Knock Knock

Happy to report that I actually made the submission deadline today for the small works exhibit ("#50 @ $50"). My goal was to make three new pieces, and I kind of did. Among them "Change the Story," which I posted a couple of days ago, and this one: "Knock Knock."

The third one I couldn't get where I wanted it to be and decided to work on it some more tomorrow.
So I entered "Night and Day" instead, a small mixed media piece based on a record sleeve that I had made last Fall.

"Knock Knock"
Acrylics, fly leaf, book clippings, ink, on canvas panel,
5" x 5"

Change the Story

Anyways. There's a call for artists to submit small works for a juried group exhibit in my town next month, and I am intending to do just that. I could, of course, hand in some of the completed pieces that haven't sold yet but I decided to make something new. Deadline is this Sunday. I better hurry.

Got this one finished: "Change the Story." I used the back of a sweet children's book called "The Rooster, the Mouse, and the Little Red Hen," and because it used to be a library book in the 60s and 70s it had the library pocket glued to the back of its hardcover. Why not make the pocket part of the piece, I thought.

So the mouse has decided to leave hen and rooster behind and get out of the same old story. Who says you can't change the story. There's an ocean of possibilities, let's dive in.

"Change the Story"
Mixed media: back of a book hardcover, library pocket, watercolor, ink, storybook clippings.
9 1/4" x 7 1/4"

Unpack

I came back from Germany five weeks ago, and I have been unpacking ever since. First the very heavy suitcases, then the thoughts and feelings I came back with. 

Visiting my family in Germany was different this time. The good-byes for sure have changed over the years. The certainty that you will see each other again is gone. I try to choose my words better. I try to see only the important things and not to get lost in moments that won't matter in the long run. I try to make happy, and to be happy. I am grateful that I still have my parents, and I wished I could take away my mom's parkinson and my dad's age-related struggles.

Not only because being healthy and fit would make their lives easier but also because being ill and old has turned out to be a challenging job with lots of overtime hours. There is hardly a day without doctor visits, physio or speech therapy. Nurses go in and out. Cooking has become an exhausting chore but those home-cooked meals just taste better than delivered ones. And then the constant health insurance issues to keep up with, all that paperwork. It's a busy life, way too busy for old people. I want my parents to enjoy what's left, I'm glad I could give them a break, at least.

My son Jacob enjoyed being in Germany even though there was much less to do for him than in the previous years when we all would go on little field trips, visited museums, parks, festivals. Instead now, Jacob played word games with his grandmother and solved algebra problems with his grandfather. They watched TV together, discussed the news and consumer reports. He actually loved that.

I would get up very early in the morning to spend time with my dad while making breakfast, it was nice having this time with him alone. And afterwards, while we were waiting for the morning nurse to arrive, my mom and I had some coffee at her bedside and we talked about this and that.  And I cooked a lot, I mean, a lot. So they could take some out of the freezer, later.

Jacob and I had taken the train to travel from the city where we landed to my parents' home town. The city where we landed is also the city where my husband's family lives, and we spent a few days with Markus' mom and his brother's family. Jacob loved seeing his other grandmother and his cousins who are just a bit older than him. And we saw my sister-in-law who was about to lose her fight against cancer. She and I hadn't been very close but, I think, we understood each other anyway. This beautiful vibrant woman, now she was lying there, so fragile and still. Jacob gave her a gentle hug, I held her hand, it was so weak. We talked a little bit, and when I told her that we would come back soon she said, that would be nice.

We saw her again right after we had returned from my parents. She had been moved to a hospice meanwhile. I don't know if she recognized Jacob and me, I hope she sensed it somehow. She didn't say anything, and her eyes were closed. She died a week later.

My husband and my daughter picked us up from the airport, all of us - Jacob and me and those heavy suitcases. It took me a while to do the laundry, and to get organized again, and to find places for the things I brought home with me. Old and new German books for example, lots of chocolate to share, several table cloths that my mother-in-law had embroidered, Markus' portfolio with his wonderful old comic drawings, an outdated tour guide that my parents had used on one of their many travels through the States, a spicy-smelling wooden bowl from my sister-in-law's kitchen, a large and heavy ceramic vase that my mom's family carried when they fled from post-war East Berlin to the West.

Soon after, I unpacked the many boxes of our Christmas decorations. Lots of them are from my own childhood, some of them Markus and I bought before we had our children,  gifts from my students, Jacob's and Mona's paper stars, my grandmother's crocheted mushrooms. I unpacked the memories attached to each one of the hundreds of ornaments and hung them on our huge tree. It's a beautiful tree.

All In Butter

So, you probably cook a lot of German dishes - that is one of the questions I get a lot when people find out that I am from Germany. Do I? Well, in a way it's true, most of the meals I cook for my family are variations of what my grandmother or mother used to cook for me. My grandmother was from Pomerania which is Poland today, so she cooked a lot of cabbage, potatoes, and meat. She also went through two world wars and knew hunger, therefore she also learned how to make the most out of cheap ingredients. I remember having a lot of stews and soups, most of them I liked, some I didn't but I ate them anyway. Because it was still the time when you just ate what was on the table.

My mother on the other hand loved spicy foods and experimented with all kinds of international cuisines. Exotic foods and restaurants have been available in Germany for as long as I remember. Germany has been an immigration country since after the Second World War when Germany hired guest workers from Portugal, Italy, Greece and Turkey to rebuild the country. And these workers stayed, they brought their flavors to Germany, their street foods and spices, restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores. We didn't go to restaurants much but when we did we would go to a Greek or "Yugoslavian" place where you could order lots of deliciously seasoned meat for very little money. And then all these other international eating places popped up. I love this about Germany, its intercultural flavors.

So, yeah, I cook a lot of German dishes, I scoop up whatever I find in the German melting pot. And then I add parsley. I add parsley to nearly everything savory. It goes with all kinds of dishes, has lots of vitamin C and makes everything look pretty. Garnishing with parsley is probably very German.
Garnishing per se is very German.

Whatever you bring to the table has to look pretty because "the eye eats, too" as we say. Don't forget to carve a pattern into the butter before you bring it to the table, if you want to make a good impression and love your company. 

Which brings me to something I never really thought about before: I actually use a lot of butter in my cooking, and that is probably the most authentic German ingredient in my cooking. We always buy butter in six-pound packages, we need butter, even though butter officially doesn't have a good nutritional reputation, especially not in the States. But coconut or olive oil just won't do it in most recipes, in my opinion. Anyways, in Germany butter is holy. I would even say butter is the essence of German culture.

Just as the US-American culture seems to be based on sugar, the German culture appears to be built on butter. German children grow up on butter cookies and butter pretzels. The finest and most festive fine cakes contain extra butter. If you want to be especially nice to your dinner guests (or family) you will spread an especially thick layer of butter on the petite sandwiches you are going to offer. Food and sharing meals are expressions of love and hospitality in many cultures, and in Germany it seems to be especially manifested in the use of butter.

The butter belief is reflected by many German sayings, but this one sums it up like no other: "All in butter" ("Alles in Butter") which means "Everything is okay." 

Seven Days

I have been challenged by a friend to post on facebook seven B/W pictures of my life. No people, no explanations.

So I have randomly been going through my digital photo folders to see if there is something I can use. There were so many pictures I hardly remembered. Many pictures of my many visits in Germany, even more pictures of my beautiful children. My beloved sister who I don't see as often as I want and need to. Birthdays, vacations, anniversaries. Good days not ever to forget. Moments to hold on to, later.

Loved

I didn't take the time to take a closer look at all the pictures, not now.

Surprised

 
I picked seven photos that are visual translations of my predominant feelings.

Passionate

Hopeful

Proud

Comforted

Safe

You Are Here

Well - I think, I am done with this one. It is the piece that I am going to submit to the "Mapping Out a Future for the Arts" exhibit in December. Our fabulous local Arts Council came up with this intriguing project and invited a number of artists to create works with outdated topographical maps of the local parishes.

The idea for my piece was to focus mainly on the point of origin. Simply because the direction of your path depends on where you are starting from.

I tore up the area maps to make the buddha face. For the background I used the oceans that I found in an old world atlas as I wanted to embed the local dimension into a global context.  The same world atlas also contained a section about the genesis of the universe and I cut out a little bit of the space for the black "You are here" marker.

"You Are Here"
Collage of torn topographical area maps and world atlas pages, ink,
on canvas panel, 20" x 16"

Where Am I?

Okay, so we are well in October already. I will be leaving for Germany in two and a half weeks and until then I have plenty to do. Right now I am working on a piece to submit to a group exhibit which is titled: "Mapping Out a Future for the Arts." The invitation to participate in this project came in the summer. I was asked to pick three maps from several stacks of outdated area maps and do something artful with them. Since then I have been thinking about the map piece, and I was happy to get started a few days ago with a clear concept in my head. Looks like I will be able to finish this weekend.

I like working with maps, I love the look and the message of maps. Incorporating maps in a piece of art is somewhat tricky though because it has become so very popular to make all sorts of crafty projects with maps. I want people to look at my piece as something new and not associate it with all those map crafts. A lot of those map crafts I do like a lot. You may want to check out pinterest on this some time; there are quite a few fantastic ideas about how to give that shabby table or bookcase an eclectic map-overhaul. Love those mappy lamps. Or you can make a romantic pendant that shows where you met your love. Sure, why not. Someone found it fashionable to paste map snippets on her fake fingernails. And then those countless ideas for ornaments, magnets, envelopes, jewelry pieces, boxes, frames - yes, anything can be mapped. Or you can make huge letters covered with maps that spell "Home" or "Paris". Right.  

I really loved the shoes that I saw on a photo somewhere: Those high heels were entirely made of maps and newsprint. These shoes perfectly summarized the story of someone who has traveled the world but never had her feet touch the grounds of a different culture. Maybe the critique on superficial traveling was not intentional, but the shoes contain that message anyway and I love them for that. Because I feel that some of the intercultural misconceptions could be easily cleared up if people would use their rare opportunities to travel abroad for getting to know a little bit about the culture they are coming across. Because life is not a Sound of Music tour.