Spirit Animals

My granddaughter Elena has never met an animal she doesn't like.  Horses, cats, dogs, exotic animals, birds, chickens, you name it.  When she went to Peru and Columbia, she choses not to partake of cooked guinea pigs.

She told her dad recently,  "Chickens are my spirit animals."  

Last week, one of her chickens laid eggs.  This morning, Will sent me a text showing that she is naming the eggs already!

She is amazed that she can hold each egg up to the light and (candling) and see the unhatched chicks inside.

When she was about two, I noticed that whenever she heard a bird, she would imitate its sound with such accuracy that the bird would answer her!  I said, "Did you hear that, Elena?  The bird thinks you're a bird!"  A new inhabitant in this world, she wasn't particularly impressed with her own skill at bird singing.  She looked at me like, "Can't everybody do that?" 

Every Easter, Papi gives her a dozen chicks.  Most don't make it until the next Easter.  But this year, she and her dad made a safe house for chickens and every one has a name--just like every bird in every chicken batch all her life.  The mama of this particular brood is named Ghost.  

When she and Nathan came on Thursday, she noticed feathers in my antique red scale.  She picked them all up and identified them.  The big one she said was probably "either a hawk or an owl feather."  It hadn't even occurred to me to wonder what bird each feather had been attached to! 

I pick them up on my walks just because they are pretty. 

Light as three feathers

I guess my spirit animal is a fluffy little dog named Luci.  But my spirit girl is a ten-year-old artist/scientist/observer named Elena! 

August is here!

Last night, I got to wear my new Made-By-Janet blouse to a party of three, five counting the dogs, Ranger and Luci! 

It's ironic that I've known and loved both Sylvia and Carolyn since our twenties, yet had never been with them at the same time until last night.  Sylvia, recovering from a fall and doing well, and Carolyn (our husbands were colleagues at SAC and we met at an art show in the early 70s) met for dinner at Sylvia's house.  They know each other because Carolyn, a VP at Santa Rosa Hospital, worked alongside Peter, Sylvia's husband. 

So we packed a lot of memories into our short visit!

Sylvia and Carolyn

It's a wonderful thing, when we're all septuagenarians, to have fifty years of memories and friendship!

Meanwhile, the weekend has been filled with my attempts to make little books for my class. I joined the Handmade Book Club and highly recommend it to anyone who's interested in learning some new maneuvers with paints and papers.  To whet your appetite, I will include a few screenshots of books made by the more experienced members of the club.

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.