Artists As Historians

Local artists are a gift to a community, recording all the unimportant things that, in time, make life interesting. Before the bank tore down half a block of old buildings for a parking lot our local artist, Ruth van Sickle Ford, recorded these great old buildings with watercolors. She found them interesting long before they were slated for demolition. They inspired her with their character. In her own way she saved the heritage of our town long after her passing. Right now there is an effort to save the building next to my studio, and a developer is giving new life to this old building.

Oil painters, watercolorists, and photographers record our lives for generations to come, whether it is their intention or simply because it is their hobby.

A few years ago a large wearhouse was built just north of where I grew up. As they were leveling the land and bulldozing a small grove of trees, they turned up several coffins. They had no idea as to who was buried there. I had the answer for them because a couple dozen years before I did a painting of the old farm house, and as I sat there painting a passerby stopped to see what I was doing. He told me about Clark Smith, who lived there, and about the family's burial plot back among the trees. Kids had vandalized the headstones years before. So by shear accident, doing a painting of the farm and farm house, creating a chance meeting with that passerby, I was able to answer the question of who was buried there.

Artists around the world speak for their community through their art. An artist in Russia took the time to do a painting of goats in front of an old house. It told me so much about life in Russia. It could have been a painting done around here . A connection was made through that painting. With Ruth Van Sickle's art, people can make a connection to our local past. She recorded places she traveled to, painting scenes of local interest, treating those places she visited with her love of the ordinary. I love artist who are inspired by their home communities.

October Nights

Standing in the smoke and watching the flames rise and fall as dad put more leaves on the fire, not letting the flames get too high, we were mesmerized as kids. Racing to the backyard to get more before the fire's final flame died, we squealed with excitement in and out of the black shadows. Who can grab the most leaves was the game. Saturday evenings in October the entire town had tiny fires going. Some people had rusty steel barrels and poles for stirring them, others, like our family, raked the leaves to the street where passing cars would send glowing embers up into the night sky. Light from the full moon revealed more leaves for us to gather up. Few leaves escaped us kids, as long as dad was willing to stand there watching the fire, we found him more leaves. Even racing into the neighbors yard to collect a few. Being they were from our apple tree they were ours for the taking. Little did we know then, the neighbors were more than pleased at this.   

Long past dark mom would call us in to wash up, to get the smell of smoke out of our hair and ready for Sunday mass. Boys in the basement washed up at the basement sink, spraying each other with the hose used for filling the washing machine. Then, wrapped in fresh clean towels, we raced up two flights of stairs to our bedroom where we dressed in pajamas. Once in our pajamas, with robes on, it was down to the kitchen for caramel toast from the oven and mom's hot chocolate.

Mom and dad love questioning us about what we learned that past week in school. We dipped our toast into the hot chocolate and listened to each other tell Mom and Dad what we were most proud of from school. Mom and dad would then tell us stories to further the importance of the things we had learned. While drying dishes, we listened to the radio till bedtime. The radio was strictly a Saturday treat. Weeknights and Sunday nights were for homework and reading.