The little treasure box

It's very easy to get excited when I find something handmade.

Something unique and unusual, such as this wood and metal, oval treasure box which I found at a yard sale back in Wisconsin.

At least that's what I call it.

Even though it contains no gold doubloons or sparkling gems - in fact it’s empty -  it's still a treasure. An odd little box with it’s odd, little lock.

Whimsical and mysterious.

Playful, but a wee bit serious.

And altogether marvelous.

Light of Day

The following short story was inspired by the hauntingly beautiful winter scene pictured. I found this small, 4 x 6, unsigned, pen and ink on paper at a barn sale in Wisconsin many years ago. It remains one of my very favorite pieces.

Katie keeps the meager fire burning in the small cottage at the edge of the woods, watching her mother twist and turn. Hearing her quietly moan.

Looking around the cabin, she’s desperate for something to do - some way to be useful. But all’s been done in the last two days since the contractions began. So all there is to do is be there when her mother calls, and wait.

Motionless at the kitchen window, she watches the rising sun slowly define the intricate silhouettes of the barren trees behind the barn. 

What will the new light bring?

But she’s exhausted and the light is dim.

Wiping away the frost and the fog with the apron she’s been wringing in her small hands, Katie watches her father through the kitchen window as he prepares the wagon to fetch the midwife from town. 

Hitching the horses in the pale light of the lantern, she marvels at his ease and compassion. Patting each on theirs rumps and their necks, and rubbing their broad, long noses, he gently rouses his team to their unexpected task.

Clouds of breath rise from their nostrils and disappear into the cold and still of the mid-winter’s morning, as he moves swiftly around the massive beasts, laying the harness as he has hunderds of times before. With bridles slung over each shoulder, he warms both metal bits beneath his thick coat before putting it in their mouths; and for his daily thoughtfulness, each horse lowers his high, heavy head toward him when he holds out their bridle.

Katie smiles.

Until another moan comes from behind and she’s at the side of the bed before the contraction ends and her mom can see again. Gently wiping her brow with the apron, she squeezes tight when her mother grabs hold of her hand and clutches it to her chest.

Smiling again when her mother turns toward her.

Opening her eyes to her daughter, no pain can blur the struggle she sees in her young heart and old hands. She wants to hold her, to hug her tight and tell her everything will be well, but another bolt of pain seizes her thoughts and intents, and she releases her daughter’s hand, clutching the bedsheets instead.

Twice the dawn has come and gone and still the little one is all turned around and stubborn to leave. But I’m stubborn too, she repeats as she squeezes. And the midwife will be here soon.

Pacing the room, Katie hears a horse whiny and looks through the glass and the ice to see the foggy figure of her father climb to his seat, lift his collar against the cold, and call to his team. Running out the door, to the edge of the yard, she watches her father disappear into the expanding light. 

The horses’ hooves and wagon wheels crush the thin, icy layer that’s formed on top of yesterday’s heavy, wet snowfall, and the sounds of the departing wagon cut through the silence, the winter and the morning, like a tear in the universe.

His universe.

His happy home.

“Click-click,” he urges his horses, while urging himself to peace; to steady his breathing and steady their pace. 

All will be fine. She’s a strong woman. Far stronger than me.

“And what would she say of this mood beyond hope?” he calls to his team, resting his eyes on the road up ahead, as the dim and grey of the dawning, winter day becomes brighter and whiter with the strengthening light.

Beulah Jewell Folk Draft Horse

Beulah Jewell, found handwritten on business card of Haskell Jewell, Sr., Woodcarver, taped to bottom.

When I find a piece of homemade folk art like this Oh So Happy draft horse, I rejoice.

I rejoice in the fact that it is as unique as the individual who created it. 

As unique as their thoughts, their lives, their dreams, and the view from their window.

 

The Power of the Press

a Chicago Sun-Times printing plate of Jacob Burck's editorial cartoon, "Impeachment", 1973-74

I found these two Chicago Sun-Times printing plates (c. early 1970s) at a local thrift just last year and knew almost immediately there had to be a story behind them. I soon discovered that both Nixon-era political cartoons were created by painter, sculptor and nationally syndicated editorial cartoonist, Jacob Burck. 

Burck, who began to create political cartoons in the late 1920s, not only influenced a generation of cartoonists with his signature style of using ink brushes, grease pencils and lithograph crayons, he also won a Pulitzer Prize in 1941 for his moving cartoon for the Chicago Daily News of a little girl kneeling bedside in prayer, in a bombed building in war-torn Europe, entitled  "If I Should Die Before I Wake." 

An outspoken critic of social injustices, politicians and pretenders, the Polish-born artist would challenge newspaper audiences from coast to coast, for over 40 years. 

In my research, I read that Nixon was a great admirer of Burck's art and collected it. However, the impeachment scene above and the one which follows, depicting life at Nixon's "West Coast White House" in San Clemente, California - where money apparently grows on (palm) trees - suggests the artist did not reciprocate.

In finding historical relics such as these, I am constantly reminded of how much our pasts, presents and futures are eternally connected by opposing forces - good vs. evil, have vs. have nots, us vs. them; the old world and ways vs. the new.

A recent quote I read by "The Onion" sums it up beautifully: 

"History sighs. Repeats itself."

Chicago Sun-Times printing plate of Jacob Burck's editorial cartoon lampooning Nixon, early 1970s.

A Comfortable Allegiance

"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

~as originally written by Francis Bellamy, a Chrisitian Socialist Minister, in 1892

Frozen in Time

I'm immediately drawn to certain objects. Especially ones which lead me to ask a lot of questions about how it came to be - or not, such as the unfinished hook rug pictured. Still on its frame, still pinned and eternally poised to be completed, I saw it in a local thrift and was compelled to give it purpose - if just a moment's notice by a contemporary passerby.

After all, many years ago (I'm guessing 1940s-50s) someone sat before this stretch of burlap, carefully sketching all the pretty, pink peonies and bright, green leaves, and when the oval pattern was complete, she painstakingly pulled her short, looped yarn through the loosely woven fabric time and time and time again. Slowly and skillfully raising the hook flowers from their burlap garden bed.

I took a class in hook rug making years ago with my cousin, Mary, at Old World Wisconsin, an outdoor living history museum in Eagle, near where we used to live. So when I came upon this relic from some relative's attic, I well knew it was begun by someone quite accomplished with a latch hook.

So why did she stop? 

Heartache? 

Illness? 

Death?

I guess it doesn't really matter.

To me, it's still something to admire - stains and all - because all those years ago, someone sat down in front of this canvas and started to make something beautiful.

1920s My Whoopee Autograph/Photo Book

Following decades of cultural austerity and industrial growth, as well as the atrocities and devastation of a World War, the 1920s were ripe for change. The younger generations wanted no more of their parents' prim and proper path. So, they threw off their ancestral layers of modesty and decency, raised their hemlines and hairlines, listened to jazz, drank, danced and whooped it up as if they knew exactly what lean days lay ahead.  

And Hollywood led the way for change, bringing larger than life characters to screen: vamps, tramps, sheiks, dukes and dandies, allowing moviegoers an escape from their everyday lives, as well as a template for how to look and behave in this new, young, free and easy era.

All they had to was pay the price of admission, find a seat, and off they travelled to ages past, faraway lands and futuristic worlds, to mansions of the rich and the trenches of soldiers.

Famed and familiar storybooks suddenly came to life with swashbucklers and maidens, villains and queens; and extravagant follies once reserved for the main stages of big cities, soon flashed and glistened each week at the new cinema down main street; filling the screen with color and movement, song and dance, with pretty girls dressed in very little making human kaleidoscopes and handsome men in top hats and tails, swooning and crooning. Filling the senses of the young and the old with visions the likes of which most had only imagined before.

Audiences gleefully hopped on board the Hollywood train and headed off each week to exotic destinations with erotic characters, imagining themselves in the arms of their favorite movie star - be it Clara Bow, or Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Ronald Coleman, or the incomparable Rudolph Valentino. 

And when it wasn't adventure and romance the film audience was seeking, Hollywood obliged. After all, who couldn't laugh at a good ol' pie in the face, or high speed, Keystone Cop chase?

What better little object to reflect this golden era in American Culture and filmmaking than My Little Whoopee Book?

Godey's Lady's Book, 1874

Even though Louis A. Godey was the Philadelphia magazine's publisher for nearly half a century, it was Sarah Josepha Hale, its visionary editor from 1837 until 1877, who made Godey's Lady's Book a deeply ingrained part of our culture, as well as a strong voice for 19th century women across America.

Adamant about his popular ladies' journal remaining absolutely apolitical, Godey lost nearly a third of its subscribers when it failed to offer news of the Civil War. But Hale, his loyal editor, made sure she still used its pages to educate and inform. Especially to raise the awareness of women.

Godey's Lady's Book promoted women in the workplace and women in academics, offering tips on skills, such as writing techniques. Hale also put out several issues featuring only female contributors and strongly asserted in the journal and supported in her personal life the concept that women deserved to be treated equally and should be given the chance to become vital parts of American society - outside the household. 

Even the list of writers she hired to fill pages each issue reflected her desire for women to expand their opportunities by expanding minds. It reads like an English class compendium. To name a few: Edgar Allen Poe, Harriet Beecher StoweNathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving and Frances Hodgson Burnett. You'll even know the work of Hale, herself, who wrote Mary Had a Little Lamb.

Yet Hale knew the importance of both, so the journal also taught women household skills such cooking and dress-making, offered sheet music for entertaining and an incredibly detailed insight into the changing fashions of the time.

Hale's influence wasn't just over women, she led the charge to make Thanksgiving a national holiday (and included in the magazine recipes now considered the culinary mainstay of the holiday, including roast turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie). 

In addition, as a big fan of Queen Victoria, Hale also promoted white for wedding dresses (as Victoria, herself, had worn in 1840) and, in the 1860s, copied a woodcut of the queen and her family sitting in front of their Christmas tree and - removing a tiara and a mustache from the famed couple - turned the royals into the folks next door. By the 1870s, the decorated Christmas tree had become a common sight in the American household.

The images below are women's and girls' fashions from an 1874 edition of Godey's Lady's Book ... and a little sheet music. 

A Century of Progress, Chicago 1933

One of the very first things I started collecting back in Wisconsin was cookbooks. Not only because both my husband, Kurt, and I love to cook (and he’s eternally grateful for having me as his culinary mentor), but because inside, the recipes are often a remarkble reflection of the times - of economic booms and war-time rations, agrarian-driven pasts and the indutrial presents and futures.

The foibles and follies of limitless generations of Foodies was an added bonus. So were the occasional design gems, such as this luscious 1933 promotional booklet the Durkee Famous Sauce Company gave to its visitors at A Century of Progress in Chicago. It’s bright colors sang to me from a crammed, old cardboard box in the corner of an dusty, dilapidated farmhand’s bunkhouse.

By the time A Century of Progress closed its doors in autumn of 1934 (held over another year due to its popularity), nearly 39 million people had visited what that generation’s future was to look like - and being smack-dab in the middle of The Great Depression, designers and innovators made damn sure the future looked bright.

And that everyone kept their eyes looking forward.

The motto of A Century of Progress was “Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Adapts.”

The predominate focus of the international expostion was on modern visionaries who would pave the way to better times; and the sleek, stream-lined Art Deco designs of the 1930s - with its polished world of curves and color, luxury and modernity - were ideal for helping visitors to the Chicago fair step into “tomorrow”. And, for me, this small booklet captures it all.

Lost Words

unsigned impressionist-style landscape

Sadly, I had just finished a poem inspired by this piece when something went terribly wrong and I lost it.  I tried to find the words again. But they're gone. As is my desire to recapture the moment.

Mustn't dwell.

Must simply dry my tears and move on.

Enjoy this very lovely, dark and moody landscape.

The Thrill of the Hunt

unsigned southwestern landscape

Southwestern landscapes offer endless inspiration to those willing to pause a while in order to witness the morphing scenery which gradually changes its palette and your focus with each passing hour and every new season. 

The more time I've spent on the rough, old porches of our hilltop house overlooking Table Top Mesa and Granite Mountain to the south, Chino Valley and Mingus Mountains to the east and San Francisco Peaks and the Mogollon Rim further north, the more I understand why art bins in local thrifts and stalls at local art fairs are filled with attempts to capture the splendor of the vast and diverse, Western horizon.

Most of the art I've pulled from the bins, boxes and shelves over the years has been speedily returned to them, but occasionally I come across a piece that catches my breath and utterly delights me.

Inspiring me to hunt for treasures again and again. 

The unsigned landscape above, which I feel so perfectly reflects the light and layers of southwestern vista, is one such example.

I'm happy to say that this painting found a new place to hang when our Airbnb guests (and wonderful, new friends) fell in love with the it. Just as I had. It now hangs on a wall at the opposite ends of the world from where it was created, in Brooklyn, New York.

Open Gates, a short story inspired by Elsie Croson's southwestern landscape

southwestern landscape, signed Elsie Croson

I told him to check the gate before he left the paddock.

But, as usual, the damn fool couldn't listen and walk at the same time and now I'm the one running through the damn desert looking for two, damn horses, with about half an hour of daylight left.

"GOD DAMN IT!"

Doesn't help they both have full bellies and were restless. I'm surprised, though, they usually don't wander much further than the nearest bunch of grass or hay bale... 

Can't say I blame them. This is my favorite time to be out here, with the sun dipping, the temperature cooling, and the Sonoran dusk painting everything in soft, warm colors of remarkable depth and variety. Turning the wicked and prickly and choked landscape of the mid-day sun, into something not longer intimidating but inspiring in its dimension and pacifying in its complexion. I love the desert. 

Just not when I'm chasing after fucking horses.

Can't see a damn thing from down here, I have to go higher - climb the rocks on the other side of the wash. Damn it, I hope they haven't gotten themselves into trouble. Horses have a nose for that shit. They can tear themselves up good hightailing it through these parts. Hell, they can rip themselves open just messing around in the corral. Stupid beasts.

I don't know who to be more mad at - them, HIM... or me. 

I knew this would never work, but I kept insisting - PROMISING - that it was going to be a new start for everybody - even though I was full of shit each time I said it. Now, every day I see the resentment grow darker in his eyes - those beautiful eyes that used to offer such strength and comfort. 

He can hardly look at me anymore. And when he does, all I see in them is that he's long gone. 

Far away.

Like the touch of his hand.

His smile.

I hoped it would be different, that he'd grow to love it here, away from the things that made him unhappy. But the fact is... I seem to be the thing that's making him the unhappiest. I know it. He knows it. We just can't seem to admit it to each other... I don't know why... maybe because it means being alone? 

Again.

But I've never felt more lonely. The winds offer more solace than his troubled presence. So why am I so desperate to hold onto something - to someone - who desperately needs me to let go? To let go. 

The problem is, who goes first?

"There you are, you little devils! Yeah, YOU! I'm talking to you two! Enjoying the little outing, are we?! Please, PLEASE stay put you big, hairy beasts, 'til I reach you."

If only I could reach him. Help him. Make him happy. But all I can do is love him. And that's simply not enough. At least, not anymore. I know that now. 

He's restless - like the horses - and I just need to open the gate and let him go. No chasing after him like a damn fool. 

"Look what I have boys... treats! That's right, buddy, a big, yummy treat. Just let me slip this around your neck, and - gotcha, my little runaway... And one for you. Atta boy! That's it, fellas. Follow me. Time to go home."

Time to go home. 

Time to close one gate and open another.

1929 edition of Penguin Island by Anatole France, illustrated by Frank Pape

The son of a Paris book merchant, Jacques Anatole (1844-1924; pen name, Anatole France) began his life surrounded by the world's greatest storytellers. So it's little wonder he became a formidable storyteller and novelist, as well as a Nobel Prize winner.

A French Classicist through and through, Anatole's works reflect the polished irreverance and "enlightened" indulgences of the time and would, by his death in 1924, encompass every genre. 

First published in 1908, Penguin Island, is a strange tale of a fictitious island inhabited by great auks and a mostly blind and deaf Christian monk who ends up baptizing the birds and annoying God, who eventually turns the baptized birds into humans - now with souls, as well as a few remaining avian characteristics. 

Got to be honest with you, I only read bits and pieces of this very odd tale, but I've devoured the images over and over and over again.

When I first came across this handsome 1929 edition in a local thrift and opened its worn, black cover for the first time, I gasped. The numerous and fantabulous illustrations by English artist, Frank Pape, were mind-blowingly cool and I was in book-lover's heaven. 

In the early part of the 20th century, Frank Pape was best known for his children's book illustrations, but following WWI (in which he served), the market changed and the artist soon began to gain employment and success illustrating books such as Penguin Island, for more mature audiences. Pape would continue illustrating until his badly deteriorating eyesight made the task very difficult by the end of the1950s. In 1968, his last commissioned illustrations of Robinson Crusoe were published by Oxford University.

Several months back, I gave this book to a friend and artist who was so enthralled by it that I had little choice... it needed to be passed on to another great admirer. I hope Pape's incredible imagination offer endless inspiration, just as it to does for me as the backdrop for this blog.