When I was a child, many people in my area who were born before 1900 were still alive. There was Beryl Hollendrake, a nice old woman who would let me play with her miniature perfume bottles and costume jewelry. She sat at the kitchen table while my mother put her hair up in curlers. I remember my mom turning 30 and worrying she was getting old. Beryl said, “There, there now. You’ll find out your thirties are wonderful years.”
The people who lived in the house in back of ours were like salt and pepper. The husband was kind. He spent a lot of time in his garden. It was beautiful. He called my sisters and I ‘fairy.’ But his wife was mean, always telling us to be quiet and stop hitting the fence. I was scared of her, until one day I came home from kindergarten to find the house locked and my mother gone. I started crying really loudly and the old lady in the other yard told me to come over to her house. She gave me a cookie.
My dad had an old friend, Cecil, who he’d known when he was young. Cecil looked like a dried apple doll. His house was very warm. He was so old he looked like he was from another world.
Those women would not wear pants. They always wore dresses, sensible shoes, sweaters, head scarves. They walked with canes to the grocery store. They are a primary influence on my art work. My little granny rocks.
Granny Rocks! 