day 13~zane and the quacking flowers

these first few weeks of my year long project tracking my creative process, i'm concentrating on all of the 'stuff' that is swirling around inside my noggin that works it's way into my artwork. i'm just taking stock. i encourage you to do the same. (teacher nudge:~) (incidentally, do you think they let you use words like "noggin" when writing for real publishing houses? i bet not. i also bet i couldn't get away with my poetic use of lower case letters for this post!)

ok. so here is the story of zane and the quacking flowers...

showy lady slippers from  www.nature.org

zane, my grandfather lived in a mountain town in upstate pennsylvania. he was retired from the coal mines and had a barbershop in the front room of the house he shared with my grandmother for the 62 years that they were married. rose, my grandmother, worked in a clothing factory that made children's dresses. she was the floor manager, i believe. the spare bedroom of their house was filled to the gills with bolts of fabric and trims that she would get from the factory whenever they were cleaning out old inventory. it's no wonder i ended up a textile designer early on!

anyway, zane had a 6th grade education but was a pretty smart guy and just like most of the men of his generation, he was no slouch when it came to woodworking and fixing things around the house. while rosie's domain was upstairs in the spare bedroom with her sewing machine and fabrics, zane's laire was down in the basement where he built furniture and turned wood and tinkered with just about anything he could grab. as i'm writing this i wish i had the chance to go back to that house and view it thru eyes with a different sense of appreciation.

he also had a love for the outdoors. i can't say for sure but i suspect he went for walks in the woods as often as he could, if not every day. so when i was little, like 3 or 4 little, he used to take me for walks with him. it's where i learned about peace and quiet and just "being". out there in the woods above their house, at the base of one of the mountains, zane built this outdoor "room" for himself. it had a chair, and a set of wooden shelves that i'm sure he built from scrap wood down in the shop. on the shelves i have a picture in my mind's eye of pinecones, pretty rocks with crystals in them, and interesting tree pieces. there was also a small brick fireplace he built and a teeny tiny stream running right thru the middle of the room. it couldn't have been more than 12" wide because i could walk across it fairly easily and i was just a squirt at that time!

so one day i was visiting with my grandparents and grampop (that's what i called him), grampop asked me if i wanted to go hunt for lady slipper flowers. i'm sure at the time i thought he was talking about house slippers and somewhere in my mind i pictured shoes hanging off of flower stems.

lady slipper orchids are very rare and while looking for a picture online to include in my story, i saw where people actually post pictures of "sightings". anyway, we would go searching for lady slippers out in the woods near his sacred spot nestled in the base of the mountain. but since these magical flowers were so difficult to spot, zane figured we needed to use a little magic of our own to call to them. yes. you guessed it. it turns out that only the quack of sweet youngsters can speak to elusive flowers and coax them out of hiding. so there we were, me quacking like a duck, and my grampop guiding the way. works like a charm every time.

turns out zane was not only good with his hands, but he had a wicked sense of humor as well!

some day i'd like to recreate that magical spot in the woods in an art installation and hang the walls with paintings of fanciful flowers and woodland animal sculptures covered in calico fabrics and embroidery. and i suppose i'll have to create a small stream running thru the gallery.

and heard in the background will be chirping birds, crunching leaves, and a small child quacking like a duck.

Here's your assignment for today. Write down your favorite childhood memory. Start thinking about how it could work it's way into your art making. Maybe in a literal sense, or maybe something a little more subtle. Post your thoughts. I love to hear from you!

xoxo
staci