Art Opera in Redbank Coming Up in April!

A super art event is coming up in Redbank, NJ starting April 7 called Art Opera - packed with fabulous workshops, special events, and creativity.  When I first found out about it by nosing around the internet, I almost fell off my chair with excitement.  In my neck of the woods, there usually aren't art events like this - one has to travel hundreds of miles to get to one.  And here is one with the most mouthwatering classes only an hour and a half away in Redbank, which is a great town.  I used to go there regularly to stroll around and check out the antique stores.

Check out the Art Opera Website at:  http://www.artoperanj.com/
Art Opera is April 7-11, 2010. Most workshops are April 8-9, with some morning classes on April 10.

I signed up for two swaps; the first time I have participated in a swap.  Today I mailed them off express mail.  It was tough letting go of the package.  Should I have glued rhinestones on the backs of the tags? In a perfect world, yes, but I was already late sending the swaps out, so I grit my teeth, taped up the cat food box turned inside out so I could use it for mailing, and set off for the small post office in the next town.  I had a lot of fun making the items, and now that I have done it once, I know how many things there are involved that I might never have thought of when I am in a creative frenzy, like having mailing materials on hand!

Here are pictures of the swaps - the first is a charm for a charm bracelet, and the second is decorated match boxes with surprises inside.

I had some tiny doll heads I had made for a project some years ago which I decided would look cool decorated with ribbon, trims, and rhinestones.  Because the theme of Art Opera this year is flappers, the sea, Coney Island, etc., I decided to name each one after a Greek ocean nymph, and I pasted the names on the back.

I couldn't find my stash of matchboxes, natch (GOT to get organized!) but I found a template for making them, so I used old postcards of 20s bathing beauties and a traditional Japanese wave pattern to make the decoration for the outsides.  I used snippets of ribbon and rhinestones for a little extra sparkle.  On the inside, I put little ocean shells, many of which had rhinestones or tiny, tiny shells glued on.  To me it looked a bit like a mermaid's treasure trove.

I just can't wait for April 7 to meet everyone and get started!

Understanding Alice in Underland

Twin and I went to see Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which I have been looking forward to for lo! these several months (unusual for me unless it is a Jane Austen movie!) because of the promise of phenomenal weirdo visuals.  And because of the prospect of Johnny Depp in a moldy top hat, frizzy red wig, and rainbow-hued makeup, too, I admit.

Well.  Twin loved it, which made me happy.  He tried to read Alice in Wonderland for the first time just a few weeks ago, and shall we say he was less than entranced.  I read both Alice books as a child, and I didn't think about whether I liked them or disliked them; I was fascinated by the characters, the images, the slightly skewed ideas and topsy turvy logic.


One set of my family's nicknames was taken from Jabberwocky, as a matter of fact.  My mother was Mimsy (close enough to Mommy, or Mumsy, which people in England actually sometimes use); and since "all mimsy were the borogroves" and I was so like my mother, I was Borogrove.    The Alice books were a part of our family life, and references to them, their world, their vocabulary, and their logic (my father was a logician, and I adored logic problems) were rife.

I loved some of the effects and colors and ideas in the movie - I want  to shake myself up a little.  Why not do a portrait with violently red or blue or purple hair and lime green skin with magenta highlights?  I definitely have my favorite, "safe" color combinations.  I will always love them and gravitate toward them, but I think a little  conscious rocking of the boat would be a good idea for me.

Valentine's Day Dazzle

I usually view the onset of Valentine's Day with mistrust and considerable qualms.  This year was no exception.  I fully expected it to be okay, but no more.  I must report though, that it was a fabulous Valentine's Day, wonderful and satisfying and fun.  Thank you, Twin!

First of all, to my delight, I received not only red roses, but also a heart-shaped box of chocolates.  For some reason, the heart shape doubled the impact.  It is Valentine's Day, after all!  Then beautiful earrings with iridescent montana blue beads, and, la piece de resistance (sorry, don't know how to do accents on the computer) a hand-made card!!!!!

But I am not a complete traditionalist.  When Twin suggested taking me to a fancy restaurant for dinner, I confessed that my preference was a bowl of oatmeal with hot milk at the neighborhood diner.  We finished the day at Barnes and Noble, browsing and, as always, talking.

What a wonderful day, most importantly because everything was evidence of Twin's thoughtfulness and wish to please.  Nothing could make a person feel more loved - and that should be the point of Valentine's Day - showing each other love.

Snow Bound

At left, a rather cheerful snowperson Twin and I made a few days ago.  Sure she's cheerful - she doesn't have to shovel!

I was delighted when the weather forecast called for a snow storm of blizzard-like proportions, and awed by the beauty the snowfall bestowed on the quotidian outlines of my house and yard.

I was less thrilled when I had to go out and shovel to get to work.  Much less thrilled.  The snow is up to my knees, and is over an old layer of snow which has been compacted.  It took me an hour to do less than half the job, an hour during which, to my chagrin, I felt so miserable I finally told myself, "No negative thinking about how you can't do this, but you're allowed to cry if you want to."  And I wanted to.  Memories of past winters, past snowstorms, different circumstances.  Tears ran down my cheeks as I shovelled on, nearly falling several times because of the sleety, icy layer exposed underneath. 

As my alarm struck twelve, I knew I couldn't get to my job teaching, and called the principal,  who was matter-of-fact and understanding, and probably mystified by my tearful tone.

I took a break for a couple of mugs of hot water and some raisin biscuits, read a couple of old, old, old (mainly depressing, unfortunately) stories from a collection of stories from The New Yorker published at the end of the 1940s, and now I have re-girded my loins and am heading out to do battle with the Snow Beaste once again.  I remember decades ago, the excitement when a children's book was published where the princess, instead of being saved by her prince or a knight in shining armor, saved herself (gag me with a spoon).  My further thoughts are best left unwritten.  In the meantime, this peasant girl has to finish saving her crumbling hovel.  (I wonder if I need to shovel the flat roof?  I know some people have done that - and several years ago I did when it was mentioned on the news.)

"Be careful what you wish for; you may get it."  That certainly applies here, but despite the consequences, my heart will always long for the magic of snow in winter.  Beauty has its price, and if I must pay for it myself, I will.

Valentines

Dum da dum dum DUM . . . It's that time of year again, Valentine's Day.  I am ambivalent about this holiday.  It seems a tad meaningless even when I am dating someone.  (When I am not, like New Year's Eve,  it is a trial and something to be endured in silent suffering.) 

The traditional gifts are flowers (good) and chocolate (a mixed blessing).  I remember one year Lorenzo the Magnificent and I went to a craft store and bought bunches of bits and we each retired to our own corner and made valentines for each other.  Lorenzo is not an artist, not a crafter, but darned if he didn't make the niftiest valentine using using large ribbon roses  he had purchased in different colors.  The one I made was nice, but I loved the tactile, three dimensionality of his.  It was lush.  I still have it somewhere . . . I bet it wouldn't take me more than two hours to find it, if I didn't get distracted.

Well, now I am distracted.  I am remembering other handmade cards I have received.  None other than Twin once made a card for me, with elaborate hand-drawn spirals, very horror vacuii and decorative, which I treasure along with the other cards he has given me, some with very meaningful messages.

Nosson,  my X (he deserves a better designation than that!) made me several cards, including a President's Birthday card (we went out for the first time on George Washington's birthday, and he gave me chocolate covered cherries - pretty clever) and a snazzy Purim card card which featured a slightly inebriated Nosson (one is commanded to get drunk on Purim, believe it or not) saying "hic .... brucha Ester .....hic ..... brucha Toby ....."  a play on the Purim phrase, blessed be (Queen ) Esther.

I wouldn't mind spending time on Valentine's Day with some art supplies (stickers, stencils, glue-on rhinestones and fabric flowers, and facy papers) and Twin  making each other cards, but something tells me that strychnine might be a preferable alternative as far as he is concerned!

But returning to Valentine's Day, I have been looking through a book of  mine about the history of valentines, and salivating over some early, hand-drawn and written examples.  They are so charming and such a treat for the eye, the faded sepia copperplate and naive watercolors . . . I lust after them.

Of course, greeting cards are available in such a dazzling and inexhaustible variety nowadays, that purchased valentines can be drool-worthy as well.  Amidst the dross and the mediocre are some phenomenally-designed cards which are either so charmingly designed, or so mechanically clever (elaborate pop-up cards are now sold even at bookstores) that only those who are dissatisfied out of principle could fail to be delighted to find them in the mail.

I guess there is no point to this post - just an acknowledgement of the fast-approaching day which brings with it such exalted expectations - and such hyped suggestions for romance on the television news etc. - that some letdown is almost inevitable.  I said almost. 

AAAArrrgggghhhh!

Alas,  Mehrlicht is over (spent blissfully with Twin), and real life resumes.  Today was one of  THOSE days.  Actually, there are many different types of THOSE days, so let me be more specific.  This was one of  THOSE difficult, dragging, sagging, tear-streaked, occasionally downright bawling, desperately miserable and miserably desperate, what's the point, I just want to go home and go to bed and sleep for the next three to four hundred years days.

And unfortunately, that's a litote (Greek for understatement.  Okay, here comes an impromptu major tangent:  How well I remember learning the word litote.  I had been dating my ex, Nosson, for a little while, and met him in a classroom at Yeshiva University, where he was studying for the Rabbinate.  In one of his classes that day, the Greek antonyms, litote and hyperbole had come up.  Hyperbole I knew - I think quite a few people know it - but litote??  Totally cool, dude!  Nosson  - that's my ex - called me many things - all of them nice, by the way - but one of them was Hyperbole Hempel, in honor of my sometimes burbling enthusiasm.  Another was Hoover Hempel, a reference to the way I seemed to inhale any food I particularly enjoyed.  Actually, Nosson proposed to me in that same classroom, giving me his grandmother's engagement ring.  When we divorced, I wanted to give it back to him, because of its associations for him, but he insisted I keep it.  I still have it, of course.  I would never sell it, and I am reluctant to wear it.  It doesn't look like today's engagement rings, but I still know its provenance.)

Okay - let's return from memory lane.  I hope my spirits pick up, but I have a feeling it might be several days.  Of course, I can be a master of (benign) mendacity.  When I have to put a good face on things, I can.  I'll just have to wait for the "winter of my discontent" to be "made glorious by the sun of  . .  . "   ---- who knows?

Post-holiday blues got you down? Cheer up! Mehrlicht is coming!

After the excitement (and to be fair, stress of the holiday season) the next month or two of the winter can be pretty much of a downer.  No special days to look forward to, no festivities, no decorations, cards, presents, special foods - just cold, and above all, DARK.  The short days are enough to make anyone glum.  For confirmation, just check out the suicide rates in countries like Sweden and Norway where for much of the year, the country is sunk in almost perpetual night.

That's why, to paraphrase and canibalize a popular song, what the world needs now is Mehrlicht, sweet Mehrlicht.

What, you may ask, is Mehrlicht, and why do we need it?  It is an obscure German/Scandinavian folk holiday, still practiced today in some small communities, but dating back some five or six hundred years.  (The illustration above is from the late 1500s and shows the sun pushing back the night, symbolized by the stars.  The seven candles represent the growing light of the days of the week.) 

Observed on January 21, Mehrlicht celebrates the day when the growing light becomes truly noticeable.  The days grow longer from the Winter Equinox on, but at first the progress is so miniscule, it is a fact acknowledged with the intellect, but not felt with the heart.  It is at the end of January that suddenly the lingering sunlight and longer days become truly noticeable, and relief and joy at turning the corner toward Spring and Summer are felt.

Traditional observances include children in the family, and sometimes even the adults (!)wearing homemade crowns ranging from simple to elaborate proclaiming Mehrlicht; lighting seven candles in the evening, with an eighth, taller candle used to light them which is then displayed as well; Mehrlicht processions, where children and adults wearing their crowns and holding lit tapers walk seven times around the town square (if there still is one!) and formally announce light's victory over darkness; and a light but festive meal featuring eggs, whose bright yellow center is seen as the sun and increasing light of day.There are other observances and customs, of course, and for those people who still observe Mehrlicht who live in a city or non-traditional town, the procession is hardly practical! 

My father, who was born in a very small town in Germany in 1905, told me some wonderful stories about Mehrlicht in his childhood, mostly featuring wonderful confections given to him by visiting relatives (maple sugar sweets and also rock crystal candies).  Each January 21, we would all sit down together and make crowns out of construction paper, glitter, and anything else we could put our hands on, and had a special meal lit by the eight candles.  We sang some simple German songs, too, but I can't quite recall them - they teeter on the edge of my memory - tantalizingly close, but just out of reach.

Below:  a Mehlicht pantomime from about 1910.

At any rate, this year I am striking a blow for the observance of Mehrlicht.  I am going to make a crown, have an egg-rich meal, and light the candles.  I have one of those nifty German contraptions where the heat from the candles make a paddle above them move, and a charming vignette thus revolves while the candles are burning, and I think that will be perfect.  I will wish my friends a joyous Mehrlicht, and give them egg-rich pastries for a holiday treat.

After all, we always need more light in our lives, and Mehrlicht brings it to us when we are weary of the dark and longing for the new growth and hop of spring.  I reluctantly remind my self, though, that darkness is important, too, alas; balance, always balance.  Without the dark night of introspection, rest, and restoration, we would all sputter and burn out, like a candle.  To everything there is a season.  Mehrlicht celebrates the season of light.
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(By the way, for a related post, see 1/6/09.  Above I quoted Ecclesiastices (in the original Hebrew, Koheles) when  I wrote "to everything there is a season."  This post of almost exactly a year ago shows that "There is nothing new under the sun," the word sun being especially appropriate for a discussion of Mehrlicht.  Party on, dudes!)