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That's some title!
Some years ago, I took a class as part of my studies of the art and architecture of the church that was about Sacred spaces in common places. While that was not the name of the course, and I no longer remember the title of the course, the gist of it was an exploration of what makes a place in a community sacred, or at least elevates it to the level of a sanctuary and still be a public place. We talked about the design of public open spaces and whether the architecture played a role in how that place might be perceived. What were the elements of the environment that caused people to visit it, even seek refuge in it? What I came away from the class with was that a lot of public funds are thrown at a space and the impact may or may not be readily apparent. While I am grateful for projects that have reclaimed areas in cities where buildings harbored dangerous activities or were being threatened with demolition, I contend that it is not the place, but the experiences we have in a place that make it special, memorable and in some cases reverently held in a person's highest esteem. We were asked at the end of the class to write about our memories of places and what made those places special. Here is what I wrote. It is not exactly what the professor was after, but her comments were nice, and I earned a good grade. It is a long piece. Feel free to download it and read it later if you like read it here: An aerial view of Southern California in the mid to late 1950’s would have revealed a sea of concrete peppered with cookie cutter stamped, long and low ramblers indicative of the era carved into bean fields, interrupted only by the rhythmic bobbing of oil derricks. It is in the context of this slice of suburbia that I encountered nature, consisting mostly of a palette of sunbaked clay, sand, and cement. Trees were either things oranges grew on or the source of the heavenly perfume that scented the air Eucalyptus. Some bore leaves shaped like giant fans. From early childhood, most of my memories of places of special attachment were mundane backyard scenes enhanced by my very vivid imagination. I am of an era when toys were mostly everyday things transformed to use within a virtual reality that you created; I was a product of a “let’s pretend” mentality, not fortified by computer animations and preprogrammed scenarios. One feature of the ubiquitous long hallways of the four-bedroom tract homes provided was a rainy-day refuge easily manipulated with a few sheets and blankets into a tunnel of horrors with which to frighten the younger siblings. Throw in an empty cardboard box or two and you have a complete backdrop for the unfolding storyline of that particular day. Perhaps motivated by the desire to regain control over the traffic flow between bedrooms the hallway once provided, my best friends father provided her with the most extravagant playhouse money could buy which boasted real pane windows complete with flower boxes and a locking Dutch door. While this extravagant backyard addition housed many sleepovers, it never compared in my mind to the much less pretentious bamboo lean too that my father ingeniously devised. A mere shell, it provided me with the opportunity to create an interior that matched my current aesthetic. With a few cleverly hung blankets and a couple of borrowed furnishings, my private clubhouse could become a school, a library, or a grocery store. Privacy was easily attained by reconfiguration of a few simple elements within a matter of moments. Whether my father deserves to be credited with having intentionally invested in bamboo screening with the purpose of stimulating my creativity is of less importance than the fact that it was a key element. This brainstorm after all, would have to co-exist in the same mind as the concept of cedar bark below the monkey bars. Many failed aerial stunts ended abruptly and oh so rudely in the splinter hell, only slightly less painful than the occasional fateful landing in the artichokes cruelly planted at the end of the flight path of the swing. For me, the less structure, the better, in fact, I spent countless hours digging deep holes in the backyard with my father’s blessing as I attempted to reach China. My father was a scientist whose intellectual approach to dealing with the issue of gaping chasm his daughter was creating was to explain how many days it would take at the rate I could dig.
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Every year about this time I feel the "urge to purge", but more so this year than I recall in years past. My husband calls me the most organized hoarder he knows, and he is right, for the most part I can find just about anything I have pack-ratted away. But it has finally come to a level of stuff that even I can no longer tolerate. By the number of friends and family I have that are currently purging right alongside me, I wonder if there is something in the air.
The most recent area that I have been sorting through is the garage. No one needs three or even two of certain gardening tools, and you can only put so many used and reused plastic pots on one shelf. The vintage airstream has been remodeled for a few years now and if there is a screw or door handle that hasn't been employed by now, it is a good bet it can find a new home. I am very proud of the newly organized area that is my dye studio in the garage as well as the house and spray paint cabinet that is now sorted and labeled. But I am not at all proud of the eight Rubbermaid tubs of paper that seems to have reproduced and multiplied. Did I really put all that out there? Or better yet, when did that happen? The first four were household records, which within minutes of a google search I learned that the IRS really doesn't care about seven years of my grocery store receipts. Those first four boxes were pretty easy and with a trip to the shredder has reduced the tubs to one plus a small filing box. It is the other four that have caused me so much fretting this week. They house all the evidence that I ever went to school, several times as a matter of fact. There are boxes full of academic articles, flash cards and notes. One entire box was essays and papers written over the years. I am sure, another google search and I'd find that most of the articles are readily available online, at least at various universities or museums. And while flash cards were the only way I could remember all those dates and the minutia about Greek, Hebrew and Gaelic language, they haven't been looked at since 2007. Was it that long ago? I have a few degrees, but nothing big and important like some of my siblings or my father and his siblings who held Doctorates achieved. I couldn't pass the GRE which kept me from a master's degree because it meant math skills I never acquired. I have a double major in Comparative Religion and Art History and degrees in Biblical Studies and Biblical language as well as Fashion Illustration. I say that not as a point of pride but to describe the disparate collection of papers I have amassed. My quandary is what to rid the garage of that I won't regret having thrown out in the future. Each night I sort through a box and often revisit it and sort again letting go of a little more each time. I am certain that if I put some time into looking for some of the articles online and created some sort of index and how to find them again, that it would make parting with the articles easier. After all, I haven't read them since graduation. The most difficult papers to part with are the essays. I am trying to understand why. Is it the amount of work that went into them? They represent hours and hours of research. As a perfectionist, who also happens to be dyslexic as well as reading challenged, each assignment was a painful at best. Or is it the accolades my very kind professors gave me and the marks they were so generous with. Is that little ego bump so valuable to me that it causes me to want to hang onto the past this way? Whatever it is that is making it so painful to part with paper, I think I have an idea that might make it a little easier. I will try it once and see if it is the way through to the recycle bin. Starting this week, I will begin to digitize, either by retyping the essays or scanning them and then posting them here. In the process, they will be able to be archived just in case I decide to hang on to them. Additionally, if there are any art history buffs, religious studies majors or just plain academically curious readers who might find some entertainment from my efforts, I will have done something useful aside from clearing space in the garage for new and different collections of things. Stay tuned for the first of potentially many essays from the past. |
SOUL“I am a contemplative artist who has trouble accessing verbal skills. Finding the right words to talk about the amazing things I observe around me can be frustrating. It is much more natural for me to pick up a paintbrush, some embroidery floss or my camera when I wish to share some new discovery. The artwork I create is meant to be enjoyed on whatever level the viewer experiences it and not layered with complex meaning. Feathers, fur, flowers and the incredible variation I find in wildlife not only inspire me, but compel me to share every nuance with you. Archives
July 2024
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