Early art

I attended a lovely old elementary school, Forest Hill.  “Forest” was associated with most of Ohio; when only native people lived here, I’ve read, a squirrel could travel from Pennsylvania to Indiana from tree top to tree top.  Cleveland, less than thirty miles north, is known as the Forest City.  The school was at the top of a small hill. The first half of the trip was downhill, then back up hill, so  I did walk uphill both ways.  The school grounds occupied an entire city block, from cross street to cross street each direction.  The school sat on the front of the grounds, the playground equipment was in the middle and there were several trees on the back grounds.  And a huge boulder, taller than any child in the school.  Many hours were devoted to attempting to scale that monster, or chipping “gold” flakes from its flinty side into a tin can. 

About five years ago a new elementary school was constructed where the trees and boulders once stood, and when completed the school I went to was torn down to become the play area.  It’s a nice school, brick, one storey.  I’m sure it will provide the proper memories for the current crop of students.

There are some things they won’t have from the old art deco school I attended.  Black iron railings along the sidewalks.  Thousands of skin the cats were performed on those railings.  A motif of a Native American portaging a canoe greeted us from over the door each morning.  Just down the hill, in the valley, there currently is a statue of a Native American commencing the portage between the Cuyahoga River and the Tuscarawas River.  The road is called Portage Trail.

I’ve not been in the new school, but I’m sure the floors are not oak.  I know there is no wide oak stairway to a second floor. Maybe there is still a basement, with windows above ground level.  We went downstairs for gym, which doubled as the lunch room (although I went home for lunch), and for our art class.  The art room smelled wonderfully.  Like clay, paint, wax, paper and imagination.  We sat on high stools at long, wooden topped tables.  I can still draw a tree like the sixth grade art teacher put on the board for us.

My mother was called to come to the school principal’s office because of that art class.  I was past kindergarten, which was self contained, right down to the bathroom and the crock of clay just outside the bathroom door.  I’m sure I was in first grade when someone took me to the principal’s office and I found my mother there, as well as the principal.

The principal began talking, but I didn’t understand what she was saying.  She held up some pictures I had made in art class and asked me questions I didn’t understand.  Finally my mother cut in and said the principal wanted to know why I was drawing my pictures with a black crayon.

 “It’s the only crayon left when the box is passed to me.”

Children who came to shows, with ¿parent?

Most children who came to shows were a delight.  Often a wide eyed delight.  One young fellow watched me snip the triangular corner from strips of cotton I was piecing with mitered corners.  I’d filled a large, clear drink cup with colorful triangle scraps.  Bursting, the boy finally asked, “Can I have those?!?”  I looked questioningly at his father, who might not appreciate a back seat of cotton confetti.  Dad said, “He’s a crafty guy.  You’d make his day.”  So, I did.

I enjoyed conversations with parents who actually wanted their children to learn.  I can spin and talk and keep an eye on a child all at the same time.  The really little ones are so curious, and I spun slowly, ready to stop on a dime if a little hand came in too close.  But one little guy’s reach for the action took me totally unaware and I barely stuck my hand into the flyer ahead of his to stop it.  Five hooks gouged my palm and there was blood, to the great consternation of the mother.  The little boy announced “Boo Boo.”  That was no one’s fault but my own.

One time I was spinning and had a pre-teen boy for an audience.  He watched intently, but could not be engaged in conversation.  Then his karate chop stopped the flyer cold.  There surely was pain, but no blood.  He grabbed his right hand and ran, but appeared shortly thereafter with his irate mother who demanded I pay for a trip to the emergency room for an x-ray.  I told her I’d see her x-ray and raise her a custom made, recently karate chopped cherry flyer.  They stormed off.  That flyer is still cracked across the base.

My best defense against unsupervised and stupid children was a good offense, and an order to leave.  One young lady disengaged herself from her group of very young teens, walked into my booth, into the center of a clothing rack and commenced turning in circles, twisting the clothing into a rope about herself.  I said “Out. Out. Out.”  Loudly and not politely.  She ran, but returned, bawling, with parent.  “What did you do to my daughter?” from the angry parent.  The girl sobbed, pointed at me, hiccupped.  I said to her “Tell your mother what you did.”    After a few minutes of these two sentences being exchanged over and over, mom took sobbing child and left.

In recalling these two incidents, I’m still troubled for these children.  I can recall rude and stupid things I did as a child.  I knew they were rude and stupid when I did them.  I knew I would not do that again, and only thought of parental intervention the two times I had to be taken for stitches.  To the best of my knowledge, my parents never berated the parents of the other children involved.  The two children I mentioned would thirty or more by now.  I  hope they learned to take responsibility.

Those two are my “bad kid’ instances.  And they were totally trumped by the good kids.  I was demonstrating weaving at the St. James Court Art Show in Louisville and into my warp, weft, shuttle and shedd talk to an audience when I heard a young voice yelling “She’s not going over and under!  She’s not going over and under!”  A young girl was running across the street and stopped beside me.  “You’re not going over and under!”    A quantum technical leap.  I  gave her the bench and shooed her embarrassed parents into the audience.  She was a natural and after two minutes was demonstrating changing shedds, throwing the shuttle, beating on the open and closed shed, and making neat selvedges as I stood up and talked.  I bet all weavers started on potholders, over and under. I hope she got a loom and lessons.

A great potholder site

An ice cube a week

Jan and I went to Beth’s yesterday to inspect her attic renovation and eat lunch.  The attic make over has been on her list for some time, but came together quite suddenly when the storage facility a mile away offered a free month.  I believe the plan was to transfer the contents of the attic to the storage unit over the last two weeks of December, enjoy a month’s free rent while the workers made the conversion, then bring all the stuff back again before February 1^st. 

Of course there were plan snags, but the attic will be quite a room when finished.  It will be a multi purpose room, office for her business, a sewing and craft area, and storage under the eaves.  I counted at least ten separate electrical outlets.  Good thinking.  Pot light holes in the ceiling flooded the room with daylight.  Three skylight holes mounted out on the back side of the roof funnel the light from right overhead through tubes.   She’s up to paint and trim; the big reveal is not too distant.

Over lunch I admired the orchid in the window. I thought orchids were a bit tichy, and asked Beth how she kept it looking so happy.  She said they require very little water, but do need it once a week.  They would gingerly take the plant from the window, put it in the sink, water sparingly, put it back.  Aside from the nuisance, she feared for the plant’s safety. 

Until she read some orchid advice.  They thrive on a teaspoon of water a week.  The amount in an ice cube.  So, it’s an ice cube a week for the orchid, which can sit undisturbed in the window and gracefully complement the pale lavender perfume dabber Grandma Cox gave me sixty or so years ago.

Walking sticks

My brother in law always favored a stick for his walk with the dogs.  And it couldn’t be an art show without one wood worker who tucked some sticks in a corner of his booth. So, many, many weekends I worked with stick makers, and now Tom has a nice stick collection.  There are four holes left in the stick stand, so I didn’t overdo it.

The long slender bamboo stick in the front actually is a flute, and I got it from a flute maker who said it sounds best when you’re walking in an apple orchard.  Tom played the coronet in high school, and can get a tune from any instrument.  He’s played Mares Eat Oats on the flute for the grandkids, but it hasn’t been in an apple orchard yet.

There are walking sticks from the years Jan and I did the MetroPark trail hike in the fall.  The first year we got the stick, and a shield each year thereafter.  I have two more shields that never were put on my stick.  I don’t remember why we put cane tips on them; the trails weren’t slippery.  The tips have to be stored on the top for the ends to fit through the holes in the holder.

The shepherd’s crook used to hang over the studio door.  Jan used it to keep her fabric straight to cut for rag rugs.  There are tools and jigs for every job, and that staff was well used in the day.

And a cat who must know what's going on

The black cane is metal and belonged to my great grandfather Cox.  Mom used it.  I used it (new hip, knee repair).  Jan used it (knee repair).  We always know where to find it.

Bekka’s stick has a little bead figure on it.  That came from the shop of a good friend.  His mother made it.  Before I’m out of blog topics I need to write about Chris.  Or ask him to write a piece about his mom.  Bekka was two when she needed a stick for hikes.  Then we needed another little stick for Hamilton.  That’s the short cane.

When I saw the stick with the gear shift knob, I had to have it.  It’s been used, it has a serious dent in it.  But, it’s not a favorite of Tom’s. 

Tom’s favorite is the twisted root stick.  The carver left a band of bark spiraling down the stick.  I don’t remember picking that one, although I’m assured I brought it home.  Apparently it knew Tom’s name.

“Visitors to the Office”

My grandparents had a cottage in Sheffield, where the kids spent summers swimming and playing, dads visited on weekends and mothers went back to town on Monday to do the laundry.  Aunt Flo mused that Grandma Rolf didn’t appreciate all the work involved with a cottage full of guests every weekend, and I can sympathize after watching a clip of the parade of people in and out of the cottage door.  I’m sure the women visitors were as relentless in keeping up as my grandma, so the floor would be swept after sandy footed children, dishes washed, dried and put away after every meal.  Nevertheless, all that food preparation! And it still would be Grandma driving laundry baskets of bedding, towels, household linens and kid’s clothing back to Cleveland every Monday to wash, hang out to dry, and possibly even to iron before schlepping it all back to Sheffield.  With a week’s groceries on the seat, too.

All the guests appear to enjoy the cottage.  There are shots of people in reclining Adirondack chairs, talking.  My Grandma Rolf and another woman in a swing, sewing.  The inevitable mending, I suppose.  A lighthearted clip of my mother and her dad poking each other.  Here’s another clip of simple fun.  The young man holding open the door is mom’s brother, my Uncle Hank.  The man in the office is his dad, my Grandpa Rolf.  No idea who the other people may be.

As mom noted, they had hollyhocks.