My sister is an amazingly talented artist. She oil paints, she watercolors, she quilts, she builds dioramas, she does beading, she makes jewelry, she makes objects out of paper... So, I'm excited to see what she is going to do with her panel. Also, I'm excited that she let me strong-arm her into being a part of this project.
I am making nine tiles that will be attached to my panel. Each tile has a story or connection to Alberta. So far, I've made five of the tiles.
Soft Serve Cones:
I spent several summers at my grandma's house. She lived in a small town in central Utah. The town was bisected by a large highway. Across the street from her house, was a drive-in. I would risk my little life to run across the four lanes of speeding cars, in order to get a soft serve vanilla cone. They would put clear plastic orange and yellow animals on your cone. I collected monkeys and giraffes all summer.
Starlight Mints:
My grandma lived a stones throw from the best candy store ever. The candy store was run by my great aunt. It had turquoise walls, long glass counters, and was part of a service station. The current state of my teeth is proof that I sometimes visited this store two times a day, for boxes of Lemonheads, and Alexander the Grapes. They also had an old refrigerated soda machine full of icy bottles. I used to buy pixie sticks, and dump them into my glass bottles of RC Cola. The only candies that my grandparents ever actually had inside their home, were starlight mints. And, no one ate them. Why would you? When the best candy store in the world, other than Willie Wonka's factory, was a two minute walk from the house. So, these mints sat in a candy dish in the living room. They were props. They were dusty. That being said, my grandpa always offered me one when I was in the living room. And, when you handed him one, he would say, "Thank you, don't mind if I do..."
Cooked Breakfast:
My grandma and grandpa were farmers. They were descendants of English and Welsh breakfast eaters. Both ate a huge breakfast every morning. The meal always started with Cream O'Wheat (which I hated), and then bacon and eggs. My rail thin grandpa always poured half-and-half on his cereal. The adults would drink Postum, a coffee substitute. I loved smelling the bacon frying when I was sleeping on the green couch, or in the back bedroom. I was in charge of taking the pan of leftovers from breakfast out into the corral for Susie, the (enormous) pig. She terrified me, because she could smell me coming with the saucepan full of slops, and she would get really excited. Too excited.
Needle and Thimble:
My grandma sewed, and embroidered all of the time. She also crocheted, and made quilts. Her home was full of doilies, afghans, pillows, dishtowels, and all were decorated with her handy work. She was rarely idle, and used her time creatively. There was always a basket of work near her chair.
Jam Jar:
Down in the dark basement, to the right of the coal heater, across a pitch black cement hallway, was a concrete bunker-like room. The walls were lined with shelves, full of jam jars and preserved vegetables. I always hated going into that room, because it had no light switch. So, you had to walk to the middle of the room, and pull a ceiling chain, in order to activate the single light bulb. Sometimes my brother, or my cousins would scare me, jumping out of the darkness. It seemed like a room where you could be fantastically murdered, and your body could also be effectively hidden, all in one! Whenever my grandma asked me to go down into the basement to get her some jam, I would be filled with dread. This simple offhand request, might end in my murder, from a stranger hiding in the basement. I would climb down the rickety wooden staircase, and head through the musty basement (I can definitely remember the smell), and walk cautiously towards the square room with that light bulb chain. Once you pulled the chain, the room instantly glowed with beautiful colors in the jars. I'm not sure if it was worse entering the jam room, or leaving it. Because you had to traverse the same hallway in the dark, once you had turned out the light. However, you did have a glass jar in your hand, which could be used as a weapon, just in case a murderous stranger had entered through the coal chute, and planned an ambush!
More tiles to come...
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