound like wind to me.”

And they kept on going, and then she started to scream, And she screamed at the top of her life, and of course it woke up Mother and Dr. Smith. And they came in and said “Well we’ll see what’s going on next door.”

So they opened up the door and walked in and found Agnes in one of the caskets, roaring and groaning and moaning to beat the band. Well, she got out of there in a hurry, and she got sent home in a hurry. And she was told to never darken the door of that casket room again. But Agnes was always full of tricks. If you were around her very long you got yourself into trouble, or she got you into it, one or the other.

My Friends' Playhouse

I belong to the Wee Travelers doll club, though I have stopped actively collecting. These days I have no real desire to acquire more dolls, though I like them for their artistry, their history and for their place in children's lives.

Recently our club met on the farm owned by one of the members. We had a potluck supper on the lawn and talked about favorite dolls. The best part of the evening was seeing her playhouse, an old shed cleaned out, furnished with white curtains, inhabited by old dolls, both from her childhood and collected more recently. It was a small, quiet space, and I wanted to share.

Marta's Pastel, the Art Exchange

pastel on brown sanded paper, 4.5 by 6.5 inches,

Soon after we returned home from our recent travels I received a package from my friend Marta. This winter several of us promised to create a piece of artwork for one another, pretty much any medium. These days getting any mail that isn't a bill is a thrill, but to get an original piece of art from a person you admire, well, it doesn't get much better than that!

I've seen Marta's sketches, watercolors, and oils online, but not so many pastels. When I asked her why she chose pears as a subject, she said that her figure drawing instructor said that if you want to learn to portray figures, paint pears. As for using pastel, she told me that she loves intense color (as I do) and that pastels allow her achieve that goal, plus they have the advantage of less clean-up than oils. Please visit her blog here: http://martas-art.blogspot.com/

I love the repeated shapes in this piece, the texture, and the sense of mass and volume. I'm looking forward to getting this painting framed and up on my wall as a reminder of the good art friends I've made online, and how much I value their friendship and skills.

A bit of serendipity, when my husband read me the morning Super Quiz from our Madison newspaper there was a reference to this poem by Robert Browning. It mentions both springtime and pears, so I'll share it.

Home-Thoughts, from Abroad

by Robert Browning

Oh, to be in England

Now that April's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That lowest boughs and brushwood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England - now!

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!

Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops--at the bent spray's edge--

That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,

Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

All will be gay when the noontide wakes anew

The buttercups, the little children's dower

--Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Random Acts of Kindness

Vintage postcard from Rock City, with collage elements from a school science text and National Geographic.  I visited the Fairyland Gardens with my grandparents in about 1961.

Part of a larger collage cut into postcard size, including maps, vintage ad, wallpaper, text and personal photos from long-ago summer vacations to New York and Tarpon Springs.

Recently several friends have given me gifts of old magazines, calendars, and printed material from foreign countries, all because I've been fascinated with cutting and pasting.  I have fashion catalogs, travel brochures, golf calendars, vintage Post, Life, and National Geographic magazines, and a couple of French newspapers.    This is in addition to the old postcards and children's books I've bought for pennies from my friendly consignment shop.  The challenge is starting to be how to organize, store, and easily access the material.  I have oversized manilla envelopes in hanging files stored in a plastic milk crate, but it will soon be too heavy to lift easily.  

These two little postcards are examples of different ways I've been experimenting.  The top card adds completely unrelated elements to an old linen postcard.  This one is of a place I've actually visited, though often I choose old black and white cards whose subjects, such a relatively empty street scenes, have room to add other elements.  This time I added a figure from a Mexican mural and the painter.  The bottom card is very different, and perhaps not so effective.  I did a larger random sort of collage for a workshop last fall, and while the large collage didn't appeal to me, when I cut it into postcard or bookmark sized pieces, I liked the challenge of working with the little bits.  It doesn't show very well, but after I glaze over the whole image with either diluted burnt sienna or burnt umber acrylic to tie the elements together and age the image, I add touches of gold leaf.  The sparkle of the gold draws the eye immediately.

At any rate, I'll send these cards as thank you notes.  I just wish the postal service had postcard stamps with something beside tropical fruit.

Winter Art Exchange, Part One, Laura (and a poem)

watercolor by Laura Starrett

Winter can be dark in dreary in my part of the world, but January and February were brightened for me when Sharon, from The Flat Sound of Wooden Clogs  http://flatsoundof woodenclogs.blogspot.com/  invited several online friends to participate in a winter art exchange.  The rules were simple.  Everyone who wanted to participate would create a work of art in the medium of choice that was at least five by seven inches, and then mail it by the first day of spring to the other participants.  

Everyone admitted to being excited, but also a bit nervous about the project.  There's that quiet voice in the deepest darkest corner of the mind that says I am not worthy...  Of course that's rubbish. We all have followed each other online for ages.  We all admire each other's work, and look forward to having an original piece of art from a friend to hang on the wall.  What a joy to be able to be inspired by someone else's painting!

Laura from Laura's Watercolors  http://lauraswatercolors.blogspot.com/  was the first person to send me a painting.  Laura lives near water, loves it, and paints it beautifully.  The colors on the painting I received were more delicate than my scanner showed, warm orange boat hulls with rosy reflections and bluish shadows in the water.  It has the quality I like of being realistic, but also having abstract qualities.  The shapes and colors are beautiful and interesting.

I have mailed out three of the four paintings and collages, and writing this inspires me to get up and go work on preparing the fourth.  In the meantime, I haven't posted a poem for quite a while, so here's one inspired by Laura's watercolor. 

A Boat beneath a Sunny Sky

by Lewis Carroll

A BOAT beneath a sunny sky,

Lingering onward dreamily

In an evening of July --

Children three that nestle near,

Easger eye and willing ear,

Pleased a simple tale to hear --

Long has paled that sunny sky:

Echoes fade and memories die:

Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,

Alice moving under skies

Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,

Eager eye and willing ear

Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,

Dreaming as the days go by, 

Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream --

Lingering in the golden gleam --

Life, what is it but a dream?

Recharging Batteries

College roommate Cathy and me at the Walnut Room of Macy's, on State Street in Chicago

View from the Signature Room on the 95th floor at the Hancock Center

Wreathed lion at the Chicago Art Institute

On Tuesday my long-time friend Cathy and I each took a train to Chicago and met at the Art Institute. We toured the new impressionist galleries, then caught a cab to the Hancock Center where we feasted our eyes on stupendous view of downtown and the lake shore, and had a good lunch too. Then we headed back to Macy's to ogle the Christmas windows and visit the department store's sparkling tree. A kind waiter took our photo together. As I hiked up Madison Street toward my train back to Wisconsin, an eggnog latte in hand, the weather mild, thousands of tiny lights spangling winter trees, I felt about as happy as possible.

That led me to consider what it was about the day that had such a positive and energizing effect, and what it might suggest for approaching 2009. What elements combined to act as a tonic to mind and body?

1. Change of scenery:
While I don't ever see myself wanting to live in a large urban area, visiting one is a wonderful change. Busy traffic, crowds of people, shopping, the lake, galleries are all very different from my quiet life in a small city.

2. Exercise:
I know that getting moving is important, even in winter when taking a walk often means at best being very cold and at worst means chancing a nasty fall. I do spend time on the treadmill of my local athletic club, but it cannot compare to getting outside and having things to see, hear, and even smell. I was lucky Tuesday because the mild weather meant clear sidewalks, and if I was wary of taxicabs, little chance of injury.

3. Art:
There are dozens of museums and galleries in Chicago, more than I'll ever see. But even spending an hour at the Art Institute recharges my batteries. My friend has a membership, so we waltzed in past lines of visitors and headed to some old favorites. I was excited because I had recently watched the old movie Lust for Life about Van Gogh, and had read a fictionalized account Gauguin's life, The Moon and Sixpence. Seeing so many paintings, both familiar and new, by the two artists was a treat.

4. Friends
I'm retired, so I don't see my teaching friends every day. My parents and mother and father-in-law are gone. I have no children. So much of the time it's just my husband and me. While we're good friends, it is wonderful to spend time with other people as well. What a gift it is to have friends with whom we can always feel comfortable and welcome, who know our faults and eccentricities and still accept us!

5. Music and books
The train trip to Chicago is two hours each way. While the views from the train are congenial, they are also very familiar. I take along old New Yorker magazines and catch up on the features and short stories missed before, then I leave the magazines on the train for others to read. This time I also brought along my iPod, with some saved up podcasts and lots of good music. The time flew by, and the annoyance of people having loud cell phone conversations simply disappeared.

Change of scene, art, friends, exercise, music and books are all things I want to incorporate into the upcoming months. They help keep me healthy in body and spirit, and recharge me when Midwestern cold and gloom wear me down.

Happy new year to all who visit here. May your year bring you health and happiness.

Happiness is Getting Together With Your Friends

I've made lots of friends over the years, and lost a few too, but there are only a handful who have stayed close despite living miles away.  This past week I got together with my college roommate, Cathy, who lives near South Bend, Indiana.  We shared a room in a rented house as undergraduates.  Both of us were English majors with an interest in art.  I decided to teach, and she decided teaching wasn't her calling and went into journalism instead.  

These days I am retired from teaching, and she isn't working for a newspaper any more, though she is very busy with a high school freshman son, some freelance editing and her artwork.  She's a wonderful pastel artist who has started a pastel society in South Bend. Busy as she is, she made time for me. We each took a train to Chicago on Sunday and had lunch and a walk around at the Art Institute.  Then we both took the South Shore train back to Indiana.

Her husband Bob, a Notre Dame grad, oversees the official student publication of the school as well as its literary magazine and yearbook.  They were married at the log cabin on Notre Dame's campus, and I was honored to stand up in that wedding in 1976.  This week we hiked around one of the lakes on the campus, where I took this view of the golden dome.

We took a couple day trips, one day to a couple nearby Amish communities.  I would have liked pictures of the barefoot wives hanging out laundry on the line, the children (also barefoot) playing in their schoolyards, or the young men and women on bicycles, but that isn't something they appreciate, so no photos.  I especially enjoyed seeing the men putting bales of hay on wagons pulled by horses.  My dad and his neighbors put up hay together, though they used a Farmall tractor. Another day we drove a few miles north to Michigan and Fernwood Botanical Garden and Nature Preserve near Niles.  

There are miles of trails, and several different themed gardens.  Late summer showed off the black eyed-susans, and Joe Pye weed teeming with butterflies.

Here she is in the herb drying house at Fernwood.  This little series of posts occurred to me because I share her fondness for Charles Schulz.  She was once a "little red-haired girl" and she actually sent him homemade valentines.  Later, she struck up a friendship with the cartoonist that lasted until his death.  In 1997 she invited me to a writers' conference in California and I got the chance to meet him and some of his family.  Unforgettable.