Mixing Time & Colors

Setting the time machine up on my easel, laying the colors out on my palette, and I'm ready to venture backwards. A model posing in the dancing light pouring in through the studio window. Memories of my cousin Barbara laying in a hammock strung between tall, straight oak trees. A breeze sings for the light to dance too. The Aunts are in Uncle Al's river cabin baking bean casseroles and slicing ham. Uncle Tom is down the wooden and dirt stairs baiting hooks, as the cousins pull black bullheads from the river. Dad and Uncle Al have walked down the road from the cabin to see how the glasshouse is being built…

The first colors run down the canvas and I am brought back to the studio to push one of those colors here and there. Never surprised, my model sees I've put her in a yellow dress and not in the blue one I had requested her to wear.

Suddenly, a carp jumps into the boat and I'm drawn back time-traveling. Grandma calls for us to come to shore for picture time. The bullheads can wait for more worms, as the fishing poles are laid to rest and cousins gather round Grandpa and Grandma for a photo. Uncle Paul lines everyone up and snaps off a roll of film. Aunt Marie calls for everyone to get their chipped china plate. Time to say a prayer and eat. The cabin is wall to wall food. With ten uncles and ten aunts and countless cousins, the casseroles disappear quickly. Bags of Lay potato chips satisfy the cousins, with chocolate cakes waiting. Uncle John pulls up on his Harley and cousins line up for rides. 

Lines accompany the running colors, as a mixture of time forms on the canvas. The present comes forth with the call for detail. Cousin Barbara fades as Jordan appears on my canvas.                                                                                                                                                                  

From Cap Pistols to Works of Art

An old cap pistol, my Roy Roger's hat, put into a box with toy blocks. Corduroy trousers are neatly clean and folded. My sister's doll, with one eye glued open, covered with two of her dresses. It was rummage sale time at the Luxenberg Club. Not sure what the money raised from the rummage sale went for, I just knew it was one of Mom's things to do. Toys and things would disappear, later reappear on a table in the great hall of the Luxenberg Club. It was fun seeing all the things people donated. Bake sales were the other sales held to raise money. I was sent around the block with my wagon to collect things people donated. Mrs Erenst, who had a car, would pick up all donations and take them to the Luxenberg Club. Bake sales were held in St Joe's Church basement, cherry pies sat next to cupcakes and German chocolate cakes - all homemade. Mason jars filled with applesauce or homemade sauerkraut were there for sale. Even Mrs. Mathew sent two jars of pickles to the bake sale.  

Dad was known for fixing old electric motors, which were used for washing machines and table saws. Bricks from the old church Dad laid a patio for Mom with. Coffee cans of buttons waited for homemade shirts and coats, more cans sat in the basement filled with screws and nails. 

These days there are art sales. Sales of commissioned sunflower paintings raising money for kids from Ukraine. Another gallery raised money for homes of special needs people, and the homeless. Mom and Dad showed us ways of helping people in need, even when we were in need ourselves.