April 2017 A couple of days in the 40s and then more snow and cold wind. Then a sunny day. Then more snow. Ugh. My choir has been working on Palm Sunday and Easter music. For Easter we are singing Cohen’s Hallelujah with Easter appropriate lyrics. Catchy tune. Look it up on You Tube. Easter is 3 weeks later this year. That was called to my attention by a news report that said the first quarter business income was down because they had no Easter income. Most people spend money on food for Easter. I remember when my mother took the four boys down to Carpenters Men’s Store in Framingham and outfitted them ‘from the skin out’. Me too, later. I would get a dress, socks, a Spring coat, a hat with ribbons or a flower on it and matching gloves. I don’t think anyone does that now. We used to sing ‘Put on your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it, you’ll be the grandest lady in the Easter Parade.(Irving Berlin) Funny…written by a Jewish guy. Just thinking. I read Philbrick’s Mayflower, then Bunker Hill, about the beginning of the American Revolution. So much more in- depth and fascinating that what we read in school. Where I live now, was called Quaboag Plantation and was divided up into the Brookfields-West, East and Brookfield. They were decimated by King Philip and his hoard(1675) and it took a long time to get repopulated (up to fifteen families) because of little skirmishes and other irritations to the daily life. I imagine one would be on guard all the time for rustlings in the bushes, the fear of being shot or scalped, of having your new house burned to the ground, your wife and children kidnapped and taken as far as Canada for ransom or slaves. Presently we are aware of being under attack by Radical Islamists but that’s not the same as the pervasiveness and proximity of the frontier threat. I am referring to the French/Indian War, 1688-1697. The Canadian authorities used the Indians to terrorize the English colonists. It was actually a religious war between James II and protestant William of Orange. Both wanted to be King of England. France joined in James’ Catholic side and the war was brought over here. We did not see it as a religious war but as a war for France to take the colonies from Britain. And I think the Indians thought they could get their land back. Imagine the steadfast courage to clear land for farming, build a house, feed the family with an hoe in one hand and a blunderbuss in the other. The settlers built a safe house called Fort Gilbert with a stockade fence, not far from where I live. But most of the settlers lived more than 3 miles from the center of town, too far to make use of it. Now we have safe houses in colleges to protect the snowflakes from the slings and arrows of politically incorrect speech. Wonder how they would survive on the frontier. No I don’t wonder. They wouldn’t. Whose fault is that? If you are a parent, have you given your children the tools to attempt to survive. Read the Foxfire books, read The Axe. Read a cookbook. This is probably my last painted purse. They don’t sell well so I am doing something wrong. Dragonfly on silver leather I have been working on my new digs. Collecting furniture. I am waiting now for the yard sales to begin. This is mine. Oil on canvas. ignore uncropped sides My art group at Hitchcock Academy in Brimfield decided to copy a painting by a nice but little known artist of a covered bridge. We showed them all together and it was interesting to see how the painting was portrayed in different media, watercolor and oil. POSTED BY SUSAN AT 12:22 AM NO COMMENTS: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2016 Forward to the Past If I lay awake in the middle of the night, that a friend calls ‘ the witching hour’, I think of so many things to write about. Faced with the white paper of a blank screen I am myself blank. So I’ll just let the thoughts pour out. On occasion other artists may ask for my opinion of their work. I consider their apparent capabilities and temper my judgment based on that assessment. However, in the case of my grand daughter who is definitely good at drawing, as a preteen, she surpasses a lot of mature artists in her ability to see and remember. I feel my obligation is to be frank with her. She might draw a girl that is currently in fashion but which represents to me a trashy example of a girl or woman. I tell her I personally don’t care for that look. I don’t care for the messy up-swept ponytails with hair hanging down in haphazard ways. The long gone movie star Veronica Lake made the one eye -covered- by -hair look, famous. Good for the come hither allure but a hazard for daily activity and just brainless for working. You can take that further…waitresses, nurses and doctors, auto mechanics, any machinist ad infinitum. Women who should know better on TV, pundits, the actresses have this habit of having to sweep the hair out of their eyes and run their fingers through their hair to fluff it up or grab it with both hands and twist it over to one side all the while talking. Nobody seems to teach their children not to perform their toilette in public. Nobody seems to teach their children much about behavior in public. Just observe the trash talk at the protests, the trash attitude and the trash being thrown. They want respect but they haven’t any for themselves. I don’t like ‘yoga pants’ except at yoga or the gym. Even if the woman has a lovely figure I find there is too much information for me outside of the artists studio. They reveal the shape of the crotch front and back. Really? In the old days, Oh, here we go,sigh, ladies wore slips or half slips so the skirt wouldn’t tuck under the buttocks. Now it is desired. Show whacha got. Look at the old movies of the 50’s and older, how smooth the dress or skirt lay over the hips and bum. Sleek as a Siamese cat. Now its a bag of potatoes. Everything has gotten sloppier. People hate to bother to get properly dressed to go shopping, to go to church, to appear in court. Working at home in front of the computer-who cares if you have pj’s on. But wearing them shopping? Takes lazy to a new level. That’s probably what this whole attitude is about, the who cares attitude. Love me warts and all, yesterdays dirt and sweat and all. Todays dirt and sweat is legitimate. If you see a smart, put together woman, why is she elegant? Because she is not bunched up and floppy and shaggy. I bet she has a long mirror and can see her back side too. I predict this fashion statement is going to get tired and it will return to more conservative fashions. All of this diatribe goes for men too. It’s time for the pendulum to….