art?

My last adapted chapter touched on my love of art and collection of postcards of famous artworks I have seen.

I came across this while finding some historical anecdotes and felt it needed to be shared.

UGLY RENAISSANCE BABIES.

Enjoy!

Home.

This is a traditional German Wine Glass. It lives in a purple hutch that is located in the dining room of my tiny one bedroom Lincoln Square apartment. The Glass, the hutch and the apartment are all older than I am. These are things I've inherited from the people who came before me. Who will inherit them after I am gone? Who has sat in my dining room before me? Who will sit there after I am gone? I think about this a lot. People have fallen in love in my home. People have been sick in my home. People have cried, gotten in fights, gone through rough times. People have lived here, walked here, maybe even died here. Strangers.

The wine glass and the hutch were my parents. They bought them when we lived in Germany right before I was born. Now, at 26, they are mine. Mine. In the apartment I share with no one else. Mine. For now...

Timber Lane

Where did you come from? How were you chosen? My Grandma Elvyn and Papa Frank had you in their home. In their most intimate rooms. Bought to fill their perfectly crafted space. But I saved you from the dust and darkness. Do you wonder where they went? Why you stayed silent for years. No use. No need. Disregarded until I rescued you and plugged you in. Night after night I call upon you. When I need inspiration. When I work late. When I unwind. Delicate and simple. You sat bedside to my Papa through the end of his days. Steady and unwavering in your determination to do your duty. You did not let the sadness and burden of time stop you from shedding light. Death and tragedy and time do not hold you back. You will shine on through my days, witness to all that I make it through and ultimately my end.

Just words.

They remain even though you have gone. Curved and precise. A gift. A piece of you frozen in time. Instructions simple and direct. Passed down through the matriarchs. A secret known by many but now mine to share. I follow each direction, go through every motion and through me the ideas on the page come to life. I create. This secret is ours and now a piece of you remains with me.

I am not sure how old you are… I know you are at least thirty. You have been to family parties and distant counties. I look at your picture from 1984. Held in the hands of mother, my beautiful mother. Is that why I love you so much? Red and worn, smelling of old leather, faintly vintage --you once held her film and now you hold my digital canon. Memories into images--all the tangible moments of our lives captured forever as evidence.

Dishes

This is about closing a chapter and staring a new one.

Before I boxed these up I made sure they were all clean, carefully considering their future while conjuring images of their past.

What I brought with me to Chicago, a mismatched set though they may be – two sets really.

The newer ones are plastic in black and white and they are what I bought for myself when I was in university. Plastic: in case of late night antics. Deep and smooth, square with curved edges.

Funky.

For dining OR serving.

The older ones are more classic, rounded, and were bought while my family lived in a two –bedroom apartment in a complex off Fox Lonas Drive in the school district where I would go to high school. We ate off of them and my mother said they would be mine – that we would pack them away after we moved into a new house and ate off of the Pfaltzgraff again. These provided meals to us while my dad was healing from his brain surgery (I know.) and that Christmas that we were all sick with the flu. I’ve often thought of these as the “Countrywood” tableware, the name of our street those two years.

When I turned 17, my grandparents followed family tradition and gave me a hope chest. These were quickly packed away for the life I would start when I was an adult.

So when I came here, so did the hope chest and these.

And this week, with my boyfriend of 5 years, we decided to buy new as these were a little out-dated and have been chipping for the last year. A few mugs have been broken and are long gone.

So we are eating our meals from these now.

We started with a Thai dinner the day before Thanksgiving.

Urbs in Horto

This is the latin motto of the city. It translates to English as City in a Garden.

Hmm...