Its Amazing What One Finds In Their Attic.....

Being my very first spring break that I have ever had.....well I should say as an adult, now that I work in a school, I decided to spring clean. I happened to be up in the attic to reorganize and I came across some of your very early pastels. I remember Grandma found an art school in Skokie where she took art classes. She loved oil painting and especially loved painting nudes. When you were 6 years old you showed an interest in art so she took you to the art school. I found in the attic several of your pastel drawings and a few charcoals, as well.  I even took a few classes myself, when I was 20 years old. I never really understood the whole technique of working with oils until I went back to it in my 40's.
I was home with your baby sis when you used to go to classes with Grandma. It's funny too, that I happen to be up in the attic yesterday on grandma's birthday. I found some other interesting things too, like an article from 1972 where grandma wrote a poem to put in the paper promoting her new needlepoint shop she opened. It just so happened to be across the street from the art school in Skokie. It was called Needlepoint Junction.

I kept a paper that you had written on both sides of all of the things that reminded you of grandma. (I think you were in your teens at the time). It was chock full of all of your memories. The first few related to Needlepoint Junction. I never get tired of reading all of them, I couldn't even fit the entire page on the scan so I just copied a portion of it. How clever you were....and the patience you had with working with detail. I will post in the future some of your doodles and intricate drawings you produced, usually while your were spending time in some hospital or phych ward...later in life.

As a child you loved spending time with grandma at Needlepoint Junction and I know she loved spending time with you!!

For any of this to make sense you would have to know our family, but I thought it would be interesting anyways.

Here are the pictures from the attic. I will get together some of your later paintings and put them on this blog in the near future........

I will close this post with one more thing I found in the attic yesterday. It is a poem that I found with grandmas things from Needlepoint Junction, she must have liked it or planned on doing something with it, but it's really beautiful and thought it would be nice to add to this post.

Passing Night

I dreamed a thousand dreams last night....I walked a thousand miles.....And always every where I went.....I saw your loving smiles....You pushed away my shadows with.....a gentle little shove.....You took my hand and led me on....To happiness and love....I soon forgot the sorrows and ....The heartaches of the past....And prayed this new and magic world....Would be my own at last....And yet I dared not look ahead....with eyes that see too far....Because I had the feeling I....Was reaching for a star....and when the sun came up again....I found that I was right....I could not make a lasting thing....of any passing night.....

Author Unknown

I miss you more each day.........m