Datura aka moonflower closing with the sun.

making of an artist

 continued from September 22 post...

I loved reading and I was good at making up stories. I told my adopted sister fairy tales in exchange for her woeful remembrances of the foster home where she had lived from the age of 5 to 7, that is until she moved in with us. I had an endless supply of fairy tales for Michelette. My imagination was a place of escape and pleasure for me. My mother chided me, “you have an overactive imagination!”, as though that were a shameful thing. That did an excellent job of suppressing it during those early years.

I was about 6 when my brother David told me that there was a colony of fairies living in poverty, without clothes under our screened porch. In retrospect this was probably some weird sexual fantasy/fetish for him –these naked fairies running around- but for me it meant freezing cold fairies.  I loved sewing, at which both my mother and grandmother were quite accomplished and mother had taught me rudimentary sewing skills. So I immediately set to work making skirts and blouses and pants for the little ones. I loved the project. I continued to sew and as I grew a bit older mother taught me how to use her Singer. All throughout high school and college I made most of my own clothes. In college I made my own patterns as I found the commercial ones to be so dull. I even toyed with the idea of becoming a fashion designer.

The most popular marbles in my youth were cat’s eye. They were clear glass with an oval shaped colored center in red or yellow or blue. However my favorites were the occasional clear colored ones and I worked hard at obtaining a tiny bowl full. One was a rich amber another favorite was blood red. I loved holding them in my hand, looking through them at the tree outside my bedroom window; distorting the tree to a bizarre elliptical shape with an eerie colored glow. Or I would rub them gently against my cheek, as they were so cool and smooth. After remembering these special marbles I visited an artist friend in Houston. I wanted to go to the Hiram Butler gallery (http://dbhbg.com/). Mr. Butler has remarkable space just made for art, with high peaked ceilings, lit with intelligence, the lighting designed by the famed artist James Terrell (a friend of Mr. Butler’s). On the south wall of the gallery is a 10’ high glass pane window. Framed in the window is a lush green garden of Louisiana irises, with their pale lavender flowers blooming in the dappled shade of an ancient live oak.  Deceptively cool and inviting looking. On the floor of this exquisitely lit room was a spiral sculpture made of marbles – three feet across. On closer inspection they were all there – the cat’s eyes and the opaque ones colored with random shapes of color like tiny globes of far distant planets. But there, on careful examination was a clear ruby red one and a few inches away an amber one. An artist’s treasure. I had to restrain myself from plucking them out of that tightly wound spiral and putting them in my pocket.

They reminded me of a rosary that I had been given when I made my first communion. The crucifix and chain was silver and its beads were red crystals. The wonderful feel of those faceted beads in my hands was unmatched even by the Hail Marys I was saying as they passed through my little fingers. I kept it in a silver chain mail purse along with another smaller sterling rosary.  The purse and rosaries were stolen from my room when I was 10. I mourned its loss for years. I still think of that rosary.

I found beauty in so many things back then but along with the rosary there were other Catholic images. I never paid much attention at Mass; the sermons were dull and flat. I never believed that Jesus Christ (whoever he was) was really there in that golden chalice on the altar, but I cherished the icons of the church including that chalice, the Gregorian chants, Latin hymns and the Latin prayers, especially the incense, the somber, even bleeding statues of Jesus and the saints, the holy cards that I collected. The Catholic Church has a macabre collection of relics, finger bones of saints closed in gold armature, or pieces of palm leaves “touched” to the true relic of Jesus’ cross, and an endless assortment of holy body parts.  All so mysterious in a creepy but lush and sensuous way. It seemed to feed my “overactive” imagination.  And of course, there was the array of votive candles that were displayed bleacher style in their red glass holders. If you had a quarter you could drop it into a slot by their stand, light a candle, kneel down at the altar railing and say a prayer for your very special need.  And as a bonus with the purchase you’d also get an “indulgence”, time off your punishment in purgatory. The flame flickering display gave off a delicate waxy fragrance, so much a part of the whole liturgical experience.

The purple cloth used to cover the statues Easter week; the wooden clackers used in the Holy Thursday service were all exotic and thrilling.  But the best part was accompanying mother on her weekly church chore. Mother was a member of the Corpus Christi Parish altar society. The only women allowed at the altar were members of the altar society, and only for the purpose of cleaning.  In the sacristy she would gather the used linens from the altar; richly embroidered and often slightly stained with the red wine used in the transubstantiation. She’d bring them home to launder and lovingly iron. They were cloud white and smelled of fresh air, as she would dry them on the clothes line.  She then packed them in crisp white tissue paper to transport back to the church. But my two favorite chores were changing the clothes on the Infant of Prague statue and replacing the candles. The Infant of Prague was doll like in size and his wardrobe was varied with golden brocades, wine colored capes all covered in jewel like stones. The color of clothes he wore was dictated by the liturgical season…purple during lent, gold at Easter etc. The clothes were made by the skilled hands of women of the parish. But by far the most fun was when mother let me open the box of bees wax candles to replace the burned out tapers on the altar. The heady scent of that wax would make me close my eyes and moan with pleasure. And it still does.

Years later catholic imagery found its way into my art work.

to be continued....