Some of you will remember a previous column where I described my granddaughter Wren’s first ballet recital. Remember the distracting feather? Last weekend, I attended her second recital. Just as before the first recital, her mother insisted this was her last performance. Dance lessons were too expensive and took too much time. She was not going to be enrolled in dance next season.
Wren is four years old. The recital was held at the Viterbo Fine Arts Center in La Crosse and it was a full house. The recital began at 7 p.m. and ended at 10 p.m. Wren’s part in the event lasted about three minutes.
As I sat in the audience, watching other people’s children perform their segments, part of me was bored. Each dance looked like the previous one, with different costumes. If you’ve ever been to a ballet recital, you know it is not exactly fine art. Polina Semionova or Fernando Bujones were not featured. However, the better side of me realized that each dancer on the stage was someone else’s Wren. Each dancer had a mother or father, grandparents and friends sitting on the edge of their seat in anticipation of their child’s moment in the spotlight, just as I was.
When I remembered this, I began to see the performances in a new light.
One dance I will always remember was called Daddies and Daughters. About 20 fathers entered the stage wearing black pants, white shirts and black ties. They were from nearly every walk of life, some tall, some short, some wide, some narrow, some balding, others young. From stage left emerged daughters from grade school to seniors to meet their daddies and dance. The easy choreography was set to a country song about a daughter growing up.
Some daughters were young and needed daddy’s help with the steps. Others were older and helped their father make it through. The look of pride the fathers held for their daughters, and the daughters held for their daddies, brought tears to my eyes. And I wasn’t the only one in the audience drying my eyes.
Finally, the moment came and Wren’s group stepped onto the stage wearing pink ballerina costumes and holding matching teddy bears. My eyes were glued to Wren, who tried very hard to remember her steps. I heard the rest of the audience laughing and looked down the line of ballerinas to see what was the cause. At the end of the line was one boy dancer, in a battle with the girl next to him over a teddy bear. The battle began to escalate and a teacher came on stage. She lifted the boy under the arms and placed him between two other dancers, distancing him from the girl whose teddy bear he coveted. The teacher exited stage left and the dance continued.
It’s always something, but at least this time it wasn’t a feather.
Though Wren didn’t do all of her dance steps, her time was to come at the finale. During the finale, all of the dancers come back on stage for a group dance. The smallest dancers were in front, and Wren was front and center, right behind the teacher. This was enough incentive for Wren to dance up a storm, still holding her teddy bear. When she noticed her father and grandpa in the fourth row of the audience, Wren tried to run off stage to greet them, but was captured by a teacher and returned to the chorus line.
When you are four years old, it doesn’t matter what kind of performance you gave, you still get roses like any star ballerina.
In the car on the way home, we reviewed the performance. I mentioned my favorite dance was the Daddy and Daughter dance. I said I imagined Wren and her daddy up there with the rest of the dancers.
“I know,” said Wren’s mother. “Wren said she wanted to do it next time. Now, I have to keep her in dance class so she can do that dance with her dad.”
To be continued ... next year.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Generations of change remain the same
My grandmother was born in 1900 and passed away in 1998. I’ve often thought about those 98 years of my grandmother’s life and the many things she went through. She was born into a time of women’s suffrage, survived two world wars, various other wars, the great depression, the invention of nuclear weapons and energy, the telephone, radio and television, and the dawning of the computer age.
I was born in 1957. I remember racial riots, women’s liberation, putting men on the moon, Vietnam, economic booms and busts, global warming and constant inflation, walls crumbling and the first black president of the United States. And that’s only been the first 54 years.
My grandmother didn’t have a Facebook page and she never sent a tweet. She walked to the post office every day to get her mail and the latest news. She corresponded in writing with friends and relatives across the country and in Norway.
I have a Facebook page, a blog and email. I rarely send written letters, but I get email from friends in Europe and Japan.
My grandmother attended community events where she heard local people playing the music of the time. She had an old record player and a radio to listen to music and she visited the library for books and magazines.
I have two mp3 players, a Kindle and three computers. I have access to music from around the world and 3,500 books that I can carry with me wherever I go.
My grandmother started with horse drawn transportation. I have a photo she took on the farm of her horse Big King. She never had a drivers license and I don’t think she ever set foot in an airplane.
My horses are for recreation. I drive a car nearly every day, and am comfortable being lifted into the sky by a metal box and transported to another country. I won’t be surprised if transporter beams out of Star Trek are invented in my lifetime.
You can say that my life is very different from my grandmothers. And yet, I see similarities. So far, we’ve both lived through ages of transition and technological advances, wars, and economic ups and downs. And there are simple things that remain constant.
Living with horses, reading books, listening to music, visiting with friends, are all things my grandmother’s life and mine have in common.
My grandmother liked to do handwork, sewing and embroidery. I like to knit, sew, spin and weave. My grandmother liked to bake coffee cakes and cookies. I like to bake banana bread and chocolate chip cookies. My grandmother enjoyed tending to the flowers around her house and maintained a garden. I like to plant a garden and watch the hollyhocks bloom alongside the house.
My grandmother carried a basket wherever she went. I still have two of grandma’s baskets. In my house baskets hold my knitting, yarn, books, CDs, and kitchen utensils. I carry a basket to work with me containing my purse, my lunch, and whatever other things I need that day.
Hopefully I’ll have another 40 or 50 years to experience this life. I plan to be riding a horse when I’m 90. And no matter how much technology changes, I plan to remember those simple things I have in common with my grandmother. The smell of fresh mowed grass, the feel of sunshine on my face, creating beauty, good music and a good book, and the love of a good horse.
I was born in 1957. I remember racial riots, women’s liberation, putting men on the moon, Vietnam, economic booms and busts, global warming and constant inflation, walls crumbling and the first black president of the United States. And that’s only been the first 54 years.
My grandmother didn’t have a Facebook page and she never sent a tweet. She walked to the post office every day to get her mail and the latest news. She corresponded in writing with friends and relatives across the country and in Norway.
I have a Facebook page, a blog and email. I rarely send written letters, but I get email from friends in Europe and Japan.
My grandmother attended community events where she heard local people playing the music of the time. She had an old record player and a radio to listen to music and she visited the library for books and magazines.
I have two mp3 players, a Kindle and three computers. I have access to music from around the world and 3,500 books that I can carry with me wherever I go.
My grandmother started with horse drawn transportation. I have a photo she took on the farm of her horse Big King. She never had a drivers license and I don’t think she ever set foot in an airplane.
My horses are for recreation. I drive a car nearly every day, and am comfortable being lifted into the sky by a metal box and transported to another country. I won’t be surprised if transporter beams out of Star Trek are invented in my lifetime.
You can say that my life is very different from my grandmothers. And yet, I see similarities. So far, we’ve both lived through ages of transition and technological advances, wars, and economic ups and downs. And there are simple things that remain constant.
Living with horses, reading books, listening to music, visiting with friends, are all things my grandmother’s life and mine have in common.
My grandmother liked to do handwork, sewing and embroidery. I like to knit, sew, spin and weave. My grandmother liked to bake coffee cakes and cookies. I like to bake banana bread and chocolate chip cookies. My grandmother enjoyed tending to the flowers around her house and maintained a garden. I like to plant a garden and watch the hollyhocks bloom alongside the house.
My grandmother carried a basket wherever she went. I still have two of grandma’s baskets. In my house baskets hold my knitting, yarn, books, CDs, and kitchen utensils. I carry a basket to work with me containing my purse, my lunch, and whatever other things I need that day.
Hopefully I’ll have another 40 or 50 years to experience this life. I plan to be riding a horse when I’m 90. And no matter how much technology changes, I plan to remember those simple things I have in common with my grandmother. The smell of fresh mowed grass, the feel of sunshine on my face, creating beauty, good music and a good book, and the love of a good horse.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Mining the secrets among the debris
Buying land mid-winter can be tricky. You never know what will reveal itself when the snow melts. Sometimes it is great beauty, sometimes not so great. This time, our new land has quite a few of the not-so-great items revealing themselves.
Old farmland is notorious for having areas that could gently be referred to as ‘antique collections,’ These collections may be in a pile, or left randomly over the land. Ours is both. At our soon to be new home, the antique collections were scattered and left in piles in ravines. Even after the snow is melted, some of these treasures will still be hidden under the years of grasses grown among the remnants of someone else’s life.
Engines, old farm machinery, vintage snowmobiles, parts, tires, and more were discarded over the years.
One unique feature of this land is the burned-out mobile home vacated by the previous owners. It has been a somewhat surreal experience cleaning up this part of the collection of history.
As I stood in what was left of the bathroom, discarding the burned contents of the medicine cabinet, I started to think about the family who lived there before the fire. I realized I was not just throwing away old trash as much as I was removing the story of a family’s loss.
The abandoned combs and brushes, toothpaste, and various hair clips told me it was likely a family rather than a single person. In what is left of the living-room, I could tell they liked country music and had quite a collection of CDs, now melted into their packaging. A bookshelf of charred video cassettes remained, their titles now unreadable. The only book I found is a small copy of “Little House on the Prairie.”
They had a fully-stocked larder of canned goods at the time of the fire, including several cans of Dinty Moore beef stew. The rest of the cans are rusted beyond recognition, their labels charred. Their dishes were a mismatched collection of china and plastic. Though the trailer is now a mess of insulation-covered debris, the remains of a vacumn cleaner and the usual cleaning products under the kitchen sink tell me they tried to keep an orderly household. From the back bedroom, I ascertained that they wore jeans and sweatshirts and liked down pillows. And at least one member of the household did not adhere to the orderly scenario.
A half-full container of cat litter and a bottle of dog shampoo tells me they had pets. A circular saw hints that an occupant liked to work with tools.
From the burn pattern, I can tell the fire started in the livingroom, probably in the wall or near the small woodstove left behind. At least one of the two couches in the livingroom appears to have been a hide-a-bed. Perhaps the family had frequent visitors.
What is not left tells as much as what is. There are no crystal chandeliers, no piano, no crib or baby bottles, and no computer. We found several destroyed television sets and the remains of video game accessories. This was a family who lived on a moderate income, yet could afford food and a few extras.
Why was the mobile home left and not removed by the family? I’ll probably never know, but the expense of bringing in a dumpster and finding ways to dispose of the appliances and possible hazardous waste buried under the pile was a factor in what we offered for the property. Maybe it was a factor for the family, too. Perhaps they didn’t have insurance or the physical ability to remove the trash.
Perhaps after suffering this loss, they didn’t have the emotional capacity to look the fire in the eye. As I toss out what is left, piece by piece, I pray the family was not physically harmed by the fire and that Fido and Mouser were saved. It’s hard to imagine that having your home destroyed would not leave some emotional harm, and I hope the family has been able to rebuild their life in the years since this tragedy happened.
For my husband and I, buying this home is a challenge of recovery. We will renovate the existing house and wonder what happy celebrations occurred in the spacious kitchen, and what were they thinking when they painted the bedroom purple? I’ll look at the face of the unidentified soldier in the photo I found in a closet and hope he made it back from his experience in the military to enjoy home-cooked meals on the wheat-designed dishes gently packed away in a box in the upstairs bedroom.
We will wade through the ‘antique collections’ and other debris and find the spirit and beauty of the land once more. And I’ll gaze out my new kitchen window at the expanse of fields between us and the Penokee Mountain range and remember the ancestors who came to this land, built homes and farms, and have now moved on.
Old farmland is notorious for having areas that could gently be referred to as ‘antique collections,’ These collections may be in a pile, or left randomly over the land. Ours is both. At our soon to be new home, the antique collections were scattered and left in piles in ravines. Even after the snow is melted, some of these treasures will still be hidden under the years of grasses grown among the remnants of someone else’s life.
Engines, old farm machinery, vintage snowmobiles, parts, tires, and more were discarded over the years.
One unique feature of this land is the burned-out mobile home vacated by the previous owners. It has been a somewhat surreal experience cleaning up this part of the collection of history.
As I stood in what was left of the bathroom, discarding the burned contents of the medicine cabinet, I started to think about the family who lived there before the fire. I realized I was not just throwing away old trash as much as I was removing the story of a family’s loss.
The abandoned combs and brushes, toothpaste, and various hair clips told me it was likely a family rather than a single person. In what is left of the living-room, I could tell they liked country music and had quite a collection of CDs, now melted into their packaging. A bookshelf of charred video cassettes remained, their titles now unreadable. The only book I found is a small copy of “Little House on the Prairie.”
They had a fully-stocked larder of canned goods at the time of the fire, including several cans of Dinty Moore beef stew. The rest of the cans are rusted beyond recognition, their labels charred. Their dishes were a mismatched collection of china and plastic. Though the trailer is now a mess of insulation-covered debris, the remains of a vacumn cleaner and the usual cleaning products under the kitchen sink tell me they tried to keep an orderly household. From the back bedroom, I ascertained that they wore jeans and sweatshirts and liked down pillows. And at least one member of the household did not adhere to the orderly scenario.
A half-full container of cat litter and a bottle of dog shampoo tells me they had pets. A circular saw hints that an occupant liked to work with tools.
From the burn pattern, I can tell the fire started in the livingroom, probably in the wall or near the small woodstove left behind. At least one of the two couches in the livingroom appears to have been a hide-a-bed. Perhaps the family had frequent visitors.
What is not left tells as much as what is. There are no crystal chandeliers, no piano, no crib or baby bottles, and no computer. We found several destroyed television sets and the remains of video game accessories. This was a family who lived on a moderate income, yet could afford food and a few extras.
Why was the mobile home left and not removed by the family? I’ll probably never know, but the expense of bringing in a dumpster and finding ways to dispose of the appliances and possible hazardous waste buried under the pile was a factor in what we offered for the property. Maybe it was a factor for the family, too. Perhaps they didn’t have insurance or the physical ability to remove the trash.
Perhaps after suffering this loss, they didn’t have the emotional capacity to look the fire in the eye. As I toss out what is left, piece by piece, I pray the family was not physically harmed by the fire and that Fido and Mouser were saved. It’s hard to imagine that having your home destroyed would not leave some emotional harm, and I hope the family has been able to rebuild their life in the years since this tragedy happened.
For my husband and I, buying this home is a challenge of recovery. We will renovate the existing house and wonder what happy celebrations occurred in the spacious kitchen, and what were they thinking when they painted the bedroom purple? I’ll look at the face of the unidentified soldier in the photo I found in a closet and hope he made it back from his experience in the military to enjoy home-cooked meals on the wheat-designed dishes gently packed away in a box in the upstairs bedroom.
We will wade through the ‘antique collections’ and other debris and find the spirit and beauty of the land once more. And I’ll gaze out my new kitchen window at the expanse of fields between us and the Penokee Mountain range and remember the ancestors who came to this land, built homes and farms, and have now moved on.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Old barns and haylofts
I’ve had the good fortune to spend considerable time in haylofts, some sizable, others sparse. There are as many different shapes and sizes of haylofts as there are old country barns. Still, most hay lofts have certain things in common.
Hay lofts smell the best in late summer when the fresh baled harvest of the year is piled high. It is the verdant smell of a season of sunshine, rain, breezes and mother earth leaking out the cut ends of each blade of grass. If you sit in a hay loft in mid-winter, there is still a lingering of those elements, mingled with the fine dust of old barn boards and gravel roads.
Hay lofts are not a place for the feint-of-heart. Old barn boards get creaky, announcing their age with every step. Knots fall out of pine floor boards, allowing rays of light to peak through. Old machinery, such as rusted elevators, hides in the recesses and dark corners.
Hay lofts are attractive places for the wild members of the farm family. Raccoons have been known to rear their young nestled between bales. Young pigeons take their first flight practice over the mounds of hay. And barn cats lie in wait to challenge intruders large and small.
I’ve been in hay lofts in early spring when most of the year’s hay has been consumed. Spring hay lofts are spacious and airy. There’s a feel of expectation for the arrival of the coming crop. I’ve been in hay lofts in mid-summer when the sounds are of young boys calling to each other as new bales are stacked, and the smell is the sweat of old men trying to keep up.
I’ve been in haylofts in early fall when the air is crisp and the smell of summer mingles with the falling leaves. One can sit in the doorway resting against a mound of hay and contemplate the changing seasons, sometimes watching the deer pick through the last morsels in the far-off fields. I’ve been in hay lofts where the smell of mold and decay represent the ghosts of a farm long neglected.
At The Equestrian Cooperative, where I am a board member, we don’t have a hay loft. And though we won’t be able to sit on the high perch of the hay loft door, we’ll still be able to enjoy the smells and scenes of a fresh crop of hay stacked and waiting for the horses’ pleasure in our hay storage building. Hopefully, some of that harvest will come from the AERC land; organic hay, maybe even harvested with horse-power.
Hay lofts smell the best in late summer when the fresh baled harvest of the year is piled high. It is the verdant smell of a season of sunshine, rain, breezes and mother earth leaking out the cut ends of each blade of grass. If you sit in a hay loft in mid-winter, there is still a lingering of those elements, mingled with the fine dust of old barn boards and gravel roads.
Hay lofts are not a place for the feint-of-heart. Old barn boards get creaky, announcing their age with every step. Knots fall out of pine floor boards, allowing rays of light to peak through. Old machinery, such as rusted elevators, hides in the recesses and dark corners.
Hay lofts are attractive places for the wild members of the farm family. Raccoons have been known to rear their young nestled between bales. Young pigeons take their first flight practice over the mounds of hay. And barn cats lie in wait to challenge intruders large and small.
I’ve been in hay lofts in early spring when most of the year’s hay has been consumed. Spring hay lofts are spacious and airy. There’s a feel of expectation for the arrival of the coming crop. I’ve been in hay lofts in mid-summer when the sounds are of young boys calling to each other as new bales are stacked, and the smell is the sweat of old men trying to keep up.
I’ve been in haylofts in early fall when the air is crisp and the smell of summer mingles with the falling leaves. One can sit in the doorway resting against a mound of hay and contemplate the changing seasons, sometimes watching the deer pick through the last morsels in the far-off fields. I’ve been in hay lofts where the smell of mold and decay represent the ghosts of a farm long neglected.
At The Equestrian Cooperative, where I am a board member, we don’t have a hay loft. And though we won’t be able to sit on the high perch of the hay loft door, we’ll still be able to enjoy the smells and scenes of a fresh crop of hay stacked and waiting for the horses’ pleasure in our hay storage building. Hopefully, some of that harvest will come from the AERC land; organic hay, maybe even harvested with horse-power.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Spring cleaning: watch for hidden trolls
As spring creeps in, melting snow reveals treasures hidden underneath. Many begin to think about spring cleaning. Those of us who are of Scandinavian descent know to watch for trolls.
After 13 years of having my grandmother’s nativity set on display year-round in my china cabinet, I decided it was time for a change. I rummaged through the upstairs closet and brought out the storage boxes for the set. One box is labeled with the contents and date of purchase of the original set by my grandmother. Over the years, new pieces were added and the set now requires four boxes to hold these treasures.
After affectionately nestling each piece in cotton and quilt batting, I put the boxes back in the closet. Now I was able to bring out the pretty dishes from their 13 year hiatus in the bottom of the cabinet. As I reached my arm far into the back corner, I discovered the trolls.
When I was a small child, one of my favorite toys was my trolls. I still have two of the four-inch high, plastic creatures; one male and one female. When you count their orange hair, they are a good eight inches high. Large ears, full cheeks, and a bulbous nose grace their faces and eyes bigger than a Disney heroine are prominent. Four-fingered hands reach out from short arms, as if ready to give everyone they meet a hug. Four-toed feed on short, stubby legs keep them securely upright, balancing their extended bellies above.
How do you tell a male troll from a female? By their clothing, of course.
My Norwegian grandmother sat at her treadle sewing machine (which I still have) and sewed clothes for our trolls as birthday and Christmas presents. These gifts were usually made from felt, with two holes cut for arms. I know which troll is female because her clothes are decorated with lace or ribbons.
My trolls have been waiting to take their place on display in the cabinet, but they haven’t been idle during those 13 years. I know this because along with them, I pulled out a small baby troll, about an inch high with pink hair and bunny slippers on her feet. Trolls multiply when left unattended.
There are many Scandinavian legends of trolls. Most legends talk of large, hairy creatures hiding under bridges, ready to eat small children who pass overhead. My trolls wouldn’t hurt anyone. I look at their wide, childish smiles and it makes me smile along with them. I spent many hours as a child dressing them, talking to them and having adventures with them. My trolls didn’t live under bridges with wet, rocky beds. My trolls had houses made from cardboard boxes with their own soft beds.
Children today may have fancy electronic games and dolls with digital cards to make them talk, but in my day, we had trolls. We had trolls on top of our pencils, trolls on our notebooks, and hidden in our lunch boxes. We were in charge of creating their lives, the games they played and their vocabulary, which I remember was at about the intelligence of a five year old.
My husband and I will be moving this summer to a new home, so spring cleaning has taken on a different tone for us this year. Packing up what is needed and throwing out what is not is on a larger scale.
When my husband saw me gazing at my troll family, he said, “I guess it’s time to throw those out, huh?”
Horror struck. Throw out my trolls?
“Not on your life,” I said.
There are a few things I may not use daily, but they are still needed. Things like my grandmother’s mixing bowls, her set of sleigh bells, and my trolls.
People may wonder what great age trolls live to be. Mine are currently about 50 years old, and they haven’t changed a bit.
After 13 years of having my grandmother’s nativity set on display year-round in my china cabinet, I decided it was time for a change. I rummaged through the upstairs closet and brought out the storage boxes for the set. One box is labeled with the contents and date of purchase of the original set by my grandmother. Over the years, new pieces were added and the set now requires four boxes to hold these treasures.
After affectionately nestling each piece in cotton and quilt batting, I put the boxes back in the closet. Now I was able to bring out the pretty dishes from their 13 year hiatus in the bottom of the cabinet. As I reached my arm far into the back corner, I discovered the trolls.
When I was a small child, one of my favorite toys was my trolls. I still have two of the four-inch high, plastic creatures; one male and one female. When you count their orange hair, they are a good eight inches high. Large ears, full cheeks, and a bulbous nose grace their faces and eyes bigger than a Disney heroine are prominent. Four-fingered hands reach out from short arms, as if ready to give everyone they meet a hug. Four-toed feed on short, stubby legs keep them securely upright, balancing their extended bellies above.
How do you tell a male troll from a female? By their clothing, of course.
My Norwegian grandmother sat at her treadle sewing machine (which I still have) and sewed clothes for our trolls as birthday and Christmas presents. These gifts were usually made from felt, with two holes cut for arms. I know which troll is female because her clothes are decorated with lace or ribbons.
My trolls have been waiting to take their place on display in the cabinet, but they haven’t been idle during those 13 years. I know this because along with them, I pulled out a small baby troll, about an inch high with pink hair and bunny slippers on her feet. Trolls multiply when left unattended.
There are many Scandinavian legends of trolls. Most legends talk of large, hairy creatures hiding under bridges, ready to eat small children who pass overhead. My trolls wouldn’t hurt anyone. I look at their wide, childish smiles and it makes me smile along with them. I spent many hours as a child dressing them, talking to them and having adventures with them. My trolls didn’t live under bridges with wet, rocky beds. My trolls had houses made from cardboard boxes with their own soft beds.
Children today may have fancy electronic games and dolls with digital cards to make them talk, but in my day, we had trolls. We had trolls on top of our pencils, trolls on our notebooks, and hidden in our lunch boxes. We were in charge of creating their lives, the games they played and their vocabulary, which I remember was at about the intelligence of a five year old.
My husband and I will be moving this summer to a new home, so spring cleaning has taken on a different tone for us this year. Packing up what is needed and throwing out what is not is on a larger scale.
When my husband saw me gazing at my troll family, he said, “I guess it’s time to throw those out, huh?”
Horror struck. Throw out my trolls?
“Not on your life,” I said.
There are a few things I may not use daily, but they are still needed. Things like my grandmother’s mixing bowls, her set of sleigh bells, and my trolls.
People may wonder what great age trolls live to be. Mine are currently about 50 years old, and they haven’t changed a bit.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Breaking the rules; an artistic perogative
There’s some old wisdom that says you first need to learn the rules, then you know which ones you can break.
I wrote a few weeks ago about talking a Navajo weaving class from Laura Berlage at Pine Needles Yarn Shop in Cable. I wrote about the story of spider woman that teaches us not to be perfectionists. I finished my weaving sampler pattern, and it has plenty of mistakes.
That’s the beauty of a ‘sampler.’ It is a sample of many different techniques, so the weaver can learn the rules. I once knit a sampler afghan where each square was by a different designer. I learned a lot of stitches and techniques. Many of them I haven’t used since, but the experience gave me confidence that I could knit from any pattern.
The weaving sampler is a mirror image, meaning the second half is a repeat of the first half. I was working the second half this week and began to break the rules. Instead of doing one row at a time, I was doing one color at a time, then filling in with the next color. It was going along great until I realized I had also changed how I interwove the colors. In fact, I hadn’t interwoven them at all. It wasn’t that I had done something wrong. I merely used a different technique and got a different result.
Here’s where the rules come in. When is it OK to break the rules? My sample is obviously no longer a pure Navajo technique. If it were found in an archeological dig 100 years from now, those in the know would not mistake it for an authentic Navajo weaving. So, did I unweave that section and start over? No.
My theory is, when we know the rules then choose which ones to break, whether it is by accident, as in this case, or deliberately, we are delving into the world of creativity. Art is creativity.
In the words of Ben Thwaits, a teacher with Northwest Passage who was referring to photographs taken by his students in the ‘In a New Light’ exhibit at the Cable Natural History Museum, “Art is something that communicates something emotionally that can’t be communicated in any other way.”
For as long as humans have been creating art, there have been those who were content to mimic artists they admired, and those who took the lessons of the masters and broke the rules to create something individual that expressed their own unique sense of the subject. Were it not for those individuals who stepped across the lines, art would not have evolved into what it is. Art is a creative force. Through their individuality, artists express their world, explore their demons, and sometimes succeed in communicating that world through their art.
We don’t have to go to the big city to see art of incredible talent, art that ‘hits’ us. I am constantly awed by the local exhibits such as the photography in Cable and the current CBAC show in Washburn. Seeing the work of good local artists inspires me to create, to explore, and to break the rules.
My sampler is now done. I have learned the rules, and broke some of them. And the result is a beautiful creation that is unique to me.
I wrote a few weeks ago about talking a Navajo weaving class from Laura Berlage at Pine Needles Yarn Shop in Cable. I wrote about the story of spider woman that teaches us not to be perfectionists. I finished my weaving sampler pattern, and it has plenty of mistakes.
That’s the beauty of a ‘sampler.’ It is a sample of many different techniques, so the weaver can learn the rules. I once knit a sampler afghan where each square was by a different designer. I learned a lot of stitches and techniques. Many of them I haven’t used since, but the experience gave me confidence that I could knit from any pattern.
The weaving sampler is a mirror image, meaning the second half is a repeat of the first half. I was working the second half this week and began to break the rules. Instead of doing one row at a time, I was doing one color at a time, then filling in with the next color. It was going along great until I realized I had also changed how I interwove the colors. In fact, I hadn’t interwoven them at all. It wasn’t that I had done something wrong. I merely used a different technique and got a different result.
Here’s where the rules come in. When is it OK to break the rules? My sample is obviously no longer a pure Navajo technique. If it were found in an archeological dig 100 years from now, those in the know would not mistake it for an authentic Navajo weaving. So, did I unweave that section and start over? No.
My theory is, when we know the rules then choose which ones to break, whether it is by accident, as in this case, or deliberately, we are delving into the world of creativity. Art is creativity.
In the words of Ben Thwaits, a teacher with Northwest Passage who was referring to photographs taken by his students in the ‘In a New Light’ exhibit at the Cable Natural History Museum, “Art is something that communicates something emotionally that can’t be communicated in any other way.”
For as long as humans have been creating art, there have been those who were content to mimic artists they admired, and those who took the lessons of the masters and broke the rules to create something individual that expressed their own unique sense of the subject. Were it not for those individuals who stepped across the lines, art would not have evolved into what it is. Art is a creative force. Through their individuality, artists express their world, explore their demons, and sometimes succeed in communicating that world through their art.
We don’t have to go to the big city to see art of incredible talent, art that ‘hits’ us. I am constantly awed by the local exhibits such as the photography in Cable and the current CBAC show in Washburn. Seeing the work of good local artists inspires me to create, to explore, and to break the rules.
My sampler is now done. I have learned the rules, and broke some of them. And the result is a beautiful creation that is unique to me.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Wisconsin is party central
As grandma, I spent a weekend partying like a princess.
It was my granddaughter Wren’s fourth birthday. Each of us only turns four once, and when your birthday is in January, it’s a good enough reason to celebrate with a poolside princess birthday party.
The party was held at the Plaza Hotel in Winona, Minn. The hotel has a spacious pool area which features a large children’s pool complete with alligator and whale water slides. There is a separate adult pool and a large hot tub. The walls of the pool room are painted with a jungle theme mural.
I asked Sarah why they chose this particular hotel and she said, “Because it was the only one that would allow a children’s party.”
Hmm.
Wren’s party was attended by 15 friends and family, young and old. We discovered we were one of three children’s pool parties that day. Though the adults worried it would be crowded, the children followed the adage of “the more the merrier.”
Children splashed in the water, slid down the mouth of the alligator and the back side of the whale. A one-year-old party-goer was fascinated with the shooting spouts of water from the floor of the children’s pool. Brave parents donned swimsuits and ventured into the big pool with their children. Most of the adults ended up in the hot tub afterward.
A giant green dragon, with purple scales along its back, sat on the floor, silently watching as children climbed and sat on his colorful form. A sign taped to the dragon’s neck read, “Do Not Put This Dragon in the Pool! It is unsafe to put this dragon in the swimming pool. This area is monitored 24 hours a day. Do Not Put the Dragon in the Pool.”
Hmm.
Luckily, the dragon was so large and heavy, not even two adults could push it across the floor. It was safe for the afternoon.
We left the pool area when it was time to open presents and eat pizza and birthday cake. Wren’s other grandma, my sister Linda, used to be a professional cake decorator. Wren’s cake was a wonderland mermaid princess theme, complete with four mermaids, fish, sea urchins, dolphins, and a coral reef that must have taken weeks of careful artistic effort. I think there was cake underneath the frosting somewhere.
Children full of pizza and cake chased each other around the hotel lobby playing hide and seek, squabbled over various party favors and hid under tables.
Toward the end of the afternoon, when the children were corraled and taken home, Sarah and I were cleaning up and putting away when I saw four teen-age boys, probably part of a traveling sports team, walk innocently out of the pool area in swim trunks with towels hanging from their necks. The boys headed into the elevators and all was quiet in the pool area.
I wandered into the pool room to see if anything had been left behind and there was the dragon, quietly floating in the adult pool.
“Do Not Put This Dragon in the Pool,” in capital letters, was too much for a group of teenage boys to ignore. I know the only ones in that area who were strong enough to manhandle that giant dragon were those boys.
The dragon didn’t seem to mind. I think he liked floating in the quiet pool after an afternoon of entertaining small children on his back.
Since Sarah, Wren and I were staying at the hotel for the night, I wandered down to the pool later for a warm soak in the hot tub. Three other adults were there, one swimming in the pool with the dragon. An hotel employee came through collecting towels and one woman volunteered to help get the dragon out of the pool.
“It’s too heavy. Don’t worry about it,” said the employee. “It happens all the time. I’ll have the maintenance guys take it out in the morning.”
Hmm.
It happens all the time. Obviously the sign was more of a command than a deterent.
The next morning, Wren was back in the pool and the dragon was back out on the sidelines, the perfect adornment for a poolside princess birthday party.
• • •
Speaking of parties, a dragon in a swimming pool is probably mild compared to the partying which followed the Green Bay Packers winning the Super Bowl. I would like to let everyone know that the Packer’s win can be attributed to me.
It is another story of football superstition run amuck. It seems that every time I watch the Packers play, they lose. When the Packers began to lose mid-season, I stopped watching. Obviously, it worked, because they began to win again and ended up in the playoffs. I still didn’t watch. When the NFC championship game began, I stayed away for the first half. Checking in with my husband at half time, it looked like it would be safe for me to watch the second half, but when the going got rough, I got going, out of the room. I was able to watch the last two minutes without jinxing the game.
For the Super Bowl, I began to watch the first half, thinking the jinx had died. I was wrong. When the Steelers started gaining momentum in the second half, it was time for strict measures. I went to bed and tried to read. Downstairs was quiet until I heard my husband cheering and I knew, the Packers had won the Super Bowl. So, the entire state of Wisconsin has me to thank for my selfless deed of not watching the second half.
You’re welcome.
It was my granddaughter Wren’s fourth birthday. Each of us only turns four once, and when your birthday is in January, it’s a good enough reason to celebrate with a poolside princess birthday party.
The party was held at the Plaza Hotel in Winona, Minn. The hotel has a spacious pool area which features a large children’s pool complete with alligator and whale water slides. There is a separate adult pool and a large hot tub. The walls of the pool room are painted with a jungle theme mural.
I asked Sarah why they chose this particular hotel and she said, “Because it was the only one that would allow a children’s party.”
Hmm.
Wren’s party was attended by 15 friends and family, young and old. We discovered we were one of three children’s pool parties that day. Though the adults worried it would be crowded, the children followed the adage of “the more the merrier.”
Children splashed in the water, slid down the mouth of the alligator and the back side of the whale. A one-year-old party-goer was fascinated with the shooting spouts of water from the floor of the children’s pool. Brave parents donned swimsuits and ventured into the big pool with their children. Most of the adults ended up in the hot tub afterward.
A giant green dragon, with purple scales along its back, sat on the floor, silently watching as children climbed and sat on his colorful form. A sign taped to the dragon’s neck read, “Do Not Put This Dragon in the Pool! It is unsafe to put this dragon in the swimming pool. This area is monitored 24 hours a day. Do Not Put the Dragon in the Pool.”
Hmm.
Luckily, the dragon was so large and heavy, not even two adults could push it across the floor. It was safe for the afternoon.
We left the pool area when it was time to open presents and eat pizza and birthday cake. Wren’s other grandma, my sister Linda, used to be a professional cake decorator. Wren’s cake was a wonderland mermaid princess theme, complete with four mermaids, fish, sea urchins, dolphins, and a coral reef that must have taken weeks of careful artistic effort. I think there was cake underneath the frosting somewhere.
Children full of pizza and cake chased each other around the hotel lobby playing hide and seek, squabbled over various party favors and hid under tables.
Toward the end of the afternoon, when the children were corraled and taken home, Sarah and I were cleaning up and putting away when I saw four teen-age boys, probably part of a traveling sports team, walk innocently out of the pool area in swim trunks with towels hanging from their necks. The boys headed into the elevators and all was quiet in the pool area.
I wandered into the pool room to see if anything had been left behind and there was the dragon, quietly floating in the adult pool.
“Do Not Put This Dragon in the Pool,” in capital letters, was too much for a group of teenage boys to ignore. I know the only ones in that area who were strong enough to manhandle that giant dragon were those boys.
The dragon didn’t seem to mind. I think he liked floating in the quiet pool after an afternoon of entertaining small children on his back.
Since Sarah, Wren and I were staying at the hotel for the night, I wandered down to the pool later for a warm soak in the hot tub. Three other adults were there, one swimming in the pool with the dragon. An hotel employee came through collecting towels and one woman volunteered to help get the dragon out of the pool.
“It’s too heavy. Don’t worry about it,” said the employee. “It happens all the time. I’ll have the maintenance guys take it out in the morning.”
Hmm.
It happens all the time. Obviously the sign was more of a command than a deterent.
The next morning, Wren was back in the pool and the dragon was back out on the sidelines, the perfect adornment for a poolside princess birthday party.
• • •
Speaking of parties, a dragon in a swimming pool is probably mild compared to the partying which followed the Green Bay Packers winning the Super Bowl. I would like to let everyone know that the Packer’s win can be attributed to me.
It is another story of football superstition run amuck. It seems that every time I watch the Packers play, they lose. When the Packers began to lose mid-season, I stopped watching. Obviously, it worked, because they began to win again and ended up in the playoffs. I still didn’t watch. When the NFC championship game began, I stayed away for the first half. Checking in with my husband at half time, it looked like it would be safe for me to watch the second half, but when the going got rough, I got going, out of the room. I was able to watch the last two minutes without jinxing the game.
For the Super Bowl, I began to watch the first half, thinking the jinx had died. I was wrong. When the Steelers started gaining momentum in the second half, it was time for strict measures. I went to bed and tried to read. Downstairs was quiet until I heard my husband cheering and I knew, the Packers had won the Super Bowl. So, the entire state of Wisconsin has me to thank for my selfless deed of not watching the second half.
You’re welcome.
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