Treasures, buried and unburied

One of the things that I enjoy the most about living in the country here in eastern Indiana is how distinct the seasons are. Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, each in its time, with its own beauty, and with it's own trials and joys. While there are many, many wonderful things about Texas, from whence we are transplanted, the seasonal progression there runs more like Hot, Hotter, Rainy, and Cold with the occasional milder interludes.

I love Texas, dearly, and for many reasons. But I enjoy and am fascinated by the geography and climate here in the rural Midwest. I am especially impressed with how, after each frozen winter, the rich and fertile farmland, which lies atop an active glacial field, renders surprising treasures. Like pieces of wood, floating up from the bottom of a lake, all manner, size, and type of sedimentary and metamorphic rock are squeezed up through the topsoil to the surface, to glint in the sunshine. There are beautiful, jagged chunks of crystal, in various colors, often laced with gold pyrite. Multi-hued pieces of striated granite ranging in size from that of a dime up to a basketball, strewn on top of the ground. There is sandstone, limestone, shale, and many kinds of rock that I can’t identify. Some are as sharp as a knife, others rounded as smooth as a marble. Three hundred pound boulders, completely submerged and invisible last year now jut up like an iceberg, ready to flay the blade of the farmer’s till or planter.

In the area around our house, I often pick up pieces of old glass, pottery, and brick, as well as bits of chain, old tools, coins, buttons, fence wire, horse tack, and similar things. Once I found a child’s ring under one of the trees in our yard, at least 50 years old and tarnished, but otherwise nearly perfectly preserved. Another time I found an unshaped clump of beautiful green glass. Since we moved here I have collected all of the glass and pottery bits and intend to make or commission something artistic out of them someday.

And there are treasures like the one pictured, which Nancy and I found as we took a walk through the fields this last Sunday evening. This is a great time of year for that. The fields are not yet planted and the weather is beautiful. It is not so uncommon to find arrowheads and other artifacts here on the farm. For at one time, in the mid-to-late 1700’s, this was the wilderness frontier, the unincorporated edge of the American West, inhabited primarily by Native Americans, principally the Shawnee and Miami tribes, as well as the Chippewa, the Wyandot, and the Potawatomi. The name, Indiana, means “Land of the Indians,” and our part of the state, in particular, was well populated and traversed. This region is rich in history, both grim and glorious, for Native Americans as well as the early European settlers.

My family has inhabited this land since the early 1800's, so I do feel connected to all of this history and beauty. And now another Spring has sprung, and we are glad to have it. It is a blessing to live here.

Short Riffs Given Short Shrift

Here are some random thoughts. Drive-by blogging.

1) I could be in Orlando, but I'm not. In my job I am not required to travel much on behalf of my company. I actually like to travel for fun, but typically, when you're profession is sales or marketing, regardless of your industry, travelling for work is exactly that. Work, and a lot of it. Now, having said that, the one trade show for which I am customarily responsible happens to be one that I very much enjoy, the National Religious Broadcaster's convention, being held this weekend in Florida. This convention is a fascinating convergence of radio/tv, publishing, technology, engineering, programming, media, church ministry, and music. Folks come from all over the planet, from every imaginable background. My company usually has a booth and a display, underwritten by a handfull of the more 300+ manufacturers we represent. It is a lot of work, but it is a lot of fun, too, especially when my wife accompanies me which she often has.

I've met some interesting folks, famous, notorious, and unknown. And I've heard some wonderful music and amazing preaching by some of the best. I heard President Bush speak there shortly after 9/11, and got to see the pre-release version of Passion Of The Christ another year. There is always something cool going on, plus I always get to see some of my best customers and good friends. But I'm glad I'm home this year.

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2) Below is something my wife sort of gave me last year. Actually, she bought it to sell in her antique store, but she made the mistake of bringing it home first, and so I, uhm, appropriated it. It is a very small, very old 4-string banjo. It is 21" long from stem to stern and the head is a mere 7.5" across, about the size of a mandolin.



It is presently strung with nylon strings and I may leave it that way. It is difficult to keep in tune and the action is decent only down in first position near the headstock, but it has a really cool sound. The head is genuine cowhide and, although the quality of the construction and condition is quite good, there is no identifying maker's mark.

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3) This is a little bit of found art in my office. As I walked in today, what normally would pass for clutter and mess struck me more as a collage.



It consists of a framed poster that we got at the Leopold Museum in Vienna a couple of years ago, featuring one of Egon Schiele's landscapes. I also have a Gustav Klimt poster downstairs which we got at the same exhibition. We had the most wonderful time in Vienna and visiting the art museums there was one of the highlights.

Propped up against this poster is an interesting primitivist original work entitled The Winter Lands (how appropriate!) by an artist named Dick Shoemaker. It is dated 1965 and, I'm sorry to say, I don't know the name of the technique used to created it. Most of the image appears to have been first drawn on the paper with some kind of sharp object, perhaps a stylus, and then filled in and expanded with some kind of thick black ink. Perhaps I will scan this and dedicate a separate post to it, soliciting an expert opinion, perhaps, to tell me what might be known about this technique.

Below that is a map taken from a 1959 National Geographic entitled "Lands of the Mediterranean". It includes the Holy Lands, Turkey, most of northern Africa, and the Middle East. I love maps. I keep meaning to frame and hang this one.

There is also a book of Vineyard worship music and an audio cable in the lower right hand corner. The whole mess is atop an antique glass case that houses my modest collection of (mostly) antique knives.

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4) The coolest thing we did, musically, at church this weekend was a song called Bread by Ginny Owens, from her album Beautiful. A very simple, very funky, sparsely orchestrated tune. My wife sang it beautifully, nuanced and soulful. One of the coolest things about it was the fact that the whole song required that I play no more than 4 simple two-note chords...unbelievably minimalistic, but a very fun, expressive vehicle for some great R&B poetry about Jesus as the Bread of Life, and what that means. We got to hear Ginny Owens play piano and sing at the NRB convention in Nashville a couple of years ago. Exceptional. Here are the lyrics:

Man cannot live
By bread alone,
He needs something stronger
To feed his hungry soul,
So he'll try everything
Under the sun,
But nothing will end his hunger
Nothing but Your love.

He'll acquire treasure,
But it won't amount to much,
He'll fall in love with pleasure,
But none will fill him up,
And when he has exhausted
All this world can give to him,
Still he'll not grow weary of chasing after the wind-
I looked in the mirror,
Just the other day,
I was so surprised,
I hardly recognized the change,
So restless and so hurried,
I've spent so much time,
Running after things
I'm gonna have to leave behind

Good stuff, that. My son, JLP, played keys with us this weekend, too, which is always great. The kid's got it goin' on. He sounds better every time I hear him. Even though he never updates his blog these days .

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5) Heather has an interesting, thought-provoking post on her website about how certain books, music, film, and art experiences seem to resonate with us in an especially personal way, while others do not. And I left one of my annoyingly long comments over there already so I'm not going to elaborate. Just go check it out.

Listening: "Old Wells...New Wine", an album of contemporary piano improvisations on classic hymns by my friend, Mark Bovee. Mark is a world class jazz and gospel pianist as well as a gifted arranger, composer, and worship leader. While I hate making these kinds of comparisons because its just soooo lame, if you like George Winston or Jim Brickman, you will like MB's album. Guaranteed.

Speak to me with thine eyes...

I am fascinated by antique photographs, especially pictures of people. Nearly every antique store has either a file or a pile of old photos and very, very few ever have any accompanying information to identify the subject, date, setting, or significance.

I peer into these old pictures, focusing all my powers of observation, intellect and intuition, attempting to pierce the shrouds of mystery with the force of my will. Like new-found evidence uncovered by accident at the scene of a very old crime, old pictures of people provide clues, but no satisfaction. I want to know who they were, who loved them, where they lived, and what their lives were like. But answers and identities remain ever elusive, ever intriguing. Conjecture and imagination slink in and nibble on these scraps and go away hungry. It is like having a beautiful, perfect key to a door, but the door itself has been misplaced or destroyed so the treasure that waits behind the door is forever lost.


Who are these people? Where are they going and what are they thinking about? Who do they love and what did they do with their lives? How is it that a moment, perfectly preserved in two dimensions for a century or more, can be at once so revealing and also completely impenetrable?

Sometimes I think that if only the right person would see this picture, then the mystery could be solved. Someone somewhere might know...must know, must have a memory of this. But the truth is, in all probability, the right person doesn't exist, or rather, doesn't exist any more.

In this life, some mysteries will remain unsolved for the duration. In this life, you can't know everything. You don't get to understand everything you see in this life. But there will be time for that later.

Mushroom Art

One of the most interesting antique art works that we own is this amazing little oil painting of a country church. Strictly speaking, this would likely be considered an "American primitive" piece, less, perhaps because of its age and more so because of its composition, technique, and its highly unusual surface. This painting is rendered on a giant preserved fungus, not unlike those featured in my previous post.


The painting itself is quite good. Simple and folksy, but expertly and artfully realized. There is no signature or date, nor anything else to trace the paintings provenance. Its age is uncertain, but my wife the antique dealer is sure that it is well over 50 years old, possibly much older. Here in eastern Indiana, there are many little country churches that look like this, but it is not one that I have been able to locate.


Here is a picture of the back of the mushroom. It appears to have been dried and then preserved with some type of shellac or clear varnish. There are some nicks in the fungus on both front and back, and the crazing of the paint is clearly visible, but the mushroom itself is really not fragile. It is light, but solid. It feels a lot like papermache'.

Its dimensions are approximately 7.75" x 6" x 1.5". We keep it on a little easel with a small, antique quilt sample.

It would be interesting to know if more of this type of work exists, if anyone else has ever seen such a thing, or has any additional info at all. (Yes, I'm talking to both of you who occassionaly read my blog...)

Postcard Art

Here is a selection from my wife's antique postcard collection that hardly requires comment. Even now, a 100 years later, it continues to make its own comedy.

The illustrator, Vincent Colby, was an artist whose work was popular in the early 1900's. This card was copywrited in 1909, published in NYC, and was posted from Anderson, Indiana to New Castle, Indiana in February of 1912. Little seems to be known or written about Colby, but IMDB.com mentions (without detail), that he was involved in the production of two animated silent short films. He was the animator in the first, I Should Worry (1915), and possibly the director of the second one, Seven Cutey Puppies (1917).

This postcard was one of a series featuring puppies in various situations with humorous captions. They are moderately rare and, as with all postcards, value is dependant on condition. This particular postcard is suffering, unfortunately, from some ink bleed from the postmark, but we don't care. It is still a hoot. And the artwork is really excellent.

On the back of the postcard is a cancelled 1-cent Ben Franklin stamp and this cryptic note written with a fountain pen:

able to live without sleeping but I do not think I will try to live without eating for them eats are great expecially (sic)

The punctuation-impaired writer has wonderful handwriting but did not sign this little missive.

Nancy has a number of very old postcards showing scenes of Richmond, IN, and some unbelievably rare photo postcards of Lynn, IN, the little town where we live in the early 1900's. I will probably show some of those here, too. We are blessed to live in a part of the country rich in art and history.

Work

I am well aware that unemployment is a problem everywhere, varying only by degree. However, it is also very possible to be overemployed. I have a couple of different jobs and numerous other committments and responsibilities. Usually I am able to juggle them, successfully balancing the time and resources necessary to keep everything in order and all parties satisfied, myself included. But occassionally, like this past week, the various orbits converge uncomfortably, causing gravitational stress, near collision, and generally making me nuts. When I work too much, I get depressed. Though I like my job(s) and there are aspects that are very fulfilling and rewarding, I am really not doing what I would like to do. Nevertheless, today while working, I intend to make a concentrated effort to enumerate my blessings while I trudge onward. That seldom fails to to lift my heart and focus. Because it really is a problem of perspective, oh my disgruntled heart.



Here is another excellent old postcard.

A Little Bit Of Alright

My wife, Nancy, is an antique dealer and an artist, among other things. She makes interesting collage/multi-media works that frequently include antique photos or other found artifacts. She is always collecting unusual photos or postcards and frequently gives them to people as birthday cards, anniversary cards, etc., usually with her own greeting written on the back. I'll no doubt be posting some of her work from time to time.



I like this one alot. The guy really looks like he is three sheets to the wind and absolutely incorrigible. The woman has a certain grimness in her jawline that seems to suggest that, while she is not unfamiliar with his lecherous tendencies, it occurs to her at the very last second that maybe she doesn't want this rendevous immortalized forever by the camera. Her right arm is, with some urgency, attempting to counter a spirited but ill-timed advance perpetrated by his left hand. And not a moment too soon.

What a great picture. I wonder what their lives were like.

Listening to: Mike Stern - Between The Lines