week 9  in my  “this is where i am from” year long project:

I’m working on a painting of the little depression era dump next to Ginger’s barn. The sketch below is of one of the treasures you might find in that spot –  an accidental terrarium – a jar or bottle or even just a piece of glass that has become a mini greenhouse – a winter home to growing  things – foggy and misty and otherworldly inside.

It is a magical thing to come upon on a cold brown winter forest floor.  You can see some examples of accidental terrariums here , here and here and if you have found one I’d love to see. I’ve almost finished the charcoal sketch on the board I’m going to paint on. Besides the little terrariums there is lots of marvelous old timey junk, the  stone wall that went impossibly on and on and the dancing sumac trees with their strange velvety red bobs, leaves gone for winter.

This is the beginning of a map of the territory of my childhood. I’ve begun pretty much in the middle – our little red house with the barns behind, The house across the street and the house next door. The hill behind the house across the street was a forest of huge red pines. The dried amber pine needles carpeted the west facing slope and it glowed in the afternoon. The house next door had a grove of sumac trees behind ( upper right of this map) and past those trees, next to Ginger’s barn, was a depression era dump – a little one. Bottles and jugs, buckets, upholstery springs, ancient roller-skates, piggybanks and broken china – everyday things from a long time ago all rusty and ruined,  waiting to be excavated by curious children. It was my childhood deadhorse bay and one of my favorite places – I’m going to zoom in on that spot for next week.

This week I’m sharing a couple pages from my sketch book for this project – backyard flowers:

new winter jacket – watercolor and colored pencil

A lot of my memories are in square format and slightly overexposed.  My mother took pictures with a Yashica – A manual camera.  There was a shoe box full of photos I loved looking through over and over.  I loved  seeing my world rendered (instagram style apparently!) and I loved seeing the world that preceded me.  I’m intentionally not working directly from photos but I have vivid memories of some of them. She had a particular spot she liked to plant us in for pictures so I see myself  and my siblings there- in Halloween costumes and new winter coats and  white first communion dresses. There is one I remember particularly well – in a brand new winter jacket, fresh snow on the ground and the paths to the little barns and clothesline neatly  cleared. I must have been 10 or 11 – approaching the height of my geekdom.

the old well – pencil drawing

I loved the places that were home to lot’s of little creatures – the swamps, streams, stone foundations and this old well at the edge of Hennessy’s Grove. If  you were still and  looked long enough you were likely to see a salamander tail slipping into a crack or a garter snake poke out of a crevice. It had a heavy cover on it  and I don’t think I ever saw inside but I loved wondering what it might be like,  imagining driping and plinking echoing in the magnificent depth and strange  pale creatures living in the dark, wet murk.