Every Picture Tells A Story — Don't It?

Amongst all the trees in my living room — 51 of them to be exact — one wall is devoted to people — all of them close to me but none of them known to me.  I'd like to introduce you to a few of them...just one grouping of my people.

This little girl was the first to join my "family." She's standing anxiously alone in an airport with some luggage marked Canadian Pacific AIrlines (now defunct).  The wooden frame this photo is set within is delicately carved along the sides. The back is signed "Dawson '74." 



Next to join my troupe is what I think of as a mass-produced hotel art. I've always called her "Lydia."  She's very Deco and there was a similar image of a vase of flowers which I didn't purchase, having spent the royal sum of $4 for Lydia.  At the time, an $8 investment was more than I could spare for a want and not a need.  I do regret that at times.

The magnificent horn player at right is a Mirage Editions 1981 poster done by John Martinez who is famous for doing New Orleans Jazz Festival posters.  I asked my cousin Ara what instrument this guy was playing and he seemed to think it was a zurna (a conical oboe) which didn't mean much to me but was an instrument from Anatolia which encompassed the birthplace of my grandparents.  No wonder I was drawn to this image.  [I hope you will forgive the shadows and reflections in these images that cloud their actual beauty.  While I am an excellent collector, I'm no photographer.]


On the right, this grim gentleman is "Uncle Gene," a member of The Wedding Party series painted by Nan Gressman.  Part oil painting, part collage — with his newspaper shirt, pasted paper collar and tie — no one understood what I saw in this gruff portrait of an old man.  All I can say is that the blue background of this canvas is scattered with bits of tobacco embedded in the paint — and for some reason, his stern face, pronounced cheekbone, and the thought of him puffing on a pipe filled with cherry tobacco made me want to bring him home.  And bring him home I did — despite his sorry expression.

Talk about grim — these two — these two, I don't know.  I was in a local thrift store sorting through the framed pictures (always looking for wonderful frames) when I came across these two old souls.  I tried leaving them behind, said I didn't need to spend $3 on these sorry souls, even if the metal frame was old with intricate engraved designs.  The quintessential Old-World couple who immigrated to America without a sou, centesimo, quid, pfennig or penny in their pockets.  These folks look miserable!  But — but — they could be Italian, Lithuanian, Albanian, or — Armenian — what's your guess?

This work is far crisper and more toward grays and charcoals than I've been able to capture.

And that brings me to the image at top of this grouping: Untitled (Launching No. 2) by Tom Gregg.  I was single.  I had lots of discretionary income.  I loved art.  It was my first trip to Block Island and there in the Sea Breeze Gallery was a stark black and white image of two boys kneeling expectantly in the dusk (or dawn), about to launch their boat.  It reminded me of those old Polaroids with the scalloped edges.  The gallery owner told me the artist was a student at The Rhode Island School of Design.  A student!  I bought and framed his work just as I imagined.  In spite of the dark and the hush — these two boys — I sensed their hopefulness and dreams.  

Glad someone in this family is looking forward and not back. 

Miss Ruby's Retirement

On the Occasion of Ruby's Retirement

I typed the text because it wasn't readable in my shot.

Well Miss Ruby, the big day is here

An event you've cherished all through the year

But when you start setting your lamp on fire,

We all think it's time for you to retire.

You've brightened our mornings with a cheery Hello,

Except when the weather threatens to snow.

And without the least hesitation

You told us all of your operation.

Through the years you have given your all

Driven some of your bosses right up the wall.

But we'll all miss your thoughtful ways,

and wish you were back in the coming days.

Ah yes, when the debits and credits don't settle

It will surely test our mettle.

And when all those reports are overdue

We will simply blame it on you.

Oh Miss Ruby if you'd only been here,

We could have dumped it on your desk to clear.

And you'd have grinned and straightened your back

And gotten it done before your mid-morning snack.

We'll miss all the flowers you'd always bring

The lovely bouquets at the first sign of Spring.

But we know that this is a SPECIAL DAY

And then there'll be no tars as we sincerely say —  

Now you can travel and garden and cook

And once in a while read a good book.

All of your friends send you love and best wishes

But please help Kermit sometime with the dishes!

Now let us be clear: I do not know Miss Ruby.  
I know nothing about her but now, I guess I know a bit about her.

She was hard-working, well-respected.
Her job had to do with numbers.  She loved flowers.
Her colleagues relied on her.  She stood her ground.
She had health issues.  She deserved her retirement.    
Apparently, she didn't care for doing dishes.

I was searching for a particular sized frame when I found this one, with its faded testament.  I wasn't crazy about the walnut but that could be changed.  The size was almost exactly right.  The green dot price tag said $2.00.  I took it home.

But when I started to dismantle the frame, I had to stop.  I felt bad.  I felt bad for Miss Ruby.  Here I was, ready to discard the culminating document of her professional life.  I  read through the lovingly hand-drawn now-faint calligraphy, tenderly composed, and delicately embellished.  How sad this honor to her ended up on my living room floor.

Who was Ruby?  Where did she work?  When did she retire?  What did she do after her party?  Why was this affectionate tribute left in a thrift store?  Was she still alive?  Would I ever know the answers to any of my questions?

It took a couple of days for me to grieve Miss Ruby's loss.  The loss that comes when one leaves one's home for a place with greater care.  The loss that comes when one leaves this world for the next. Whatever the transition, Miss Ruby no longer needed this written celebration from her colleagues.

I spray-painted the frame in a black matte finish and had my wonderful framers insert this silk-screened individual page — one-twelfth from a talented artist's rendition of the calendar.  I only bought this one page (for a dollar or two) because — for some reason — it spoke to me.  I love the way John (tiny signature-with-no-last-name upper-right of the "R" in November) made his letters with a comb-effect and the way he fashioned the zeroes.  Of all the other single pages of his calendar, only this one spoke to me — even though I have no associations with combs or November.

I love the way it came out.

I hope Miss Ruby would approve.
------------------------------------------------------  
As the last recipient of the thanks honoring Miss Ruby, let me share my thanks for each of you...wishing all my readers a very Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Hanukkah!

The Silk and Satin Crazy Quilt

In the 1970s, my boyfriend Andy was a good soul who was fun-loving and always looking for the next laugh while at the same time, being a worrywart — like me! So we planned this eight-day car trip driving straight through upstate New York and almost to Canada and then, just shy of the Canadian border, back down on the Vermont side to end in Connecticut to have Thanksgiving with his family. There were a great many memories from that trip  — one picturesque town after another — Rhinebeck, Red Hook, Claverack, Malta, Mechanicsville, and (the mysterious sounding) Ausable Chasm.  Like me, Andy loved going in and out of every little antique shop, stopping at every yard sale, sifting through the contents of any barn with a hand-painted sign outside that said SALE.

Even though it was fraught with "incidents" (I have told you, I'm a tough customer) there were many wonderful things that I gathered along that trip, all the pieces I found during that car ride from town to town, place to place, while we drove along, playing at being married.  Filling the trunk of the car with one find after the next — including a metal shoe last similar to the one pictured here.  My grandfather was a shoemaker and the shoe would be put on the last upside down so the shoemaker could nail the nails in the sole. I had a metal last but this one was white and a child-sized last, so I was thrilled to uncover it.

It was in one of those barns that I found a pair of framed 19th century French magazine illustrations (similar to this one except they were in ornate gold frames) that I bought for my sister.  Along with that (in the attic of the barn) I also found a silk woven black & white portrait of Napoleon to add to Donna's enormous collection of all things Bonaparte.  I considered these three pieces the absolute best gifts for my sister and I couldn't wait to give them to her.  Years later when she had her things appraised, the framed pair of illustrations were valued at $500 and so was the Napoleon — a great return on the $60 I'd spent.  That night my sister called me and asked if I wanted them back!  (Sadly, years later the piece was re-appraised and the silk portrait turned out to be machine-made and was devalued.)

We'd bought a lot, time was running out and I was feeling we'd both spent more than we should.  Whenever I went on a trip like this, I'd record every penny spent in a little, tiny spiral notebook and then add it all up at the end to know what was expended.  So I knew we'd spent our money and we hadn't started back yet. Little things were starting to grate on either of us, I was starting to feel slightly uncomfortable about the upcoming holiday meeting all of Andy's family, being inspected as the possible daughter-in-law, knowing I'd bristle at having to be polite and inquiring and perhaps more than I'd want to be after this vacation.

So the ride south headed to Connecticut I was fussing about something I'd seen and left behind.  It was in a town south of Plattsburgh, maybe in Keeseville or Willsboro, but it was in a sweet shop on the first floor of someone's home where I'd found my child's shoe last.  There I'd seen and lovingly admired a magnificent crazy quilt.  I'd gotten into quilts in the early 70s and while I did have bear's claw, log cabin, sunshine and shadow, and Emma Randolph's wedding ring quilt, I had nothing as glorious as this quilt, made of silks and satins.  I couldn't get over the intricacies of this handmade quilt and the love that went into the hours and hours of stitching it required.  Who could envision such a puzzle of patterns?  Still it was $75 and too much to spend.  I rationalized that silk was a brittle fabric and this quilt had already been patched in a few places where the silk had worn away.  But now that we were driving further and further away, I couldn't stop thinking about it and talking about it.  

Crossing over into Connecticut with me still talking, Andy swerves the car off the road and to a screeching halt.

"That's it.  That's IT.  Not one more word about that quilt.  We're going back." he stated loudly and emphatically.

"WHAT?" I said looking at him like he was crazy.  "We can't go back — it's like two or three hundred miles away!  And then we have to come back!  Andy, we can't go back!"

"WE ARE GOING BACK AND GETTING THAT GODDAMNED QUILT!"  He was mad.  He was smokin' mad and it was all I could do to get him to stop from immediately driving in the opposite direction.  

I thought about my behavior and felt bad.  Tried to convince him we shouldn't got back, I'd get over it.

"NO you won't.  You'll just always remember this trip as the time you left that great quilt behind.  I'm NOT going to listen to that story my whole life.  We are GOING BACK RIGHT NOW."

"Well geez Andy, just let me call and make sure it's still there, that the place is open — it's the day before Thanksgiving, maybe they went away!" I implored him worrying that we'd drive all that way and find no one home.  Fortunately I had their card as I kept the cards from every place we'd been, in case I ever wanted to go back.  We went to a place where there was a pay phone and I made the call.  A man answered the phone.

"Well, she's not here right now.  The missus went up to Plattsburgh to see the sister but she'll be back and we'll be here.  I don't recall the quilt you're talkin' about, but no one's been here buyin' anything."

Three hours later (during the mostly silent drive) after fretting over the road map finally we pulled in to the place and I jumped out of the car, rang the bell and gratefully went inside as soon as she opened the door.

"Well hey there! I thought it might be you when my husband told me you someone called!  I thought it must be that cute little couple from New York!  Now what is it that you came back for sweetheart?" she said sweetly, in her checked dress covered in a white apron as the smell of her Thanksgiving preparations filtered through the room.

For all the incredible things I discovered on that car trip, none was more treasured than the silk and satin crazy quilt that Andy graciously bought for me and long after our lives went in separate directions, still hangs in my home to this day.

 

 

I wanted you to see the details, the beauty and variety of the stitches and the unique markings that define this quilt.  I tried to position these better but I guess they just have a mind of their own...guess they're just crazy.

Here are her initials S-A-F or is P?

Here is her ribbon: Life Member of the 

Washington County Agricultural Society 1910

The American Scene

My collection of The Red Barn plates by Dale Nichols for the department store B. Altman's was gathered over years and years. After the set was complete and all twelve were hanging on my dining room walls, surprisingly, I came across another series of plates from B. Altman's — this time by the artist Adolf Dehn.  Here's a description from a book on Syracuse China:

"In 1952, B. Altman & Company of New York commissioned the American artist Adolph Dehn to create a limited edition set of twelve decorative service plates reproducing, in overglaze decalcomania, a group of his original watercolor paintings called "The American Scene"."

The plates are beautiful.  Each depicting a snapshot of American life — the urban landscape of towering Chicago and the smokestacks of Pittsburgh contrasted by the gentleness of Central Park in New York City and the undeveloped beaches of Florida — the majesty of the Golden Gate Bridge versus the majestic Mount Rainier.

Central Park

Chicago 

Florida

Golden Gate Bridge

            

Mount Rainier

Pittsburgh

Lighthouse, Maine

New England Winter

A sleepy New England village blanketed by snow contrasted by the ocean crashing against the rocky coastline of Maine.

And the sprawling ranch of the west versus the iconic American farm of the midwest both with their tall windmill weathervanes.

Western Ranch

Middle West Farm 

The plates were in a huge former supermarket-turned-antique mart about an hour from our home.  The not-well-lit aisles were lined with flimsy cloth-partitioned booths set-up with table after table of vendors' goods — I could not believe I found another set of plates from B. Altman's!  But as much as I loved them, I quickly walked out of that booth (despite the protests of my husband and kids urging me to get them) because they were too much money.

Then, months later at Christmas, a huge box arrived with my name on it and there inside amidst all the paper packing and bubble-wrap were those twelve plates — a complete set ready to be hung.  It was a tremendous surprise from my sweet husband and soon they too were up on my walls.  Recently I've rehung them and now the image of the southern plantation mansion is juxtaposed with the hard-working, back-breaking cotton pickers in the fields.  

Adolf Dehn beautifully captured the American scene on these plates — but perhaps not all the pictures of American life in the 1940s were so very pretty.

Southern Cotton Fields

Southern Mansion

                                     

Kitchen Art

Though I can't create it, I certainly appreciate it and happily, my life is surrounded by art.  

Looking at a piece of art engages me, fills me, pleasures me.  

While society presses me to question
                                            the acquisition of, 
                                                                     need for, 
                                                                                   interest in,
                                                                                                  obsession with THINGS

I know, I feel what these things give to me and I'm grateful for the joy they bring.  People can disappoint me — the things I have chosen do not.

This is what I see looking out of my kitchen window.

                                                 

           

          And this is what I see to the left...

and this is what I see to the right.

When I walk in to my kitchen, I see beautiful things all around me that draw my eye and pull me in to a place I'm eager to go.  It may be  a place I remember.  It may be someplace I've never been.  It's always entertaining and pleasing to me to see this collection of riches.

  

Many of my things have been found in thrift stores, yard sales, flea markets. But not all.   The decorative garden signs on the side of my frig, I found in a garden shop (on sale of course) and the leaf magnets they're hanging from I bought years and years and years ago at a huge sample sale that my sister took me to in California.  

The bear and the Wyandotte hen (thank you Hylla!) are finely painted, very thin metal pieces with a tiny hole for hanging. I found a cheap frame with an existing double mat and parked these critters on top, allowing them to step outside their "frames."




Above my stove I have two magnificent linoleum-block prints by the extremely talented Daniel Waters.  I bought this gorgeous pair on Martha's Vineyard in 2011 and the poems he wrote are particularly apropos this time of year. [I hope you can forgive my poor photos and read them.]

I love to cook and what makes cooking even better is being surrounded by all these wonderfully beautiful things in my kitchen — and — I haven't shown you the half of them!  SO...what's on your kitchen walls?

This is what I see 
when I turn around.

More about this collection of 
The American Scene plates next time. 

Miss Liberty is holding The Big Apple.
Next to a state-shaped ashtray of Ohio.