Art

Kitchen 101: Art and History

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / Leave a comment

"Get a shot with the cake stand showing."

Nothing is quite as grounding as visiting my parents’ house — not for any higher emotional reasons, but for the sheer hilarity.  I have two short examples to share for your mid-week lighter fare. 

First, my mother took great care to make sure I saw her living sculpture of onions.  These are sprouting on a fine china plate that is also elevated to a special status on top of a glass cake stand.  Note the onion skin that has been pushed off of the bulb by the new growth.  Try — if you can handle it — to process how long it took for this skin to be raised aloft to this level, undisturbed.  “I just thought it was cool and amazing, so I have let it keep going.  Be sure to get a shot where you can see I have it on the cake stand.”   Mom has always had an artist’s eye, and she really took it to a new level for me with this combined science project and onion sculpture. 

Ambiguous feelings about Polish knights. OK then.....

Now, padre.  I’m not sure what to say about this, except on the same day I found the onion art I passed this newspaper clipping in the kitchen.  Yes, that is correct, it says “Poland marks mixed memories of knights.”  I love the alliteration and the photograph of the battle recreation.  This is the kind of thing I find scattered around mom and dad’s house all the time, and though maybe I should be used to it by now this one just really cracked me up.  I think it’s the “news item” feel of a clipping with an “action shot” featuring a long, long-over period from a country many people may not even remember is a country.  When is the last time you saw Poland in the news?  Well, I’ve just fixed that for you.  You can thank me later, perhaps over a cup of mead. 

We can quaff until that skin falls off the onion.  What say?

And So the Obsession Begins

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / 1 Comment

That’s right, I am now the proud owner of the FestivALL 2010 “T” by Jim Probst!  Last year I convinced Mark Wolfe to sell me his “T” and I like to think that initiative had a little something to do with this year’s E-bay auction to benefit all of the artists and FestivALL itself.

So that’s all good….but now I have 2 sequential years of “T”s in the house.  What do they say, do it 3 times and it’s a habit? 

I can just see it 50 years from now.  My grandchildren come to help clean out the house after my death (for the record, I plan to be found with a smile on my face in bed with a one pound bag of peanut M & M’s, but that’s another story).  They bring some friends from college with them because it’s a big job, and when they open the front door the kids just stand wide-eyed in amazement…….the house is full of almost nothing but sculptures of the letter T.

To a T...and a T, and a T

I will have had to move everything else out over the years.  T’s will be on the walls, but also used as chairs, stools, and tables.  Out back they will be stools around the firepit, stepping stones through the garden, and propped as ladders against trees.  When they find me with my M & M’s my body will be resting on an extra-large T, commissioned one year in my honor of course, to serve as my bed.  Many artists will have competed for this amazing honor, and eventually this particular piece will be donated to the Smithsonian.

Finally one of the kids will find his breath and ask my grandaughter, “What….what was up with your grandma?”

She will smile that little heart-shaped smile she inherited from my daughter and say something mysterious like, “It’s a family secret, but let’s just say when she liked something, she went all the way.”