Thinking About Layers

I think that I have finished Goin’ Visitin’ (you can read the accompanying description on the projects page). I’m really trying to push my Ps skills in these pieces. I’m also trying to fully explore this idea of a geobiography. How can you represent it visually?

I pulled into this portrait many references that anyone who knew Virgie well as well as faint references to the Stecoah Township in the 1980s. Stecoah has always had such a strong community identity. I’ve been thinking about why that might have been and how I might express those in words. But it has something to do with layers. Stories and memories layered overtop of landmarks, trails and fields. Walking the same worn path from the back porch to the garden or down to the spring that had been used for years. Life was lived in layers.

Virgie was one of the brighter personalities and was known far and wide - you can see it in her expression, right?

You might also be able to tell if you look closely that I landed on included the book of Ruth as the text layer in this piece. I chose this portion because Virgie left home at the age of fifteen to marry a much older man. There were just echoes there that I wanted to capture.

Compositionally there were some challenges in the way the images were divided. The quilt square creates such a distinct line. Initially I brought in the grid of the screen porch scaled up to fill in that space and then a layer of the polka dotted shirt large over top of that. The blend layers created some interesting coloring choices in her shirt that I liked and decided to keep but they were isolated in the center of the canvas. I attempted to bring in those colors in the grid section to tie the two sections of the piece together and move the eye around a bit. I think it works - I’ll know better when I return to look at it again in a few days.

Goin' Visitn'

Here is this weekend’s progress on my next portrait:

The Bible page texture is a place holder from the internet until I can get a good scan of my own. I’m considering which book and chapter.

This is Virgie Crisp of Dry Creek which is located within the Stecoah Township. Virgie was known for being able to spit further than any man I ever knew and though her hair was silver turned a cartwheel at the drop of a hat.

Sundays growing up were often reserved for visitin’. After church services and dinner were over the older generation (many who were shut ins) would open their doors or sit out on the porch or even drag a bunch of chairs under the shade tree. The younger generation with children and the ramblers would drive up and down the creeks to visit. Sometimes you would pull up and hang yourself out of the truck window and jaw and sometimes you would get out and sit awhile and occasionally you were invited to stay for supper. We visited Virgie and her husband Bart many Sundays.

I’m not sure if this piece is finished or not - it seems that maybe there is room for something else thought I’m not sure what at the moment.

Hoeing to the Middle

I was writing an email to a friend tonight and it triggered a memory...

I was just reminded of very hot sunny days hoeing the garden (mostly corn and tobacco). The particular memory was one in which Mom, Dad, my brother and I joined in with my Nannie and Papaw J and my Mom's brothers in some very large family fields in Stecoah, NC.

The first rows went so easily (especially since they were short rows in the corner of the garden). You could look back at that block and see something accomplished. But to look out towards all that lay ahead was dizzying. Hoeing those large fields was not always accomplished in a day, and we did only a row at a time each of us working along side the other. Sometimes those who got ahead (mostly Dad and my uncles) would finish their row and begin on one of our rows and work backwards to meet those of us who were slower so that we could all catch up for a moment and rest together before continuing on.

In this way it was not discouraging that someone was quicker and better at hoeing than you, but you were encouraged and kept going. May we work side by side and when one lags behind finish your own row and step over and hoe to the middle so that we may all stop and catch our breath and give thanks for what has been done and be encouraged to hoe on!

In Defense of Mom or A Busy Kitchen and a Cold Hearth

(slightly edited from my original blog)

After my previous post, I feel that I need to write a post in defense of Mom!

My frustration with the way I learned to ‘not’ clean the kitchen (by procrastinating) is just a part of my own struggle with procrastination. There certainly weren’t many times that I did it without being asked or told until I was much older – like when I came home from college and was happy to be in any kitchen at all (or when I felt guilty when Mom was sick or taking her finals)! Mom has told me a story several times that I treasure.

She was sitting in a chair with me on one knee and my brother on the other reading us a book when her Mom came to visit. Nannie J made a comment about it being nearly lunch time and the beds were all still unmade. Mom told her that her babies were growing every day, and that after they were grown there would be plenty of time to make the beds. I'm glad cleaning the kitchen wasn’t a top priority for her, but our life together changed when both my brother and I went to school and she went to work, then to college, and then began teaching.

I can remember many things from when I was very young and Mom was home with us - or we were home with her...

Some of them are my own memories, and some of them I remember from stories and pictures. It’s hard to explain the difference that happened when we went to school and she went to work,. It just seems it wasn’t so much a life centered around our home and land as it was when I was very young – and maybe my world just got bigger… When I was actually ‘learning’ to keep house by doing it (or not - by procrastinating as I was saying before) it’s was in a family that all went to school and work and came home. Our house was empty all day long. That doesn’t sound too odd for people nowadays, but the following story will show you how different if feels.

In the winter our home was heated completely by wood heat, so the fire would need to be fed all day long. Dad would bank the fire at night and get up very early before anyone else did and stir it up before he did his chores, so in the morning the house was already getting warm. The first place I would go every morning was to stand or sit on the hearth. During the winters after Mom began working and my brother and I were in school (after we were old enough to get off the bus at our house rather than the sitters) we would come home to a very cold house.

I would open the door expecting to feel the warmth of the fire and there was nothing, it was just cold. That was when I realized that our house had been empty all day. Our house now is hardly ever empty – there’s almost always some combination of us here. My kitchen has to function different than Mom's did. The way I learned to function in a kitchen hasn’t been working for me. It has taken me 10 slow years to figure that out! Now I'm trying to dredge up those early memories of when we were very little and all home - how did the kitchen function then when it wasn't me in charge of getting it clean?! Mom, if you read this sometime you can help me out!

Turn Dreary, Dull Tasks into Pleasures

(slightly edited from my very first blog)

Ok, so I really don't like to clean the kitchen. Rather, once I get started I can dig right in and love the satisfaction of a clean counter, but it's the getting started that I have a problem with! It's been that way since I 'gained' responsibility for cleaning the kitchen when my Mom went back to college. Piles of dishes and greasy pots and pans left till the next day (and sometimes even the day after), no dishwasher, bowls of scraps for the dogs, YUCK!!

Those jobs were overwhelming, and I dreaded and procrastinated to the very last moment- it just wasn't any fun. Growing up I used to contrast our cluttered and serially messy kitchen to my Nannie J’s spotless, glowing kitchen. It positively sparkled. But when we ate dinner there it was a hurry up and come to the table, finish your last bite, and whisk away the plates to be washed kind of experience. There was no lingering at the table and the dishes absolutely could not wait. That really wasn't very pleasant either. It was clean, but left something to be desired and I understand why Mom left that way of cleaning the kitchen behind.

When I came to college and moved to Charlotte I ate at least once a week with my other grandmother, Nannie D who I only saw several times a year as a child. At the time my Mamaw was also still living. We had wonderful dinners. (This is lunch for most all of you, – we have supper while you are having dinner.) Conversation at the table lingered, the table was cleaned off so your eye and stomach can rest, and then the conversation usually moved into the living room before any attention is given to cleaning the kitchen – the dishes can most certainly wait! They are attended to, normally with everyone pitching in together sorting, washing, rinsing, putting away leftovers (which is another difference - Nannie J throws away a lot of food while Nannie D saves even the tiniest portion) and wiping down the counters. Conversation and laughter continue the whole time. I remember a couple of days when we were all laughing so hard that we began laughing at each other laughing and just had to go sit down for a bit until we could make another attempt.

I have been reflecting on these two different styles of homemaking recently after reading parts of the book Home Comfort by Cheryl Mendelson that I found out about on Kelly's blog. Mendelson begins the book by talking about the different housekeeping styles of her grandmothers, and how she has selected from each of their styles to create her own. These thoughts about homes and houses and housekeeping have been playing in the back of my mind for weeks because I've been reading Home Comfort, House Thinking, The Not So Big House books, and Wind in the Willows. Then I ran out of dish detergent. I know that sentence is a jolt, but I found myself in the detergent aisle picking up yet another bottle of Dawn because it get's the job done, is 'tough on grease', etc. It's what Mom used, it's what Nannie J used, and it is attached to the 'Ugh' memories of dishwashing for me.

Then, with all of those housekeeping ideas in the back of my mind I had a sudden inspiration to pick up a bottle of Palmolive instead - you guessed it, it's what Nannie D uses in her kitchen. I came home, ran a wonderfully scented sink full of hot, sudsy water and washed away. The smell even triggered a memory of Nannie D teaching me how to wash the dishes - what things to wash first and how to fill the dish drainer. All week I've smelled and smiled my way to a cleaner kitchen, and I'm seriously thinking about getting a dish drainer!