Nanny's Knitting Needles, 2013

My newest piece, done in a brief but furious 24-hour period recently. Approximately 19 x 28 inches on pineboards once used as a blackboard.

M Y  A R T — "Nanny's Knitting Needles" is the first of a new series I've just started. I'm still using fairly rigid stripes but I'm not adhering to a graphpaper-like grid. Looking close, the grid is still there, but I'm trying to work with a type of "balanced chaos." This first piece is an homage to my grandmother. When I was just a little kid, staying at my grandmother's after Kindergarten and the early grades, she was confined to her bed or a wheelchair. We did everything together anyway. She even claimed I helped her learn to walk again as I'd stand in front of her walker and help move it forward. I remember telling her "just one more step, Nanny" and other encouraging words, and more than once I'd get a kitchen chair for her to sit down because we'd gone one step too far, lol. She used to toss her big container of knitting needles on the rug for me and have me pick up all the red ones, or blue ones. She taught me colors that way. Later she'd have me pick up all the No 4s. or 7s, as I learned my numbers. We were so close! We laughed a lot, even though she was dying of cancer and I had had my own traumatic experiences by then, but I have nothing but the warmest and most loving memories of our short time together. She died in 1969 when I was 12. I still have her container of knitting needles, and if I show this piece in public, I will make an arrangement with those needles to show my inspiration.

This next series will explore this "balanced chaos" and the second piece I'm working on has a photo collage in the background.

Caring Hands, 2008

"Caring Hands," Paint. paper and polyurethane on two pine boards, approximately 20 x 23 inches.

M Y   A R T — This piece uses a detail from a vintage photograph of my grandmother and a friend of hers, below. It's actually an early double-exposure, and I fear if a "mistake" like this was captured on a digital camera today it would be deleted immediately. 

There is such a loving feeling between these two women, the way they're holding each other's hands. My grandmother at this time worked at the Indian Point House, a summer resort hotel in Stony Creek, Connecticut. Her diaries show she did whatever was needed, from scheduling dinner parties, to making sure the wealthy guests had their clothes washed and pressed and laid out, to choosing the flowers for the dinner tables. The woman behind her was the woman in charge of the maidstaff. I have her name on the back of just one photograph which I can't find right now. I think I'll probably use this image full-frame for a piece sooner rather than later, but for this piece I concentrated on their hands.

A Bit of My Art "Theory" and Nature of Memories

Since these two women physically cared for not only their staff and guests, but their families, I made this piece seem as if it had been lovingly cleaned and polished for generations. I used wall joint compound sanded down as if cleaned and cleaned and cleaned proudly until the woodwork was revealed below, and then cleaned again. As in the vast majority of my art, I try to incorporate every color in the "book" on this piece, to show metaphorically that we can all get along no matter what we are like physically. I print out the scans of these vintage photographs with various tints—some green, some blue, some pink, some lavender, some gold. Sometimes I print them saturated, sometimes I print them very faintly. What I'm trying to express is the nature of memories. Some of our memories are vivid and bold, others are barely there, Some memories are complete, some memories are just bits and pieces floating around in our minds' eye. Personally, I tend to compartmentalize memories. In my head, I mentally flip through "pages" and I put my memories in boxes and grids. This is why my work is largely based on grids and repeated squares, rigidly expressed at the same time they are ephemeral and wispy.

Detail from "Caring Hands." The brightly colored squares are bits of "Color Aid" leafs, silk-screened colors of pure hues used in color theory art classes. Mine date from the late 1970s at Vassar. I use my own history in many pieces.

Detail from "Caring Hands." I've scratched squares into the wall-joint compound, in a porcelain-tile effect, a surface that might be scrubbed and cleaned over and over again by "caring hands."

Original ca. 1921 double-exposure of my grandmother and a friend. Photograph taken at the Indian Point House in Stony Creek, Connecticut, one of Connecticut's turn-of-the-century summer resorts.

Forty Years Later—Grandmother's Last Afghan

This green and gold afghan and matching pillow is the last one my grandmother made. I believe she finished it in early 1969 and died in December of that year. I recently found some Polaroids of the family home from the '60s and '70s. This was "my" bedroom whenever I stayed over. I originally had a much smaller room, but when I got be about thirteen I "graduated" to this Red Room. I still have most of the items from my room, but I wish I had the house, the Daniel and Charity Leete house. Polaroid at top dated 1972, the digital image at the bottom is from this morning, and the wallpaper is a shred leftover from that room. I really do keep as much from my past as I can.

Casey and the Technicolor Dream Sweater

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Rainbow Boy, lol—Looking spiffy on my bright red bicycle, wearing bright red sneakers, starchy dark denim jeans, a rainbow-colored sweater, and a navy blue beret—from France, of course. My grandmother knit that sweater for me. I remember she told me I could pick out whatever color wool I wanted for the upcoming sweater—even a rainbow variegated version—as long as I didn't tell anyone I knew she was going to make it for me. She wanted it to be perfect and I think it was a win-win situation. I would have loved anything made by her, but a sweater with every color in it was perfect! At about eight years old in this photo, in front of Art's closed store with Spring's first crocuses coming up behind me, I was styling!

Photopourri—Art, Playbill, Dust, and More, lol

Waiting for Time

My latest pieces hanging out waiting for me to find time to finish them. One of my recently refurbished "Not Wrapped Too Tightly" footstools keeps them company.

No Dull Days

Novelty postcard from his area of town, Leete's Island (Leete Island on the card), dated October 1917, was sent to my grandfather by his cousin. My grandfather was at an Army training camp getting ready to leave for France to fight in the first World War. Ink initials on the girls' skirts and a scribbled name on the man's socks, probably were an inside joke between the cousins.

Barn Finds?

1949 Mercury and 1940 Ford coupe sitting around reminiscing about the good old days! Cobwebs enjoy their current days in the sun.

On Broadway in 1977

Almost 35 years ago, I saw The King and I on Broadway with my parents. My mother always loved Yul Brynner, and this musical, and it was a dream come true for her to see him perform in it live on the Great White Way.

Same Day Service, ca 1920!

An envelope containing some of my grandmother's negatives show just how "modern" the early 20th century was. Before the current digital age, "same day" service was still being touted at Photomats, CVSs and other photographic developing centers. For a sampling of her photographic portraits that were developed from negatives most likely processed by this pharmacy, click here.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Day, 2012

"Respect Starts at Home"—Portrait of my grandmother and a friend, circa 1923, 16" x 32" on hardwood. Among other details, the "checkerboard" consists of thirteen horizontal rows and thirteen vertical rows. Each row of white squares has one, and only one, differently, and uniquely, colored square in it. Those squares may be different from their neighbors but they all work together to make a harmonious whole.

Growing up in a socially liberal, non-religious home, shaped my beliefs and demeanor. I was taught to respect everyone regardless of their race, religion or their socioeconomic status. I was taught to give everyone a chance, to look at their actions above all else, before deciding if they were going to be part of my life. They are values that have served me well in my life—as rich and varied as it has been—through the ups and the downs.

I'm never reminded more of this than on a day like today, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a day set aside to remember our similarities as well as our differences, our need to work together, to put aside old and outdated, and just plain wrong, grievances. But the work is NOT done. From the way things seem today, this work will not be done in my lifetime. We can all be better people starting now. We can all make it better for someone else every  day of our lives. We can all pass a little less judgment every single day. We can all walk in someone else's shoes for a day. We can all climb that mountain. We can all work on making this dream a reality.

The full text of MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech, August 28, 1963, Washington D.C.:

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only". We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

December 19th, 1969

Remembering the Numbers of my Life in Living Color

"Nanny, Trouble and the Kaiser," ca 1950. My grandmother, "Nanny" as I called her, a black cat named Trouble, and the family's 1948 Kaiser sedan.

1905—My grandmother at the age of ten, with her much older step brother and sister. 

With her daughter Hoohoo, 1947, with Hoohoo's brand new husband's brand new Harley Davidson.

ca 1920, at the Indian Point House Hotel, Stony Creek, Connecticut.

1924, Hammonassett Beach, not more than a mile from where I live today.

 

Early 1940s. Dig the short fur cape and the period wallpaper! Garden Club or lunch with the ladies, I'm sure.

1918-1919, a fun day with friends.

1918-19, the same day as the photo above this one. This is her very own 1915 Model T Runabout. I've posted this photo before and mentioned that I still have the windshield, steering wheel, a cowl lamp and several headlamp lenses. 

R E M E M B RA N C E   O F   S O R T S — Forty-one years ago today, December 19th, 1969, the only grandmother I ever knew died. Now don't worry, this isn't going to be some maudlin, sad, down-at-the-heels post. I was twelve years old, she was a great lady, and in some ways, thus began the downfall of my family, but this post is really about dates and numbers and an odd feature of my brain. And an excuse to post some cool old photos!

I have a bad memory of sorts, I always have. Well, for one thing, I suffered some extreme emotional trauma at the ages of 5-6, which resulted in my repressing memories of that period until I was 46 years old, but I'll save that sorry chapter for my book. No, I'm talking about my short term memories of everyday, ordinary things—what I ate for breakfast, what clothes I'm wearing right now if you make me close my eyes, the title of the book I worked 40 hours on last week. Sometimes, if put on the spot, I forget the names of people I've known for years. I might forget who I've just dialed on the phone until they answer! As a child, my parents sometimes thought I was kidding around with them because they knew I wasn't "slow" lol, but my memories of the mundane have always been very will-o-the-wisp. 

Dates and numbers on the other hand, are etched in my brain like on the proverbial stone. I remember the dates of every family member's birth and death, year and day. I remember my elementary school friends' phone numbers. I remember casual acquaintances birthdays from college, 35 years ago. I remember my college mailbox number, my college ID number, every street address I've ever lived at, my driver's license number, and not only my social security number, but my mother's and father's SS numbers. The secret? No, I'm not Rain Man and it's not mathematical, that's for sure. I remember numbers and dates in shapes and colors and it's seemingly neurological in nature.

I have a mild case of synesthesia, the mixing of senses. In its most common form, people see letters and numbers in their minds as colors. They may also see them in their mind's eye in 3D, and I have both of those conditions to a degree. I also mix up sight and sound, I remember seeing yellow songs coming out of the radio, the incessant red barking of our German Shepherd. Mostly though, my long-term memories are overcast in shades of colors, like my grandmother is almost always a pale gold, my father is in many bright colors, my mother is a lavender and my "bad" memories are brown. Whenever I think about a date in time, or a phone number, the numerals float in my head in colors and three dimensional fonts, and they scroll going backwards, further from the "front"of my head, almost like the script at the beginning of the first Star Wars movie. Is it it any wonder I ended up loving typography?  

Sure, it would be nice to not get lost in a conversation sometimes, or look like a fool when an editor at the publisher asks me which book I produced for them last week and I have NO idea, but on the other hand, I'm pretty sure this is where my art comes from. I don't know for certain if my bad lifelong, short-term memory comes from the incorrect "wiring" in my brain. My need to put down the memories I DO have in living color, every single living color at times, just might be an outgrowth of this condition. Growing up I always "blamed" my mother's old eggs for my brain, she was 40 when she had me in 1957. Or it could have been her doctor in Germany that told her to drink a daily glass of white wine from the Mosel River for morning sickness when she was carrying me, rofl, but I now see my mixed up senses as a blessing rather than a curse. 

I'm a bit different. So what? I'm pretty used to it by now!

Some of my Grandmother's Portraits circa 1920

Woman and Planter

Ready When You Are

We Grow Our Own Potatoes

(This is the owner of the hotel where these photos were taken. He was proud that they grew their own food for the hotel)

Beauty in the Backyard

(all photos are clickable thumbnails, titles are mine)

B T W : 

The Photographer Photographed

All of the photos in this post were shot by my grandmother, above, in the early 1920s, with a series of box cameras like the one she is holding in this photo. Sometimes I rue the fact that I can't afford a better digital camera for my art, especially when I see people just taking snapshots with very expensive cameras. But then I think about my grandmother taking these strongly evocative photos with basically a cardboard box, a piece of glass and some film, and I remember that it's not really the machine that makes a photograph, it's the eye behind the camera—and my grandmother had quite an eye! Proof of this is in the negatives. Whenever my grandmother is IN a photo, meaning she handed her camera to someone else to take the photo, they are nowhere near as well-framed or in focus—they are in fact just snapshots. In her hands, the archaic box camera sang like Caruso. But then, I'm biased. : ) 

I've used many of these photos in my art pieces, and I plan on using all of them at some point. When I'm using her images, I feel as if i'm collaborating with her, even though she died in 1969. I also feel as if I'm bringing these long-gone people back to life in a way, allowing the sun to shine on their faces for the first time in who knows how many years. 

These photos were taken in Stony Creek, Connecticut, a tiny shoreline village where my grandmother lived at the time—the same village that hosted LocalColour last year, my art show. Most of the portraits were shot at the Indian Point House Hotel, a grand old wooden resort hotel right on the Long Island Sound, with views of the Thimble Islands. From her diaries it seems she worked there making sure the guests were well-taken care of, organizing the parties and entertainment, and making sure everyone did their jobs well. More importantly, it seems that everyone was a family that worked there, a modern-family inasmuch as many of them weren't married and looked out for each other. My grandmother's first husband died just before my mother was born, and as a result my grandmother had to go to work for the first time. The women that worked for the hotel also took turns watching my mother. "It Takes a Village" as a concept was alive and well in this seaside community almost 100 years ago.

For several more of her vintage portraits please click "Read More" for the jump page.

Crumbling Pages, Crusty Popovers—1915ish

A page of a crumbling notebook filled with my grandmother's handwritten recipes. The notebook has a printed copyright date of 1915 in the front, but I'm not sure how long it would have taken to fill it. I scanned this and left the image quite large. If you click on it your should be able to read it quite well. Well most of it, I can't make it all out as you'll read below. All photos in the post are clickable to make larger. I'm always amazed at the details that the primitive box cameras captured and the condition that the negatives remained in for close to 100 years.

R E M E M B R A N C E — Boy did my grandmother love to cook! I entered the 'scene' quite late in her life, and she was pretty sick most of the time I knew her, but from all the stories I heard, and from my own limited experience, she could cook with the best of 'em. As it was, at the tender age of 5 or 6 she began teaching me to read recipes and to cut vegetables and measure ingredients. To this day I use her beat-up old aluminum measuring cup every time I need to measure. I've had really nice cooking utensils come and go, but I'd be truly saddened if I lost that measuring cup or her equally old brass pie crust serated cutter/crimper. I must have more than 1,000 recipes either handwritten, or typed, or cut out from newspapers and magazines, in several books and containers that she collected. I also have really old cookbooks from various companies, like Gold Medal Flour, that she must have sent away for. I think a large part of her camaraderie with friends revolved around passing around recipes and comparing cooking notes. I have no idea what I'll do with them all, but I'm thinking of making a large, highly-detailed piece of art with them. Most are becoming illegible due to the fading of ink, and the drying out of the paper, but they'd stay in their current condition 'forever' under several coats of polyurethane.

This fading and crumbling ruled notebook, dated 1915,  dates to the time of my grandmother's first marriage in late 1916. I like to think of her driving to friends homes and sitting down to coffee and copying old family recipes of theirs, in preparation for her upcoming marriage. My grandmother never knew her real mother, and both of her stepmothers died by 1910 when she was 15. From what I remember of her, I'm sure she wanted to do everything right, to be able to cook anything for her future husband, to be the best mother she could be for any children she might have. 

Nanny's Model T Ford parked in front of a friend's house (I always called my grandmother Nanny). Maybe she was inside writing down these very recipes in this entry.

Life isn't fair, we all know that, and while my grandmother was blessed by becoming pregnant a few months after she was married, her husband, my mother's father, died within 6 months of the marriage in a diving accident. He was a bridge engineer and was diving to inspect the pilings when something happened and he drowned. My mother ended up never knowing her father and my grandmother was a widow at 22 with a baby. And not much family left either. She not only refused to let it get her down, she eventually flourished, and my mother flourished, although I'm sure that deep down, both women were inexorably hurt by their losses. 

I also have a handwritten little notebook of my grandmother's with her 'Budgetary Needs' written throughout with categories of day, week and month. The majority of the items are household and food in nature, or car expenses for the Model T she had bought herself in 1915, with items for 'Veronny' my mother's nickname, the second most listed. Only rarely were items like 'new dress' or 'dressy heels' or any other items for the young mother listed, so I know it wasn't easy for her. That would change in 1924 when she married her second husband, and as is the case in this blog, that will be another entry. : ) I'll just say now that her second husband, whose last name is my middle name, was a peach and very good for her. He adopted my mom right away, and my grandmother could buy pretty much anything she wanted from that point on. Well, until Black Friday, in October of '29, but that is another story too. The Great Depression hit everybody and, skipping ahead, by the age of 40 my grandmother would be widowed for the second time, this time with two daughters, Hoohoo (née Gloria) having been born in 1925.

Nanny in the driver's seat of her little Model T Runabout during this period. It appears as if the spare tire had been used and not replaced, and the other tires look none-too great either. Stretching funds to make a life for herself and her little daughter, my mother, wasn't easy. She still found time to photograph portraits of her friends and to document her life in ways that are so special to me now. I have that steering wheel on my wall, and one of the two gas cowl lights at the base of the windshields is on the table in front of me as I type this. The windshields themselves are in the attic, waiting for me to do something creative with them. I also have several of the headlamps lenses, which I sometimes use as coasters.

A serious pose under the roughly-hewn cedar pergola....

... and a much more light-hearted pose in the back yard.

Little "Veronny" in 1921, short for Veronica, always came first in my grandmother's life. Never knowing her father who died before she was born, my mother always had nice, freshly pressed (starched?) dresses in the many photos I have of her, probably hand-made by her mother, and cute shoes and socks. I have a small notebook that listed the single mom's expenses and my mother's needs were always put in front of her own. I think perhaps this dress was meant for her to grow into a little bit, lol.  

I've scanned "Pop Overs" to post here, and at the bottom of the page is a recipe for a "1 egg Cake" although I can't really make out all the ingredients due to the condition of the page. I've never made popovers myself, but maybe I should try. I certainly enjoy eating them!

According to the recipe I scanned:

Pop Overs

2 eggs well beaten

2 even Tspoon sugar to be put in eggs

1 cup of flour

6 Tspoon of melted butter (Edit: I think it says 6, the page is ripped right through the number. Does this sound right?)

1/2 Tspoon salt

Mix all together and beat with egg beater.

3/4 cup of milk (Edit: This is the order where the milk is printed on the original, but maybe you mix it with the rest of the ingredients and then beat with the egg beater?)

Bake in hot oven 24 minutes.

1 Egg Cake

1 Tablespoon of butter. 

1 Tspoon B. powder

1 scant cup of sugar

vanilla

1 egg

3/4 cup milk

1/2 cup ( Edit: Can't read this word. Some sort of raisins?)

Bake 20 minutes to 1/2 hour

Frosting

2 Tbs cocoa

1/2 cup sugar

(Edit: I can't read the rest of the words for this recipe.)

The Photographer Photographed

The woman behind the lens of many of the vintage photographs I use in my work, my grandmother, 1922.

C O L L E C T I O N — Meet my grandmother, the woman behind the lens of many of my pieces of art. This photograph of her was taken at the Indian Point House Hotel in Stony Creek, in the early 1920s, the setting of several of the portraits she shot. I find it interesting that I have this image of HER, taken with someone else's camera, but I have yet to discover the similar photograph that my grandmother was shooting at the time. I have no idea who took this photo, but I continue to search for clues. I also have only found this print, whereas I have my grandmother's negatives. As much as I enjoy working on art, I also am endlessly fascinated with the stories behind these images. As they were taken so many years ago, and none of the subjects (or my grandmother) are alive, I'm not sure I'll ever really know the full truth. I plan on writing about all that I've uncovered at some point though.

Personal Freedom—Early 20th Century Style

My grandmother in her 1915-16 Model T Runabout—a single lady with her own car—a trailblazer for sure.

C O L L E C T I O N — This is my grandmother and her first automobile,  the least expensive, most basic version of the basic Ford Model T, the Runabout. Notice the driver's 'door' is a blank. The driver entered from the passenger side through the only opening door. It seated only 2, but represented absolute freedom back in those early days of motoring. 

Before she died in December 1969, we watched the moon landing on that July 20th together. She told me that in her lifetime, she had seen one of the very first cars to travel through our town in 1899—on the occasion of the death of a prominent gentleman whose family she would eventually marry into. She told me she had seen one of the first cars as a 4 year old child, and lived long enough to see a man land on the moon. Isn't that incredible?

My grandmother loved that car, and it was eventually parked in a barn on the property, as she could never bring herself to sell it. Eventually the barn came down around the time of the '38 Hurricane, but I own parts of the car to this day: I have the steering wheel, the cowl lights, the 2 piece windshield and several headlamp lenses. This is the car she used as she drove around the shoreline of Connecticut with her equally-early camera, shooting portraits of her friends and family. Many of these negatives have been used as images in my current pieces. By using her incredible early photos, I feel as if I'm collaborating with her, even though she died when I was 12.