Changes

Thanks for visiting.  This blog is being redesigned and will no longer have new posts on it.

Please visit my new blog which should have new posts beginning on Monday, September 26  at:

                           rememberingourladies.blogspot.com

Thanks.  Carol and Smarty

Double Lives

      "Of course, I live more than one life all the time anyway.  Don't we all, who read books?"
                                                                                                      -Mary Oliver

     Actually, I don't know who Mary Oliver might be, but she's right about living more than 1 life at a time if you are a reader.  Some people read 2 or 3 books at a time.  Do you think that gives them a "split personality?"  I often have two books going at the same time, but one must be fiction and the other nonfiction.   It's best if their topics aren't too similar either (like two books about women artists) or my brain will occasionally cross wire and I'm not sure which character - the real one or the make believe one - is doing what.

     Over the years I've tried to read some of the classics, and see a big difference between some of them and many of the books being written by contemporary authors.  One of my all-time favorite authors is Pearl Buck.  Her 70 or so books are set in China and are fascinating to me. John Steinbeck's East of Eden is another good book written with great style.  A few years ago, I reread The Great Gatsby  by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  I just can't see why this book is considered such a great one.  It wasn't by my standards.

     Once I bought a book of Fitzgerald's short stories because it had the most charming cover art.  My favorite story was called, "Bernice Bobbs Her Hair."  She bobbs her hair after being goaded into it by her cousin, Margorie.  Bernice regrets her hasty action and really wishes she hadn't let her nasty cousin push her so far.  How to get back at Margorie?  Bernice finds the perfect solution.

"Bernice Bobbs Her Hair" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Art Journal Page
Creative Idea #9

     This journal page started with a watercolor wash before some paperdolls with bobbed hair were added.  Its a simple page, but a good reminder of  Fitzgerald's clever story.

     Smarty and I'll be back soon.

                        Carol

One of My Best Qualities

     Sorry there haven't been any posts lately, but I've had computer problems.  The numerals wouldn't type, so I couldn't get into the blog site to post anything.  Yesterday I unplugged 8 cords from my computer, labeled all of them and where they plug in on the computer, and took everything to the Geek Squad.  The problem turned out to be so simple...a short in the keyboard.  After buying a new one, I had to lug everything back upstairs to my computer desk and plug it all back into the computer.  By then I was just too pooped to do anything more than indulge in a glass of wine and watch an old movie.

     Today I thought I'd mention one of my best qualities which is that I'm a terrific starter of new projects.  I especially enjoy planning and purchasing all the necessary materials, but then by the time I get home with the stuff I need, I've run out of steam.  By the next day, I've got a new idea so the old one gets put on hold while I work out my newest idea.
     Here's what I mean:

This was a bargain at the Dollar Store even though I had no
 idea how I would use it.  Recently, while I was reading about the 5
Walker Sisters, it came to me that this box would make a perfect
room from their house.



Here is a paper mache box I actually found in the garage.  I
don't remember what I was going to use it for originally, but now
it's going to become the storehouse for a set of 1st Lady cards.



 Look at this wonderful 1950's unused bridal book I found at an
antique show.  Think how cool it would be if there were pictures
 of honeymoon places and clothes from the 50's all researched in
my old magazines.

 

This house isn't exactly what I wanted for the project I had
in mind, but with some modifications, it will tell the story of
Horace, Augusta, and Baby Doe Tabor.



This dressmaker's box from 1910 has been in the works for
some time now.  There's a problem though.  They didn't
have plastic handles in 1910, did they?

      Do you see what I mean?  There are other unfinished projects, too, like the 2 small art quilts which are "in progress", a couple of paperdoll sets, a notebook about the Empress Eugenie of France, and the various art journals I work in when the mood strikes.  The projects don't seem so large when I plan them, but the planning seems to be waaay more fun than the actual work.  

      One day I read that you should just throw out all of the unfinshed stuff periodically and move on to the new things you want to do.  That might get to be a bit expensive, but "out of sight out of mind" could remove the guilt.

    If you have the same problem with too many unfinished project, what do you do about them?

Smarty and I'll be back soon.

                        Carol

Shot Dead

      Recently during a short camping trip with my sister and brother-in-law, we visited the Little Bighorn Battlefield near Hardin, MT.  The Custer National Cemetery is located within the battlefield although General Custer isn't buried there - he's at the West Point Cementery because he was a graduate.

     While we were looking through the cemetery information booklet, I came across the name of a woman  laundress who is buried there.  According to the booklet, Julia Roach was the first woman known to be shot dead  in Montana Territory.  Her husband did it, but he was never punished.

     I thought to myself , "Oh sure.  If he shot another man, he would have been hung."



Custer National Cemetery

  
   Well, the story may not be so simple.  The shooting actually took place at Fort C.F. Smith where Mrs. Roach had tracked down her husband who was known as Corporal John Doyle.  Mrs. Roach and several of their children arrived as a "surprise" for her husband who hadn't seen her since leaving them in New York City.  While on the trail of her missing husband, Mrs. Roach had been warned at Fort Phil Kearney about her promiscuous, profane, and abusive behavior.   Apparently Corporal Doyle was a mild-mannered man who got fed up with her verbal misbehavior.  After she insulted him about his "fathering" skills, he shot her dead.

Grave marker of Julia Roach.

    
     Why wasn't he punished?  Corporal Doyle was placed under arrest, but the commander of Fort Smith didn't think it was an army matter.  He promised that Doyle would be turned over to the civil authorities.  However, the closest civil authorities were a couple of hundred miles away.  It never happened.  Corporal Doyle was returned to duty and transferred with the rest of his unit when Fort Smith was abandoned.  Soon he deserted and was never heard from again.

     Mrs. Roach was buried at Fort Smith, but when the fort was closed, her body was reinterred at Custer National Cemetery.

     Did Corporal Doyle try to escape from Mrs. Roach and her nasty personality by changing his name and joining the army?  Was she right to trail him like she did?  Army pay was quite low, there was no such thing as child support, and divorce was extremely difficult to obtain in those days of the eighteen hundreds.

    What do you think about this case?

     Smarty and I'll be back soon.
                Carol

Ice Cream . . . Colors

     Soft ice cream colors have always been my favorites.  Even when I'm trying to use the more intense colors, my art work often turns out in the mid-to-light range of colors.  A few years ago, I bought a book designed especially for quilters called Color and Cloth by Mary Coyne Penders.  The idea is that you use snippets of fabric from your fabric stash to make different quilt patterns according to Ms. Penders' instructions.  I was thinking that the color ideas would apply to all kinds of art - not just quilts - and they do in many respects.  For instance, the first lesson asks you to make a color wheel using small bits of plain colored cloth and then make one using printed cloth. 



Solid Fabric Color Wheel




     They're fun to make by drawing two circles, with one inside the other, on a piece of cardstock.  Divide the circle into a dozen equal parts.  On tracing paper, copy one of the small sections to use to make a pattern for your fabric pieces.  Cut the pieces of material and glue them onto the circle.

  

      Of course these don't really have anything to do with women...or do they.  We all wear clothes and furnish our houses in the colors we like the best.  You can buy a new car in the color of your choice - as long as it's white, gray, or whatever the color the car manufacturers have decided we want this year. 
 
     Once I decided to make my own color book.  It's turned out to be another of my "works in progress."  Earlier I had purchased a blank page album, so I decided it would work fine for "My Color Book".  As I worked, I discovered that it is much easier to make each collage page on a piece of cardstock and then attach it to the book page with double stick tape.  Each page of the book concentrates on one of the six main colors plus black or white.  When those are done, further pages will have two or three colors together.  Most of the finished pages aren't focused on women, but the new pages will be.



At the beginning.







RED - passionate, exciting, anger, love 
Creative Idea Number Six

PURPLE - Dignified, regal, power, spiritual
Creative Idea Number Seven

     The background for this collage was made by tearing tissue paper into pieces, coating a piece of cardstock with Mod Podge, sticking the tissue paper to it, and applying a final coat of Mod Podge.  While it dried, I found pictures and words for the collage.  After trimming them, I coated them with Mod Podge in the same way.  One mistake I made was to place a piece of wax paper over the whole thing and roll a brayer over the wax paper to flatten out the tissue.  Only, it wasn't quite all dry and the wax paper suck in a few places pulling the color off of the cutouts.   That just proves that even with the power color purple, mistakes happen.  
     Smarty and I'll be back soon.
                         Carol