Paper Treasures

I encountered a term today: Paper Treasures. 

It's often used by people who do book arts--journals, collages, mixed media, etc. Since the movement to digital everything, old papers are inherently intriguing.  Working with papers is nostalgic and full of memories. 

I love real books, never made the switch to digital reading.  I love the texture and smell of paper, underlining passages I like, turning down corners.  Holding an unread book is like holding a gift.  In book arts, the act of making individual books is a beautiful art form in itself, often incorporating pages from old vintage books as well as painted images and shapes and collaged bits of paper ephemera. 

Tickets, bingo cards, postage stamps, maps on paper, handwritten letters, autograph books, Valentine cards, wedding and family pictures of the early 20th century, library cards, handwritten recipes--these tell the stories of our history.

When I go to a thrift shop or antique shop, the paper section is where I land. An old Blue Horse label reminds me of elementary school and I can  literally smell the pages and the ink from cartridge pens that traveled across their light blue lines. 

When I first started teaching high school, 1970, I found it amusing when students would call out, "Miss, I don't have any pages!"  (blank sheets of paper.)

Today's students have way fewer pages than we used to--as most of their writing is done on their iPad and sent to the teacher's iPad to grade and return, tablet to tablet, no horses.

If a fire or a flood were threatening to destroy all our worldly possessions, most of us would use what time we could to rescue our paper treasures. the irreplaceable letters and photographs we can hold in our hands, evocative of our favorite stories. 

I'd rescue this little box.  In it, there's a stack of papers, and here's what Day wrote on the top piece in the stack:

Mommy, I L❤️VE YOU!  (If you find this hug me!)

In October, Elena found the box and added a page of her own:

 

Just lookin'

Betty and I used to walk down the few blocks of downtown and into every store but the men's wear shop, the car dealership, and the beer parlor.  Maybe we had a dollar, maybe no money at all.  Didn't matter.  We were "Just looking."  We loved Jazzbo's (a mishmash of records, cookware, candy, and flowers) and the dime store next door.  

Cochran didn't have a book store, but you could occasionally find a random book in one of these stores or the drug store. 

Jazzbo sold new products but they were thrown willy nilly into bins, so you had to dig through a pile to find the records you wanted.  Same with everything else, no order at all.  

On the way home, we could stop by the library and check out as many books as we could carry.  Or visit my daddy's office at the courthouse, right next to the courtroom.   Sometimes we'd stop by the church and play piano and organ duets. 

Those were different days.  No doors were locked to wandering kids.  

This morning, Luci and I went to Jo Ann's fabric.  I bought a candle and black paint.  Luci bought nothing but got lots of free attention.  She gleefully licked and jumped upon a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named  Paisley. Luci knows stores by their smells and lurches to the front seat as soon as I pull into a parking lot.  Jo Ann's is pet friendly so there's always a chance of making a new friend. 

On the way home, I planned a few details for a project I'm working on--painting Rolodex cards.  If you're under fifty, you probably don't know what Rolodex is.  (I asked a clerk in an office supply store once if they had them and she suggested a jewelry store, thinking I meant Rolex watches?)

This is a Rolodex:

A lot of the things we love were seeded in childhood. I like vintage office supplies, as does Bob, probably because we spent time in our parents' offices--a Rolodex, colored pencils and phone number organizer in our daddy's office; a typewriter and an adding machine in our mother's. 

 

Nellie and I were talking one day about the images we're drawn to in art-making and discovered that we're both drawn to grids. Nellie thinks it's because we grew up in rural areas in which the landscape was a grid of fields--pecan groves, cotton, corn, and peanuts.   Grids also suggest the principles of quilt making and the arrangement of flower seed packets.

I also love circles: the shape of bowls and baskets and bubbles. 

In elementary school, I loved drawing houses--symmetrical with a chimney, smoke billowing, yellow windows, a big fat happy sun in the sky.  I've never lost my fascination for houses, drawing them, looking at them, decorating my own. 

What objects, human-made or natural, do you like to look at?  

Looking at (and for) what we find beautiful refreshes the mind.  It's always enriching to be on the lookout.  

In Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way, she suggests having artist dates--not for shopping or producing or working, just for looking around and re-filling the well of creative possibilities. 

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Hope again

On Monday morning, I went to meet my new physical therapist, feeling blue.  I can't even count the number of physical therapists I have worked with (more than ten) since May 2021, and the last thing I wanted to do was to start all over again. 

Knee surgery in May, then sciatica, then this valve in the vein thing--it's been a year of traipsing to expert after expert trying to put the puzzle together.  I've done miles of tread mills, earnest stretches with straps, and hours of homework, twenty of this, twenty of that, ten pages. 

Joe's style of therapy is unlike any other I've known.  "You have to retrain your muscles," he said.  "You've been overcompensating for so long, before and after surgery,  that your quads have forgotten how to do what they are designed to do.  You're going to be fine so soon!"  I had tears in my eyes, relief and gratitude.  A glimmer of hope. 

He had me tighten my thigh muscles without engaging my butt--almost impossible.  The only exercise he gave me were standing, lying down, and seated versions of the same thing: Tighten these muscles right here, don't let the others help out."

When I returned today after doing those exercises, I felt so much better. Both Joe and his assistant were complimentary about my progress. ("I thought it would take two weeks to get here," he said.)  Along with the compression stockings (prepping for a procedure for the veins later this month)--I'm optimistic. 

Physical pain shuts down energy.  Working around it makes it hard to plan ahead.   I can work or run errands for about two hours in the morning, then have to lie down for an hour or two to buy another couple of hours in the afternoon.  Late afternoon, the pain is back and I call it a day.  

After today's therapy (massage, heat, and exercises) I didn't want to go home and go to bed as I always do. With no pain, I had enough energy to shop at thrift stores, go to Target, and do some painting. I felt like my old self again!

 "We're not about zapping pain here," Joe said.  "We're teaching your body how to get strong again;  When you use your muscles correctly, the pain will go away on its own."

This is what makes for excellent teaching of any new thing: connect the dots.  Explain the why.  

Six Bullies Change America

In the last year of his Presidency, Obama was not allowed to nominate a judge for SCOTUS.  The Republicans obstructed it.  Then Trump came along and chose three conservative judges--and we see today where that got us.

Only 33% of American people agree with this decision, yet six judges overturned Roe vs. Wade.  I cringe when I hear "pro-lifers" speak sanctimoniously about what a good thing this is.  They talk about someone they know who had an abortion and "regretted" it. But that person had a choice.  Nobody forced them to end a pregnancy.

Clarence Thomas, one evangelical woman, and four other male judges.  Who are these people? 

Rachel Maddow's show tonight gives an excellent overview of the past four decades of linking politics with the most conservative politicians to overturn Roe   Fifty years ago,  when Roe was passed, it was supported by many churches, including the Southern Baptists.

But now, in spite of the fact that only a minority of Americans favor banning abortions, six people had the power to inflict their moral opinions on everyone else.  And so they did.  

If these bullies were really "pro-life," wouldn't they be changing gun laws to protect already born children? What they are is pro-power--but only their own. 

  

 "My little dog--a heartbeat at my feet."  Edith Wharton

The heat is oppressive.  Some days my legs hurt--though I'm getting closer to a solution--and on those days I'm not as lively as my little dog would like. 

Tonight I pulled out a handful of stuffed animals we haven't been playing with lately.  I threw them from my chair to the bedroom, then to the kitchen, one at a time.  Finally!  she said.  We're playing!

Before long, I was laughing so hard.  She was trying to get a stuffed animal from a table that was too high, running around it on her hind feet trying to reach it.  

"Bring it back!" I said.

She refused.  Retrieving is fun but bringing it back is not.  She forces me to chase her. 

So I slid to the floor and grabbed it and pulled as hard as I could.  She growled at me with her tail wagging like crazy.  This is a game she always wins.  

She forgives me for being boring.  I have redeemed myself in my little dog's eyes.  She never holds grudges.  

A back up adventure

I woke up at 3 am to take Will and family to the airport heading out on their three-week trip to Peru and Ecuador.  When they got to the Miami airport, all flights to Ecuador were canceled due to civil unrest there.  It's been a stressful day for them,  but they have decided to go to Columbia instead and are on their way there now.

This is how they roll.  If their plans don't work out, they get busy making new plans.  

I'd probably have turned around and flown back home, but they were determined to have an adventure in spite of everything....

Waiting to go through Customs to Columbia

San Antonio

Summer camp on Ogden Lane

Today was like spontaneous summer camp for Jan and me.   We made gel prints all morning, then went our separate ways for lunch and naps.  We'd planned to meet Victoria for a swim in the afternoon, but when we got there, a kid had pooped in the pool and nobody was allowed in the water until they "shocked" it.  I don't know what that means, but it takes a while, so we returned to gel printing. 

Then Jan offered to share another of her delicious dinners with me--beet soup (which I loved and I don't even like beets), leftover salad from her last night's salon, and quesadillas with cheese.  Then a dip of ice cream and homemade Mexican wedding cookies for dessert.  Luci and Carma are friends again, so they've had a fun-filled day as well. 

Whole day visits like this, broken up for naps and whatnot, are the perfect way to spend a hot summer day in air-conditioning.  And we have a stack of gel prints.  Maybe next summer she'll join me and we'll wallpaper both our houses.  

Luci looked longingly at her table and jumped in my lap.  "So this is what people eat and say is so delicious while we dogs get kibble?  Not fair!"

While we were printing pages of luscious colors, Luci and Carma were playing camp games for dogs--biting and licking and jumping on each other.  

First Lady

 on Showtime features Eleanor Roosevelt, Betty Ford, and Michelle Obama.  

During the last two days or so, I've watched all ten episodes and definitely found it worth watching--though I'd have cast Michelle and Barrack differently.

After I got used to the actors playing the O'Bama family, I went with it, but it's harder to see a film based on living people in such recent history without superimposing in the mind's eye the real Michelle and Barrack, my personal favorites as President and First Lady.

Nevertheless, it's worth getting a month of Showtime to see the series, a reminder of the challenge of  "belonging to the country" for four, eight, or more years.  Eleanor was First Lady into Franklin's fourth term, Michelle for two, and Betty for only the remainder of one term after Nixon left office.  

Estrangement

The opposite of engagement:

Today was Luci's grooming day--a shampoo and a trim, even a trim of her very important tail. When I picked her up, she had yellow ribbons attached to her ears with rubber bands, which she deftly removed.  

When Carma came for play time, she refused to play with Luci after one sniff.  The shampoo-scented one persisted,  (Hey, it's me, Luci, your best friend!) pouncing on her and licking her, but still Carma refused to play.  She got behind Jan and hid from this strange creature.

Until the smell wears off and is replaced by familiar Luci smells, they are estranged--so sad!

She's prettier than usual, her fur clean and shiny and the trim making neat.  But looks don't matter in dog world.  

Luci finally gave up and sat in her own chair crestfallen, her ears down, embarrassed I think.  Maybe I'm projecting.  That's how I'd feel if I were estranged from one of my best friends. 

A text from Jan:

On the one hand, Carma’s rejection of the clean and sweet-smelling Luci is kind of amusing.  But on the other hand, Luci’s sad, dejected face tells another story.  Perhaps if you take her for a long, sweaty walk and let her sniff some poop, it’ll restore her allure and they can be friends again …

Engagement

My cooking-loving friends spend hours making soups, breads and full-course meals.  They seek out recipes and herbs and make magic.

My gardening friends know the names of plants I only have a nodding acquaintance with--and know how to care for them. 

When I hired Laren, a landscape designer, I watched my yard--after two years of freeze and heat and neglect--bloom into a veritable painting of purples, pinks, reds, whites.  I asked her son yesterday if he's learning all this from his mom and he said he's not interested, but for Laren, it's a passion and an art and I'm one of her happy clients. 

Initially, she asked me what colors I liked and brought pictures of native plants--all native--and drew the yard as she imagined it.  In the fall, she created a design and readied the yard.  Now that it's all blooming robustly and butterflies and bees are busy pollinating, she says that the reason the plants have grown so well and so fast, even in this current drought, is that the ground was ready, softened, and mulched three months or so before we planted.  

Jan often shares her delicious meals with me--a healthy soup, a main dish, occasionally a yummy dessert.  I appreciate her artistry,  I enjoy everything she brings, I even ask for recipes--but I rarely spend the time and planning necessary to actually cook. 

She recently made two gorgeous quilts for her twin graduate grandchildren, and she comes over from time to time to gel print with me.  I give her duplicate art supplies, she gives me food.  (I used to feel guilty because I rarely returned gifts of food.)

We don't all have the same passions, but  all creatives have a passion for what they do.  

Yesterday I went out to work on my collages, and I literally couldn't pull myself away from gel printing. It's so much fun that I now have enough gel prints to cut into pieces and wallpaper my entire house. 

I probably won't be doing that as it would require hours on ladders, but who knows?

The point isn't to make wall-paper; it's one of those things in which I'm fully engaged in the pleasure of doing it.  It was 2:00 and then it was 6:00; where did all those hours go?  Brayer-ing acrylic paints on the press, then scratching and stenciling parts, then pulling prints with glassine paper, calligraphy paper, printer paper, origami paper, and tissue paper. 

If a piece has possibilities for one of my collages in progress, I cut or tear a section and glue it on. The teacher I'm following right now is Michele Holden, "All My Art and Soul" channel on You Tube. Her process intrigues me and she explains her reasons for her aesthetic choices. 

She's also introduced me to the idea of working with a limited color palette and mixing all colors from four or five primary colors and black and white. 

When I pull a print, it's like a "box of chocolates"--you never know what you're going to get. 

It's not so much about making art, more like discovering it, even more like just having a wonderfully happy day in spite of the brutal heat of South Texas summer.