How I Almost Had the Answer

Drinking has never been a problem for me. It’s very seldom that I have one even at a party.  I’ll have maybe a glass of wine although I really love anything frozen or with ice cream, but one drink can really affect me and a bottle of beer puts me to sleep. I can easily remember the two times I really got looped, once on New Year’s Eve and another after opening night of a play.  (I wasn’t in the play just worked back stage)

So what happened one night was a little different for me.  We attended a dinner dance and were with a large group of friends at a local country club.  I had several glasses of wine and everyone had left our table and began milling around except for myself and a woman acquaintance.  I’m not known for philosophizing, but the woman and I began this deep conversation on the real meaning of life.  Her claim to fame was as a contestant in the Miss America Pageant where she represented another state out west. She wasn’t the winner.  As we explored the depths of meaning, our words were becoming more slurred and I had this fantastic feeling that we were almost there, when all of a sudden her false eyelash fell off. She left the table and never came back. That’s how I almost had the answer.

About My Art

The first art class I attended was in 1944 my freshman year in high school. The other students in class were talented upperclassmen and while the instructor worked with them, I being the only freshman was given work to do without much direction. I also spent a great amount of time in a chair posing for the rest of the class. This was my introduction to art. Disillusioned, I quit after the first semester.

In the late 40’s I saw work’s by Grandma Moses in a magazine article. Her paintings were childhood memories of life on the farm. They intrigued me because the little things depicted in her paintings were things I associated my own grandmother and I really loved the style.

I decided to try art again about 14 years ago when my husband and I spent a month in Vermont. We visited a museum containing Grandma Moses’ paintings. I picked up her picture postcards and was once again inspired to do some artwork. At home I tried to draw such a scene in a sketch book and failed miserably.

Shortly thereafter, I found a damaged Folk Art poster marked down to 25 cents. After doing several large versions of that particular scene using inexpensive acrylic and poster boards, I found it too expensive to frame the large pictures so I started going to thrift shops and bought smaller frames and painted pictures to fit them. I was now painting every day. At Christmas my children paid for a series of art lessons at the art center where my daughter is an instructor. I was now going to have my second art class. Not wanting to embarrass Melissa, I chose a different teacher. After I got up the nerve, I took the next course from my daughter who proved to be a much better instructor.

I had found some 5” x 7” frames, fitted them with mats and began painting miniatures all in my own Grandma Moses style. A local art group was just forming and I joined them. Together we exhibited in many of the local libraries. The really experienced artists did large oil paintings and with space being limited, they were allowed to hang only one painting. In each library, my small paintings were put in their glass display cabinet, so there were always about twelve or more of mine on view. Even though other artists were far better painters than I, they were always very complimentary to me. A funny thing, my daughter was so well known that most of them had taken courses from her or knew of her reputation.

Although I did other types of paintings, the majority were in the Grandma Moses style. These usually contained a white steeple church, a large colonial home, a barn, cows, horses, sheep, maybe a grave yard and all with a mountain in the background with a blue sky and white clouds.

In the corner by my signature is a black sheep and on the back there is a stamp which say’s they’re from the Black Sheep Studio, which was actually my kitchen table. I exhibited in a lot of art shows, sold and gave away some to friends and family.

One day I received a call from a reporter who asked if she could come and interview me. She had seen my miniatures and thought them charming. We talked for quite a while at my kitchen table where she took my picture working on a painting. In several of the weekend sections of the St. Petersburg Times, there was a large article about me. The headline read “Palm Harbor’s Own Grandma Moses” the story covering almost half a page.

The librarian at the Oldsmar Library where the reporter had seen my work had asked me to do another display in December, but I had to cancel. I had only been painting several years but had to quit because of arthritis in my hands.

Every once in a while I find something I’d like to paint and I’ll work on it. Most of my painting supplies I gave to my Granddaughter who plans to be an art major in college next year. But I have saved enough for myself if a spark reignites again.

My Life as an Opera Singer

Late last night I happened to see the Metropolitan Opera production of “Carmen” on one of our PBS stations and stayed awake until it was over at 2:00 AM. Why was I so spellbound? When I was seventeen my father, who was a lover of classical music, gave me a LP album of “Carmen”. Since the album contained the libretto, I was able to follow and sing along trying to learn the role. I missed a lot of the action listening to the recording so it was rather excited to finally see it. The production was astounding, not because of the music, but by the acting of the two principals and the magnificent stage sets. The singer playing Carmen was absolutely beautiful and the role called for her to be sexy which, believe me she carried it to the max. The fact that words in English flashed on with a brief description of each piece of music was a huge plus. After working on that opera for a long while, it became boring and I moved on to other music. My brothers got so tired of hearing me sing, they started to hide my albums.

Years later when my husband and I with our three children moved to Chicago, I started looking for a place to sing and there was an article in the paper about a local couple who were forming an opera workshop and looking for interested singers. It wasn’t necessary to know French or Italian and we would learn the music phonetically. I joined and immediately met some men and women looking for the same outlet. We worked on the short opera “A Masked Ball” as well as “The Telephone” which was written in English. The group rented a local school auditorium, as well as French Revolution costumes complete with enormous white wigs. We sold tickets and my husband attended along with a good friend. Later, they told me they ran out of the theater after the performance because the program was so bad they couldn’t stop laughing and didn’t want to face the other singers.

Shortly thereafter, our small group gave up on opera and formed our own community chorus. There was a group in the same town presenting operettas, which none of us were interested in. Inside the operetta group there were several people wanting to do Broadway musicals and they more or less forced them to do “The Music Man”. It was a huge success but the group still wanted to do operettas. So a small group of four people borrowed money to organize the BOB Players (Best Off Broadway) which would do only Broadway Musicals. Our little chorus joined them and became an integral part of the group. The premise of the new company was to do musicals with the same standards as professional companies. Our choreographer had been an assistant to Josh Logan on “South Pacific”, we had actors and singers and dancers who had been Broadway professionals. The directors, choreographers and musicians were the only one’s being paid. The scenery for our first production “Annie Get Your Gun” was designed by former professional and she taught me all the techniques for painting and building scenery and our costumes were designed and custom made for us. My daughter, a talented artist even at the age of twelve, drew the enormous horse for the living curtain which Frank Butler sat on for the finale. She and I painted the scenery on weekends. Everyone who participated was expected to work on production committees. We were a smash hit and the producers got their front money back. They had borrowed $3,000 which had been a big risk for them. Thereafter the company was self-sustaining. Ticket and advertising sales revenues were used to pay for future productions.

We did two productions a year and rehearsed for three months. I was on stage only once a year, but worked backstage for the other show. The reviews we received were wonderful and we were called the finest semi-professional company in the Chicago area. And that’s how I started my stage career in the 1960’s. I’m sure you’ll hear more of my theater years in forthcoming Blogs.

My First Blog

Last week I read in the newspaper about an acquaintance who was jailed for fraud which caused me to think about all the people, good and bad I have known through the years.

In the 59 years my husband and I have been married, we have met so many people who are dear to us as well as some strange ones whose memory will linger. Most people like to hear about the strange persons more.

You can’t fully know how people feel about you personally. Maybe they like you but still consider you strange. I know there are a lot of people who feel that way about me. However, I will tell of a remark made which I considered a nice compliment to me.

About 40 years ago, we were moving from Pittsburgh to Atlanta and my neighborhood bridge group gave a coffee for me. By tradition, when a member moved, you were given a coffee mug with a message written in indelible ink on the side. With repeated washing the message vanished along with the memory of their names. But one lingering memory I have is when a member told me that she would really miss me because I had such wonderful stories of people I knew. This was from a woman who was working on her doctorate in some “ology” field which I can’t remember, but whom I greatly admired. Her husband was a renowned specialist in a childhood disease and she’s saying she’d miss me. Wow!

You might not think this was a big thing, but as a high school graduate who retired when her first child was born, to be told that by such an educated person was truly meaningful to me.

In the 40 years since leaving Pittsburgh I’ve met many more wonderful people as well as “strange ducks” who will probably appear in my new blog. (I don’t have an old blog in case you’re wondering)