Janny Lilacs

channeling my 11 year old self

2011-08-11T13:04:00.000-07:00

After
Before

This month , instead of doing the drawings I am "supposed" to be working on, I worked on decorating my front porch. It is such a satisfying room because unlike the rest of my house , it fits its function perfectly. It has many colors of geraniums blooming across the length, art by myself and other artists, a table to sit at, a love seat and a wonderfully comfortable little upholstered rocking chair. I've had that little chair for many years. It sits forlornly out the all winter--there never has been the perfect spot for it inside. But each summer I sit on that chair pretty much every afternoon when I get home from work. I fix a pot of Earl Grey tea. Carry it out there with some local wildflower honey and a pitcher of cream on my special tray that my mom found for me at a yard sale in about 1978. I put my feet up and daydream. Watch the hummingbirds come and go, read bits from whatever books I have out there, and let the prayers of gratitude rise in my heart.

However, my little chair has looked more and more pitiful as the years have passed and this year, once again, I decided to try to make a slipcover. I say once again because a few years back, I did make one, but due to the fact that the back cushion is an attached, tufted one it was a complete failure and got thrown away when the winter came!

so this time I thought of other ideas. I have a ridiculously large collection of old linen as I cannot resist it for a dollar at church rummage sales. One large piece was a heavier weight, maybe an old sheet so I used that for the main body of the cover. the other colors were just bits and pieces from my fabric piles.

when I was about 11, I began to decorate my bedroom. I had always liked to make forts, clubhouses(with out really a club except for myself!), or just a special spot n a tree, but that year I first fixed up my room. I found a pair of ruffled curtains patterned with big roses deep, deep in the ironing barrel. That was a 4 1/2 foot tall and about 30 inch diameter heavy cardboard barrel bound at the top and bottom with metal which sat in our huge pantry with clothes and linens that needed to be ironed. the top foot or so of space was where the clothes were that were ironed regularly but under those was a wealth of other stuff! Including my new curtains, and matching pillows that fit the seat and back of a little cane seat rocking chair I confiscated, and several other pieces of cloth that caught my eye.

I went across the street to Ingamel's Grocery store, a small corner store such as was common in the early 1960's. they carried every thing we ate in those days in a space probably about 20x20. Lots of fresh produce, a full meat counter as well as all the dairy products, canned and boxed goods, and household items. Cheese came in round wooden boxes about 9 inches tall and 15 inches in diameter. those boxes were free for the asking so I bought one home and used a piece of cloth, tucked into the removable top, to hold a round pillow onto the top. That was a very nice footstool!

On my current porch I wanted something like that to match my little chair. I found an old wooden box in my basement and a cushion behind my guest bed and made a little slipcover for that too.

the embroidered runner on the back I found in the Berkeley, Ca free box in 1975 as Strawberry and I passed it every day as I rode her to Phoenix School for kindergarten on my bicycle!

Well anyway back to the drawings I am working on and the unfinished trim around the upstairs bathroom window, but that was a very satisfying project to complete.

2011-03-12T14:47:00.000-08:00

on my monthly trip to visit my family in Brooklyn I saw this woman near a little house in the northern Catskills. It inspired me because for me,sleeping between wind dried sheets is a favorite luxury.

I worked on the poem. I wanted to use the phrase 'the best smell in the world' but it just wouldn't

work. Pen and ink is so fun for me to work with.

ON A BRIGHT BLUE DAY

IN LATEST WINTER

I SAW, FROM THE WINDOW OF THE SOUTH BOUND BUS,

A WOMAN, BENT AND OLD,

SLOWLY HOIST A WET SHEET ONTO HER CLOTHESLINE.

THE WIND TOOK HOLD AND SENT IT FLYING UPWARD!

CHICKADEES CALLED.

THERE WERE SNOWDROPS NEXT TO OLD PATCHES OF SNOW.

I SMILED, IMAGINING HER DREAMS THAT NIGHT

SPUN OF THE GOLDEN AIR,

THE BIRD SONG

AND THE PROMISE OF SPRING

AS SHE SLEPT IN HER WIND WASHED BED.

I Honor My Father

2011-03-12T14:42:00.000-08:00

One of my pages for our book.

I Honor My Grandmother

2011-03-12T14:40:00.000-08:00

2011-02-21T06:14:00.000-08:00

what a winter. seems like I shovel constantly. I feel like when I was a teenager in Fulton ,NY where it snowed constantly. Always we were shoveling --hurry up and shovel! Mom and Dad are coming home! peel the potatoes, put out the cigarets, SHOVEL the sidewalk. and we had a long sidewalk and a pretty long driveway. nobody had 4 wheel drive in those days but they still drove trough incredible weather. After my best friend got her license we barely ever went to school, preferring instead to put 25 cents, that really is 25 CENTS in the gas tank and head for a diner in Syracuse. Oh those early morning diners, glowing orange on the snowy parking lot, filled with good smells of bacon and coffee, homefries and Marlboros!

omg can I do this or not

2010-06-16T18:59:00.000-07:00

magic misty late spring day

2010-06-16T18:23:00.000-07:00

today was that kind of day that is only hidden in the hills outside the small towns of upstate NY. the kids are still in school. i remember starring out the window counting the hours until the days would be my own. At least relatively. In the 50s there wasn't too much freedom, ALTHOUGH now that I think of it way more than now! I would have died of embarassment if my parents had walked me to school even in kindergarten.
Anyway that is way in the past. A day of deep shadows in the maple trees, a dancing breeze and rainbows out the corners of my eyes.
This morning I saw a beautiful young woman driving a shiny yellow truck. As it pulled ahead of me in the next lane, I saw that her single bumper sticker said "expect wonderful things"
I think I will! thank you Persephone!

definitely the wrong picture but it is a picture! I will keep trying

2010-06-12T16:24:00.000-07:00

old woman April strewing flowers. perhaps it is my Great Gramother Shortsleeves up from the River Stix welcoming my flowerey, bowery magical sister to the land of joy.

thinking so much today of Carol and Mom and my 2 granmothers, my female ancestors today as I sit on my porch after work --woodpeckers, wrens, tufted titmouses(?) or titmice?, chickadees, and the resident adventurers, ruby throat hummingbird.. Thank heaven for my daughter, Mrs Curls, who painted my bench pink when I tried to in spite of my tiring and boring inability to be around paint!

Thank you Strawberry! you are the bomb!

2010-06-11T05:57:00.000-07:00

trying to add pictures, but so far no luck!

2010-06-09T19:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I ran into an old acquaintance in Wegmans. This is a woman I've known casually for at least 20 years and always enjoyed seeing and chatting with so I was happy to see her. She, however, was dismayed at the encounter, saying that she was only in this popular store because her neighborhood store had gone out of business and that she had to get used to running into people as she lives a hermitish life. She softened the blow by saying she did like to see me but couldn't say she would phone me as she never even called her best friend! Well, believe me, I understand! Though I am glad of the few friends who haven't given up on me completely, I thought of a recent afternoon when my daughter and I both, separately called a close friend that we had invited to our house to tell her that we were dreading her visit and that if she was also dreading it she didn't need to come! Well she was walking up the hill to our house even as she got the 2nd call and as she put it, she knew we were really part of her family when she came anyway! We were so glad to see her and had a wonderful time but in my family we never feel slighted by not being called!

2010-06-09T18:55:00.000-07:00

Just a quick gardening tip-- please, PLEASE if you are thinking of planting bishops weed for any reason, any reason at all, please don't! It will cover the entire area in no time and can never, never be eradicated. I almost let it have my little front garden , well actually not little, a steep slope about 15 ftby 15 ft, I almost simply gave up and let the Bishop's Weed have it after fighting it for 15 years. But yesterday I took my spade and dug into it on the lowest level of my messy, self done terraces. It is 2 1/2 feet tall and the roots are everywhere. Tomorrow I will add some green sand and put in some snap dragons. I know some people count on seeing flowers as they pass my house. But I said to the plant 'of course you win. no contest. when I am gone or even incapacitated in any way, this place is yours. ' but for now I'll plant the snapdragons from the Early Bird sale.

2010-06-08T14:27:00.000-07:00

spring in upstate NY-- back and forth between 80degrees and 50 degrees. clear and sparkly most days. this is when my creative urge is all directed toward planting. I have a little fenced in garden which always belonged to Peter before but after sitting fallow for a year since he moved out I began to dig when we had a beautiful spell in early April. Now there is tall, light green lettuce which wwe have been eating for 3 weeks. beets ready to thin (very scarey process!) brocolli, big and full but so far not broccollis on top-- no idea if I did something wrong or if it just isn't happening yet. along row of potatoes. The year my sister, carol and her husband, Chris lived at 'the farm' I had boxes of beautiful organic potatoes that lasted in my cellar for the whole winter. That was such a treat. Maybe I'll get some this year. The process of gardening makes me miss Carol so much as I no longer have her or my mom to ask my garden questions to. I think of her when I saw her last wishing she was hoeing a row right then! She was so good at it! most people think of hoeing as a thankless task but Carol moved slowly down the row, enjoying the heat and humidity as only a long displaced upstate New Yorker returned can do!

2008-08-05T14:35:00.000-07:00

The Royal Flush

2008-07-12T12:41:00.001-07:00

I am featured right now on my daughters blog interviewing other artists.
The link is here....
Creative Voices

2008-07-08T06:54:00.001-07:00

I am truly terrible at marketing my art. I have been blessed with my friendship with Alice Mulhback who has the Spirit and Kitsch gallery who has really bugged me to produce, my friendship with Linda Coale who has totally encouraged me and shown my stuff to other people who loved and wanted it, as well as many other friends and family members[ my husband, Peter and my son,Cassady are both superbly able to critique a painting or drawing and spot what it needs]Right now my daughter Strawberry Curls is encouraging me to use the computer as a connecting tool.

2008-07-07T15:11:00.000-07:00

---------------

My baby girl. I wanted a baby from the time I was a child. I loved babysitting as a teenager and was very fond of many of my charges. So when I got pregnant in 1971 at the age of 21 I was very happy at the prospect. Oh my! Stars in my eyes and hope in my heart- that was me on the back of a motorcycle heading to California. I had quit college[for the second time!] and spent the summer painting a big Greek revival house in upstate New York.
Believe it or not , we built a lean-to at the edge of a farmer's field [without asking anyone] next to a little stream that emptyed into Cayuga Lake.
On rainy nights I woke up with our mosquito netting walls blowing in the wind. At evening time we came back from our job, bathed in the stream, cooked our dinner over a campfire. There were more fireflies in that field than I had ever seen.
By the end of the summer I was pregnant. Although I had only known my boyfriend a few months I never considered ending my pregnancy- I had wanted a baby forever.
With some of our painting money we bought a motorcycle--sorry i cannot remember what kind it was but not a Harley Davidson--and headed west.
Not the best mode of transportation for a pregnant girl! We made it to St. Louis and there,fearing an imminent miscarriage,we sold the bike and bought a used Volkswagon bus.
Crossing the bridge out of St. Louis, giddy on our new wheels, we picked up several hitchhikers -two callow youths who wer going a hundred miles own and Harold Matthew Pintor,old and rheumy, heading for Laramie st in Denver.
He told us his story of working for the railroad and now staying with off and on with an old sister to whom he gave his pension.
but sometimes the mood took him and he had to hit the road. He had 36 cents and so offered to pay part of the toll.
We listened to his stories and bought him a couple of meals and a pack of Pall Malls. He cried as I slipped him $10 when we dropped him off at his orner in Denver. "It hurts me"he said "No one has ever been so nice to me."

Dog Series

2008-07-07T08:37:00.000-07:00

2008-04-05T16:24:00.000-07:00

Rainbow Dancer

2008-04-05T16:23:00.000-07:00

Thought Woman
(will soon be taking a better piture, w/o the reflection of the lights in the background!)

2008-03-06T04:28:00.000-08:00

Dancing Mother Earth

2008-01-26T11:52:00.000-08:00

A Mermaid

2008-01-26T11:51:00.000-08:00

Good Company?

2008-01-19T12:41:00.002-08:00

Inn Cognito: An Alleyway in Seattle

2008-01-19T12:41:00.001-08:00

Dancing On Cloud 9

2008-01-19T12:39:00.000-08:00

Coyote Tries To Help

2007-10-22T11:16:00.000-07:00

Day of the Dead Series

" Thanks for Remembering"

2007-10-20T21:12:00.000-07:00

Day of the Dead Series

1. Whose Face is This?

2. "Boning in the Boneyard"

2007-10-10T16:03:00.001-07:00

Day of the Dead Series

"Bony Cowboy"

2007-09-04T11:04:00.000-07:00

The Goat Foot Balloon Man

2007-09-04T11:03:00.000-07:00

Happy Hour

2007-08-28T10:13:00.000-07:00

Hummingbird and Faerie Dance

2006-12-12T16:52:00.000-08:00

A Walk in the Country Meets Dance in the Dark (archival cray-pas)

2006-02-11T11:21:00.000-08:00

"Jump"

2006-02-11T11:16:00.000-08:00

"7 am"

2006-02-11T11:13:00.000-08:00

"star dancers"

2006-02-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

"singing moon"

2006-02-11T11:03:00.000-08:00

"Mask"

2006-02-11T11:00:00.000-08:00

"Gimme"

2006-02-11T10:37:00.000-08:00

2006-02-11T10:30:00.000-08:00

2006-02-11T10:02:00.000-08:00

looking out the window that time in upstate New York I saw them dancing. Coyote grabbed me long ago. Dancing all around this continent where I've spent my life. I first noticed him when I lived in New Mexico but I've continued to see him everywhere. He is a tricky one, He loves the girls. He loves to dance and party.