Sunday Afternoon

 

What a wonderful gift, this luscious fabric sewn into a blouse by Janet!  

Ever since she got her new Bernina--the creme de la creme of sewing machines--she's as engrossed in sewing as I am in painting. She loves it so much she wonders what she ever did before.  

I can tell her: she painted rooms, repainted them the next day if she changed her mind. She and Bill remodeled a house and landscaped it themselves.  The house and yard could be magazine covers.  

Fostering dogs with SNIPSA while having three of her own, political activism and supporting Planned Parenthood, matchmaking dogs with people (like Luci-Love and me), teaching five classes of Pilates a week--all while recovering from shoulder surgery.  Janet is one energizer bunny! 

And so generous--I'm loving this new silky blouse with red square buttons that she delivered today. 

We talked about our obsessions--and the joy of having the right tools and materials.  She's found some sources of designer patterns and fabrics online and is making beautiful dresses and blouses--and soon a quilt.  Even though joining in person classes has been curbed to some extent,  the technology is such that if you can't go the mountain, the mountain can most definitely come to you.  

Since I have paint all over the table, I quickly put my T-shirt back on and asked Janet to take a Us-ie, plural for selfie?  Then she was off--to the fabric store, leaving me to think of places to go so I can dress up properly, fashionably, and maybe get a haircut or something to complete the look? 

July 30, 2002

My daddy died twenty years ago today.  I think of him and send him love every day, but July 30th will always be the day I spend the whole day remembering what made him so dear, special and ever-present in my life.

Whenever we traveled, he'd pull over and ask Bob and me to pose, especially at an overlook. In this one (don't know where we were) it looks like I was making a point of being bored.  My crew-cut brother Bob looks way more cheerful and up for another photo op.

He didn't "take pictures;" he always said, "I'm fixin' to make a picture."   At the time, I didn't get it.  But as it turned out, making pictures has been one of the things that brings me most pleasure, too. 

Last August, I made this collage for Carlene's 96th birthday--a photo of Carlene and Bob and me standing by our blue Pontiac, juxtaposed with a much-later photograph of the man who took almost every picture of our lives. They were married in 1945 and had 57 good years together.  None of us could have imagined life without the physical presence of this "giant of a man" whose entire life was devoted to us, the three he loved more than life. 

When their first grandchild was born 50 years ago, 

they made frequent visits to Texas to shower little Daisy with love

His last trip to Texas--on the occasion of Will's graduation from the fire academy, 2001.

Granddaddy was Will's best friend, the one he called to talk to all the time.

Just before this picture was made, he quipped,

"I'm going to call the chief and tell him not to let you go into any fires." 

In the last year of his life, he danced with his lifelong sweetheart at Bob and Jocelyn's wedding.

In May, before he died in July, I took this picture, the quintessential photo 

of him--fishing at somebody's pond.

He had just said these words, attempting to show me how to cast a line:

"Just put your finger right here."

(pronounced beautifully as "fanger") 

My children talk about him all the time.  My grandchildren didn't know him (only Jackson met him as a baby) but they talk about him as if they did.  Nathan still has a poster in his room he made in elementary school in which his motto was a direct quote of Granddaddy's: "Keep the main thing the main thing." 

We all carry pieces of him into the future and keep him alive with stories.  He was a generous, easy-going, funny, wonderful man, my daddy.  I just wish he could see:

Me making things in the house he bought me for a Christmas present after my divorce.....

The house itself--how it's changed since I picked it out with hopes of transforming it exactly as I've done....

The current branch of the family tree he started--my kids and grands...

How healthy and happy the love of his life is approaching her 97th birthday! 

Friday Night Lights

Usually I dine alone, but the past two nights have been shared with these bookmakers from Australia, Scotland, Canada, England...

Apparently I missed the memo for tonight's meeting--that we were all supposed to wear pajamas.

There we were, laughing along together as if we were in the same room.  Luci picked up that this wasn't the usual fare--the news or a movie.  She wagged her tail with great joy and brought me a toy to throw, then she skidded all over the floor and brought it back, chased it again, brought it back.

It was like having dinner company, many of whom seem to know each other from shared retreats, some of us newbies. I haven't posted anything yet.  I've spent the day trying to copy their techniques and make watercolor work the way theirs do.   My books are all folded and ready to go, I just need to get my colors to roll better.  

One woman said, "This is the best ten dollars I have spent in my life.  I feel like I've been to an art university I've learned so much."

Tomorrow I'll join the Handmade Book Club which offers guest teachers each month and an entire library of videos on bookmaking techniques. If anyone is interested, let me know and I'll send you the link.

Life is hard this summer.  Too hot, too wet, too dry. Too mean, too stubborn.  But a day of watching colors roll, kiss, bleed, blend and bloom--that's a meditation I can't recommend highly enough. 

I was about to give up and go back to my trusty acrylic paints when suddenly I realized it didn't matter yet if nothing was pretty.  These pigments in water are almost as entertaining as a happy dog with a ball or a frog in her mouth. 

Inside the Books

Last night I sat in on my first Zoom art meeting while eating leftover steak and squash, Luci on my lap.

After discussions with the teacher of the day (they do one of these hour-long meetings every day), several students show the books they've made.  

Here's a lovely thing I noticed: most of the student artists looked, on first glance, like poster childs  of "little old ladies." One was wearing a nightgown and sitting in a rumpled bed; another had trouble getting out of her leather lounge chair; no one was wearing make up or dressed up for the occasion. A few had to be reminded, "Unmute yourself."  They were, for the most part, as technically inept at Zoom as I'd have been if I'd been called on to speak. 

But then they brought out what they had made for the day of the Five Day Challenge.  From rooms all over the country (and other countries), they had created spectacular little books, each one unique, lively, colorful.  When they spoke about their art projects, their enthusiasm transformed them into vibrant women with bright happy eyes and youthful voices!   Some of their books were so unique and striking I took screen shots for inspiration.

I thought of the adage, "You can't judge a book by its cover!" These women--ones you'd barely notice in a waiting room--came to life when they talked about their use of watercolor and collage, ribbons and buttons. Their faces looked decades younger when they showed the hundreds of us in the Zoom room what they'd made.  

From spare bedrooms to kitchens to actual studios, these women were amazing.  Their attire and house decor might have been dowdy, but their imaginations were full of color and fire. 

From now on, I'm going to be noticing more the old people I see in waiting rooms.  I'll be wondering what's under those unremarkable covers--the walkers and canes and plain-Jane clothes.  I might even ask them, "So what's your creative project?  What are your passions?  What are the things that make you forget your aches and pains and your age?" 

Note from Tucker to Rebecca

Before I head out for PT, just wanted to share a note Tucker (Day's dog) wrote to Rebecca who kept him while they were in Cape Cod last week celebrating their anniversary:

The Handmade Book Club

I got an email last week inviting me to join a five day challenge in making small books.  If any of you are  interested in making books and learning watercolor techniques, this class is the best bargain ever and I'm pretty sure you can still join if you go to their website.

The class costs a whopping $10 and is packed with inspiration and ideas and techniques:

Taught by five guest book-makers, you get a lesson every day (and keep them for life) on folding beautiful paper to make accordion books.  I have learned more in the first three days than in most online classes I have taken.  Maybe this is actually my favorite ever.

In addition, they have a Zoom meeting every day and a private Facebook group.  I wasn't able to watch the Zooms in real time, but they are recorded--so I'm watching them tonight. On the Facebook group, you get to see what other students are making and some of them are absolutely incredible.  I have cut and folded my first book but haven't yet added colors--so that's my goal for the weekend. 

I don't usually rave about a single class--but I'm raving.  Techniques used in this class are applicable to all kinds of mixed media projects and so far every teacher has been terrific.

The artist of the day's class is featured on the Zoom meeting.  Kat Kirby--whom I really liked--leads classes all over the world, and I'm starting to imagine a workshop with her in Portugal!

She also has a You Tube channel I'm subscribing to for various videos.

What I love about this class, too, is that it is such a wonderful antidote to the heat!  I have plenty of art supplies, so all I needed were a couple of large pieces of Stonehenge paper at Jerry's Art O'Rama.  

So if you're interested in some fun art projects this summer, do check it out and see if you can join even though the class has already started. 

Handmade Book Club

Good House? Keeping?

Old stuff (like my 1940s magazine covers)  remind me of the years of my childhood--sewing, decorating a table, playing with a dog, doing puzzles, reading. 

A cover I chose not to buy reflects the other side: the imposition of values (usually by men toward women) that underlie the arrogance in today's "pro-life" rhetoric.  

On the cover of this women's "housekeeping" magazine of the 1940s, it says, "Unchastity is a sin." The language makes me shudder.  I imagine the stern face of the author of the essay, an exclamation pointed judge, most likely a man.   Or maybe a literate version of Marjorie Taylor Green (the Georgia congresswoman who called a Petri dish a "Peachtree dish") or another right-wing conservative woman who wants her choices to be imposed on all women. 

Matt Gaetz said the other day that the women who were protesting were the ones least likely to need abortions; who would want to impregnate such ugly women? 

Vanity Fair said this:

Congress is filled with a lot of loathsome, moronic, thoroughly repugnant people, but perhaps none more so than Representative Matt Gaetz. Currently under investigation for allegedly paying women for sex and, separately, sleeping with a minor and transporting her across state lines, the Florida legislator responded to the assault on reproductive rights in May by tweeting: “How many of the women rallying against overturning Roe are over-educated, under-loved millennials who sadly return from protests to a lonely microwave dinner with their cats, and no bumble matches?” But apparently that was just the start of this overgrown frat boy’s ignorant antiabortion routine, which he followed up on Saturday by telling a room full of teens and young adults that any woman who supports reproductive rights is too ugly for him to f--k.

Many in Congress and the majority of Supreme Court justices don't get it, don't care to get it. They are fiddling while Rome burns, focusing on issues through their usual sexist and punitive lenses. This is not new, but it's ramped up to the point I can't believe these idiots (let's say it out loud!) are actually in power in this country.  

Friday Fun and Finds

Recently Jan was visiting the casita and saw a pan Day had bought me in Virginia this year.  She saw me eyeing it--though I had no idea what it was used for--and it was my souvenir of our antiques day.

"So, I see you have an aebleskiver pan!" Jan said.

"A what?" 

So she told me about the intended use of the pan: making Swiss sweets called aebleskivers.  She looked up the recipe she and a friend had used to serve a party of twenty people.  

This morning, Jan was making aebleskiver for a friend who's sick and for our neighbors. At 7 o'clock, she texted me that she'd made a bowl of batter (yeast, flour and canned milk) and that it would take two hours to rise; could I come at 9 with my pan and have an impromptu aebleskiver party? 

It was a pretty involved process, buttering each circle and pouring batter in, over and over. Her pan was cast iron and worked better than my aluminum one, but we managed to create a plate full of them--served with raspberry preserves--and she was ready to begin her deliveries. 

She also took a picture of the novice cook next door cooking in a pan formerly used to hold paper clips and tapes. 

I bought a few matted covers for 1940s and 50's Good Housekeeping magazines at the Green Door.   The one at the bottom is October 1948, my birthday month and year. The one showing a girl decorating a table is October 1951, the month and year my brother Bob was born. 

Wednesday

Luci and I popped into the Green Door Thrift Shop today to get manila folders, but I wound up finding other treasures instead. 

1. Four sentimental covers of Good Housekeeping magazine, late 40s and early 50s.  

2. An old-fashioned Tupperware container for storing cards I'm making.

3. New friends for Luci.

Speaking of #3, she's now on Instagram with her new pal under Green Door Thrift--posted by one of the workers there.  Her new friend is a black 11-year-old Cavalier named Max who's exactly Luci's size.  We took them off their leashes and they played happily while Max's owner and I visited and all the customers in the store came to watch.

One--a ninety-something-year-old named Shirley--walked up to me and said, "Please turn away and don't look at me."  Her face was serious but her eyes were twinkling.  "Cause I need to take your dog home with me."  

Then we stopped in Jerry's Art-O-Rama where all the clerks know her and called out, "Hey, Luci!"

Meanwhile, I'm hearing from Linda in Cape Cod that they had a fun visit with the Learys yesterday. 

Tom, Day, Marcus, Deanna, and Jackson

Tom and Steve

Linda sent me these pages from her photo album--of Day and Tom's wedding 25 years ago:

104, zero chance of rain

I would like to invite any climate change deniers to spend the rest of this summer in San Antonio!  Record heat, day after day, depletes my energy and makes me grouchy....

Unless I'm in the casita gel printing or making Rolodex cards or whatever.

Due to my feet and ankles, I'm now back inside my wonderfully cool house drinking hibiscus tea and reading a book by Dr. Bruce Greyson, AFTER.  I ordered it after hearing him interviewed on NPR about people who had had near-death experiences.  I would go to the library, but the library doesn't open until noon and I try never to leave the house after ten. 

My Amazon arrival yesterday was a portable tea infuser that can also be used to infuse water with fruits.  It's called Pure Zen.  An insulated sleeve keeps drinks hot or cold.

Jan read this:  "Hibiscus tea can help boost your immune system and may help to prevent cell damage caused by free radicals in the body. This can reduce your risk of developing many significant health complications such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Hibiscus tea contains other antioxidants, such as anthocyanins."  

It's delicious, so refreshing--and along with sweet Luci curled up in bed with me right now--is a mood enhancer. 

Cape Cod, Colors, and Colorado

It's a quiet day in Lake Wobegon...as Garrison Keillor used to say.

I'm experimenting with colors on the gel plate and Luci is bored out of her mind, she said.  Why in the world would I prefer playing with paints to throwing her balls outside? 

My kids are scattered:

Day and Tom, both boys, and Jackson's girlfriend are celebrating Anniversary #25 on Cape Cod--a place we all love!  We've enjoyed so many good times there with Linda and Steve and their family.  It's where Day and Tom honeymooned 25 summers ago. 

At the Wellfleet Flea Market

Will and Bonnie and Elena--and the two dogs, Conway and Charlie, are vacationing in Colorado.

I'm traveling vicariously through their text messages.  

Dehydration?

Speaking of my wonderful neighbors and friends.....

But first--a little backstory.

For the entire summer, I've been having pain in my feet, calves, and ankles.  I was referred to a vein specialist and Jan gave me the name of Dr. Straight who did a thorough work-up and ultrasound and suggested I might want to try a procedure on three veins.  But first, I had to wear compression stockings (in this heat!) for six weeks.

I was excited this week because the six weeks had ended and I wanted that procedure pronto!  It sounded simple: the newer laser equivalent of "stripping the veins."  But when I went back to set it up this week, I read the small print in the post-op pages:

I'd have to have three separate procedures. 

After each, I'd have to wear these dang stockings 24/7 for two weeks.

And I wouldn't be allowed to travel for 90 days.

I was unable to summon the energy for being a patient again.  I was unwilling to give up my Georgia trip in late September.  And since there was no guarantee it would work, I abandoned the whole idea.

So today, Freda called.  She is having similar symptoms and she--unlike me--does research on Google.  Turns out it could be dehydration, very likely since I'm not much of a water drinker.  Tea and Diet Coke and lemonade apparently don't count. 

Walking is very painful, some days more so than others.  Today it was bad.  I hobbled to the CVS and bought a Britta pitcher, Epson salts for soaking (Carlene's suggestion), ate watermelon and apples (prescribed by Kate) and am guzzling lemon water.  

Luci has been licking my swollen feet and ankles as if it's her job to fix them.  Dogs know things we don't.  She knows something is off.  

I'm feeling hopeful.  If it's simple dehydration, that's way easier to fix than the needle and compression remedies. Meanwhile, my tiny little dog is drinking two bowls of water a day!

I could learn a lot from my friends and Luci! 

Man or Men in neon green

A strange phenomenon in our neighborhood--either one man or several riding bikes in neon green t-shirts.  I won't explain.  Jan's wonderful response to my query follows:

There he goes again, riding past my house,

The fat guy in a neon green shirt

Perilously perched aloft an old-fashioned kid’s bicycle.

 

‘Round and around he goes,

By morning and by evening,

When it’s cool enough and the spirit beckons.

 

He nods and gives me a fleeting wave,

Then grabs his handlebar to avert careening off route

And losing his cool posture, his Buddha-like contentment.

 

Linda has seen him, too,

But she also has seen his double and his triple,

And she thinks they might be a gang, a club, riding separately.

 

Although it would be nice for the fat guys 

In neon green shirts on bicycles to belong to a club of lookalikes,

I prefer to think it’s just the one fat guy with the fleeting wave, doing his thing.

Gaslit on STARZ

Martha Mitchell, John Dean and all those involved with Watergate are featured in Gaslit, produced by Julia Roberts who plays the eccentric wife of Nixon's Attorney General.  

I remember the night Nixon resigned, but we didn't have a TV at the time so I didn't follow it closely.  We were driving to Georgia when we heard the news at a Shoney's along the way. The Big Boy chain featuring a neon fat boy holding a fat neon burger. 

This ten-part series on STARZ is very interesting and well-done, and I've spent much of the day watching it.  

There are uncanny resemblances between the time of Nixon and what we're learning on the January 6th investigations, White House staff lying and breaking laws to stay in good standing with a horrendous President.  One of the characters says, "How do we survive when we don't even have a shared understanding of what's right and what's wrong?"

Next up: a documentary called "Who Is Ghislaine Maxwell?"  

South American travelers home

Today I picked up the travelers from Peru and Columbia.  We started our day at Twin Sisters, then continued at my house looking at photos for the rest of the day. 

They were enchanted with Machu Picchu in Peru and they loved everything about Columbia.  They petted alpacas and llamas, picked coffee beans, and said the people and the food were wonderful.  According to Elena, everything about the trip was magical.  Nathan--our family's history buff--was a veritable storehouse of information about the history of South America. 

The scenery in the mountains was so beautiful, I'd love to go there.  The weather was mild, the skies blue, and the hillsides were covered with bright green vegetation, amazing flowers that looked like silk, and a great variety of birds, no bugs.  The kids were particularly taken by the condors and the parrots. 

What a happy day this was!  

Golden Friends

Five of us septuagenarians celebrated the birthdays of two of us yesterday at Cappy's. Reflecting on the decades we've been friends, I thought of the Girl Scout song: "Make new friends, but keep the old; Some are silver and the others gold."  These four are among my Golden Oldies! 

Top photo: 

I met Freda in the late 90s, so she's the "youngest" in terms of longevity of friendship, but only because she waited that long to  move here from Maryland.  Freda is an avid swimmer and music lover--and Luci's walking partner.  Luci does a happy dance every time I mention Freda's name.  

I met Joy when her not-yet-husband Frank and my then-husband were colleagues at S.A.C.  They recently celebrated their 40th anniversary and we were at the wedding!  We celebrated holidays together and parties on our motorcycle track and their Medina Lake house. In all these years, I rarely see Joy without a bouquet in her hands.  Yesterday's was a sunflower she grew in her garden, vibrant and beautiful like Joy. 

Middle photo:

Mary Locke and I met in 1974 when we were members of Manor Baptist Church. A few years later, we  decided to go to graduate school at U.T.S.A.--just "something fun to do." That's where we met Bonnie, our favorite professor.  One night after class, we decided we wanted Bonnie to be our friend--and it worked.  She said yes! 

Bonnie retired from teaching at U.T.S.A a few years ago and now teaches a lively writing class for seniors.  Her students love her class so much that they have compiled their own writings and made a book--and will be doing a group reading on July 30th.  Then Bonnie's off to Vermont for two months of cool mountain air and liberal politics.  

Bottom photo: Bonnie and me. 

As Bonnie always says, when someone ( among the outsiders who think Texans are all gun-toting conservatives) asks her why she "still" lives in Texas, she says, "My friends!"  

A nearby Cappy's table of younger women might see us as "old ladies," but we prefer "wonderful old women"--to borrow the title of Bonnie's book.  Except on birthdays, we see each other not as women of a certain age, but as lively ageless creative friends.  We knew each other "when...."

And that's golden! 

Cuttery in style

I'm not sure if my tool deficiency has anything to do with my cooking aversion, but as it happens, the  four kitchen knives I own are dull as bad books.  I was once married to a man who said knives would last longer if you don't sharpen them!  He was right.  They have lasted for decades, but they don't slice well at all. 

So yesterday I went to Sunset Ridge Hardware with a discount coupon and treated myself to my first good quality chef's knife.  What a revelation it was to slice squash and onion with no effort at all!  I sliced up a whole yellow squash and a red onion, sautéed them in olive oil, and then sprinkled them with cheese.  It was delicious! 

I know that having the right tools makes all the difference, but I hadn't yet applied that principle to cutting tools.  Art supplies yes, cookery not so much.  I have paper-cutting scissors in seven sizes. 

So now I'm on a roll.  I will be slicing apples and peppers and whatnot with glee!

Don Quixote in Newark

If despondency over gun violence and the direction of America is going is bringing you down, let me suggest a two-hour respite--a PBS documentary called Don Quixote in Newark.  

Jim Oleske, a dyslexic trouble-making kid expelled from Catholic school at the age of 7, was driven by his love of children.  When the AIDS epidemic broke in the early 80s, he was a young doctor who treated babies and children with the new virus.  His research, in spite of many obstacles for funding, has made in utero transmission of AIDS to children almost a thing of the past. 

What a tireless, generous, windmill-smashing doctor he is!  A mensch of a man, he uses the word, love, a lot.  He loves his little patients and their parents and often follows those who survive into adulthood. He's humble.  "I wanted to be a pediatrician," he said. "I didn't know at first that you had to become a doctor to become a pediatrician."  Rejected from 29 medical schools, he was finally accepted ("an accident," he says) into the 30th.  

His favorite book of all time was Don Quixote--a book that implanted in him a desire to follow his dreams no matter what. Now a white-haired doctor who laughs and cries with his patients, Dr. Oleske  has, over the years, taken every little patient a purple stuffed rabbit in memory of a child who died.  At his retirement party, he gives his medical students purple rabbits. 

Watching this beautifully made documentary, I couldn't help but wonder: what must go so wrong in a child's life that he grows up to become a killer in his late teens?  We have an epidemic of young men who are fascinated with murder, who live on online communication forums with other aspiring mass killers, and who have few if any friends in real life. 

Watching a truly good man devote his life to doing good, working overtime, and remembering the names of his patients--what a contrast, what an inspiration! 

Thanks to Freda for recommending this excellent life story of a mensch of a man! 

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. 

,