I visited the creche yesterday. It’s always a wonderment to see the young getting ready to hatch from the rocks. Since we are not native to this planet, our ancestors visited eons ago. The young are terribly slow to develop in the rock, but this one is very close. I am just one of the lizards who go to check it. I am awaiting the call for when it is ready to hatch. The vibrations will call me and all the other lizards who are close. That will be a joyous occasion.
When I visit, I hum and the eggs hum in response. It helps them to remember and to develop.
My sister Christine Ottaway died in 2012 of breast cancer.
I took this photograph at Christmas in Alexandria, Virginia in the late 1970s. I am three years older and made her stuffed toys and puppets for years. The first one was a stuffed snake that I sewed by hand, of brown flowered fabric. My mother was very unconvinced about it, but Chris and I had both longed for the giant velvet snakes at the County Fair. We failed to win one. The snake I made her was only two feet long, but she loved it.
I made the puppet on the left and bought her the one on the right.
It’s lovely to still have the photographs and memories.
I have been thinking in a desultory manner or perhaps not really thinking about the A to Z April Challenge. I want to have a whole month of my mother’s fabulous art, but what is my theme? Mothers? No. Women artists? No. Discrimination against women artists? Sigh, no. Oh! I read an article yesterday about how the negative and nasty headlines get the major clicks. Today I read another very nice kind blog post about putting something nice into the world. So that gives me my theme! My mother’s art and daily evil impulses.
Impulses, not actions. Don’t we all feel those nasty impulses? Now I am interested in my own theme: how does that tie into my mother’s art? You don’t know? I don’t know either, but I know that many of us have complex feelings about our mothers. You might too. What does her art reveal or what does it trigger in me? And you get to enjoy her art, while you react with prim or gleeful horror at the Daily Evil Art Impulse.
Happy April!
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The first photograph is of one of Helen Burling Ottaway’s watercolors. It is signed, matted and shrink wrapped. Date: 1996. She died of cancer in 2000. I do not know the title, but this is Lake Matinenda, in Ontario, Canada. My maternal family has land there and I have gone there since age 5 months.
Engaging in some lyrical athletics whilst painting pictures with words and pounding the pavement. I run; blog; write poetry; chase after my kids & drink coffee.
Refugees welcome - Flüchtlinge willkommen I am teaching German to refugees. Ich unterrichte geflüchtete Menschen in der deutschen Sprache. I am writing this blog in English and German because my friends speak English and German. Ich schreibe auf Deutsch und Englisch, weil meine Freunde Deutsch und Englisch sprechen.
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