Grandma Moses Paintings Now at the Dayton Art Institute

Tom and I celebrated our fifty-fourth anniverary by going out to eat and then to the art museum to see American Sampler, Grandma Moses and the Handicraft Tradition.

Both of us enjoyed the show.  Tom had never seen crewelwork and was impressed by the beautiful pictures Anna Mary Robertson Moses (1860-1961)  made with worsted wool.  One crewelwork picture is on the cover of the flyer advertising the exhibit.  I scanned both the front and back so you can read about some of the upcoming special events associated with the exhibit.  Click to enlarge.

 Both of us enjoyed the farm scenes she painted. Tom was raised in the country and though I was raised in what would now be called a suburb, I had many aunts and uncles who lived on farms.  Every time we visited the farms, I did things I never did at home...played in the cornfields, jumped off the loft into mounds of straw. When I was six I even fell into a fresh cow pie.  I expect you know another name for cow pie.

Grandma Moses didn't begin painting until her hands were too gnarled to sew.  She used housepaint in the beginning and whatever she could find that she could paint on.  One of her first projects was painting on her wall because she ran out of wallpaper.  She was fond of using glitter on her winter scenes to give the snow the effect of sun shining on it.

I had a hard time deciding what to buy in the gift shop as a memento of the visit.  Even now I'm thinking, "If I go back, I'll buy the children's book with a spring poem by Robert Frost and pictures by Grandma Moses."  What I bought was a children's book about Grandma Moses.  I have about a dozen other books in this series.  They are inexpensive, have nice reproductions of the artist's work and give a brief overview of the artist and his or her work.  There are amusing cartoons to accompany the text as well. One of her paintings is on the cover. Click to enlarge.  These books are written and illustrated by Mike Venezia.

In the hall leading to the exhibit hall there were "thread paintings by Mary Borkowski, a Dayton folk art painter.  These were mostly silk embroidery on silk.  They are very different from Grandma Moses crewelwork but are still considered folk art because Mary Borkowski was untrained in the fine arts and had a unique vision just as Grandma Moses did.

The last section of the American Sampler exhibit includes text that explains how some of the embroidery stitches are made.  It also includes samplers made by young children and women  who used the samplers to decide what stitches to use for future sewing projects.  The samplers are another example of folk art.

The exhibit will be in Dayton until February 21, 2016.  I hope you live close enough to visit it.

Bertha Robertson, Textile Science, and Edith Head

Back in the Olden Days when I was sixteen, I took Textile Science as part of the needletrades curriculum at Whitney Vocational High School.  Bertha Robertson was one of my teachers.

She was an admirer of Edith Head.  I had never heard of her.  There is much we don't know when we are sixteen.  My best friend and I would sometimes go to a late afternoon movie at a second run movie theater after school.  The tickets were considerably cheaper than at the first run theaters and the theaters were respectable, safe for young women to go to.  We probably saw some of Edith Head's creations.

In Mrs. Robertson's Textile Science class we did some simple experiments  with the commonly used fibers of the time...cotton, wool, linen, rayon and the relatively new one, nylon.

The second class Mrs.  Robertson taught was Pattern Design.  That was the one I really enjoyed.  We learned to adjust a basic pattern to our exact measurements and then how to change the pattern...move the darts, the waist lines, add fullness to create flared sleeves and skirts, etc.  In sewing class I made a sundress and jacket using what she taught us.

Strapless evening gowns, often organdy,  multiple nylon net petticoats under full circle skirts with poodles embroidered on them and conservative business suits with straight skirts and snugly fitted jackets because we had to dress properly to succeed were popular.    Often a movie date outfit was a two-piece knit outfit which was a short sleeve pullover-like  sweater top but longer in length, and a straight, narrow skirt, both sweater and skirt the same color.  We would wear  black pumps (high heels to us) with it.  Sometimes we wore a narrow gold-colored belt.  Snug bodices on dresses and nylon stockings with seams down the backs were also in style.  Suitcases were hard-sided.  Hats were important.

Unknowingly, I recorded some of these styles when I drew the Senior page for our 1955 yearbook, The First Lady.

Rocks to Agitators to No Agitators, Washing Machines

We bought this automatic washer a couple years ago when the last automatic washer died.  If I had known the old one was  an outdated antique, I would have opened the lid and taken a photo of the agitator inside.  The new washers don't have agitators.  They have a rotating tub.  The washer gets the clothes clean so I haven't bothered to figure out why.

As long as I can remember agitators were a part of top-loading washing machines.  They were a bit like a screw.  They rotated left, then right as the clothes were being washed.

I can remember that until I was four or five we had a washing machine  like the one below which I photographed at the Madison County Historical Museum in London, Ohio.  I don't remember all the details of operating it.  I do remember the soapy water was squeezed out of the clothes with the wringer.  The clothes were rinsed and then squeezed through the wringer again.

                      Madison County Historical Museum

There was a tub arrangement associated with the washer.  Someone reading this blog probably could tell me more about the whole system.

                        Madison County Historical Museum

When I was four, my twin sisters were born and shortly afterward, Dad bought an automatic washing machine, a great new invention.  It was a Bendix, with two inserts for the tub.  One was used if the machine was being used to wash clothes, the other if the machine was being used to wash dishes.

Tom's family didn't have indoor plumbing when he was four or five so his mother used an old way to wash clothes.  In the summer, this rack with a wringer in the middle  was placed outside close to the clothesline where the clothes were hung.  Tubs were placed on either side and filled with water, one tub with soapy water, one tub with rinse water.

We didn't see this in a museum but at the barber shop the last time Tom went to get his hair cut.  One of the barbers collects, buys and sells antiques. Here is a view of the wringer with the side benches folded up front and back.

                                                   Front view.

                                                           Side View

The patent on this model was given in 18?6.  I cannot read the third number.

Clothes were scrubbed on washboards.

                       Madison County Historical Museum

Washing clothes is much easier these days and I am thankful.

Friendly Flowers

My mother liked to walk around her yard everyday and look at all her flowers.  She said,  "They remind me of the friends and family members who gave them to me and bring back pleasant memories."

Today, I walk around my yard and look at my flowers and remember my friends.

I don't know whether these are Coral Bells or Choral Bells but they remind me of Mother.  She always had some in her garden.

Our Mock Orange Bush reminds me of Mother, too.  It is a descendant of the bushes Mother gave us shortly after we moved into this house over forty years ago.  She said her mother always had mock orange in her garden.  Their scent reminds some people of the scent of true orange blossoms.  Below is a close-up of the flowers.

My neighbor across the street who has lived in her house longer than we have lived in ours gave me a start of this ground cover last year.

Another neighbor gave me a start of Moneyplant when my children were all in elementary school.  She and her husband passed away years ago.  Below is a photo of the seedpods from this plant.  Before long, they will turn a silvery color, the color of coins.  I have seen Northern Cardinals peck open the thin pod to get the seeds.

The neighbor who lived beside us from the time we moved in and whose daughter babysat for our children when they were young gave me starts of these peonies,  both the pink and the white ones.  This neighbor as passed on, also.

The start for this plant came from Tom's sister, Phyllis.  She calls it Wild Geranium but it is different from the wild geraniums in the Miami County woods.

Chuck, husband of my college roommate, gave me the seeds for these columbines and for purple ones as well.

This is the rose I painted from at Andy's Garden two years ago when the Plein Air Belles got together there.  I liked it so well I bought it.  I gave the painting to the friend I walk with on Saturday mornings.

We bought the two Weigela from Tom's college friend who owns a nursery.  We are pleased he suggested them.  The top one is red, the bottom one is variegated.

My daughter gave me this miniature red rose many years ago for Mother's Day.

My garden always has at least one of these.

Dandelion...What a lot of wonderful memories.  Memories of picking them when I was a child.  Remembering a certain grandson to whom I was giving plants to take to his mother.  "Mom doesn't need any of those yellow flowers.  We already have a lot of those."  And Cinda, the Gentle Breeze, who loves dandelions more than anyone I have ever known.  She taught me they are good to eat, full of vitamins that we humans need.  She taught me, too, that a tasty treat is a dandelion flower from a field untreated with pesticides dipped in pancake batter and deep-fried.

Canon's Cigar Shop, London, Ohio

When our friends took us to the Madison County Historical Society Museum, I was amazed. It is much bigger than most I've seen in small towns. It also has a number of outstanding displays. Tom suggested that I take photos for my blog. I took a lot but now I remember other displays I wish I had photographed. Since we visit our friends fairly often, I hope we can arrange to visit them on Wednesdays since that is the only day of the week that the museum is open.

This is the exhibit that Chuck especially wanted us to see, the M. B. Cannon Cigar Store. Mr. Cannon owned the business for over forty-five years.

The entire store was moved to the museum and reassembled. What makes it special are all the furnishings which came with it. Chuck pointed out that the cigar display case even has the original humidors to keep the cigars in perfect condition.
 

And there are five-cent cigars that gave rise to the saying when inflation appeared , "You can't even get a good five-cent cigar anymore."
 

Mr. Cannon gave Christmas turkeys to the newspaper boys who picked up their papers at his store. Behind the boys you can see another view of the outside of the store.

On the counter are old newspapers, their headlines proclaiming historic events.

And back in a corner is the classic cigar store Indian that stood outside the store when it was in its original location in downtown London, Ohio.