Seminole Indian patch work

When I was a child my Mother and I set of for an adventure one day to go to the Seminole Indian Reservation. We always like learning about the Indian culture and this would be a first hand experance. A great chance for my Mother to expose me to a different life and way other than our own. I was amazed at the colors of their clothing and the way the way women wore their hair. It was fantastic. As we looked we realized how these people desperately tried to hold on to the things that made them Seminole. I heard a great quote from an old Disney film and one of my favorites "The Happiest Millionaire" . It was when the good ole Irish Butler came to work for Biddles and the Butler told them that being an American did not mean to take away but to add to his Irish heritage. I believe that sometimes that is forgotten in the country. So as we intermingled and enjoyed the wonderful sights and smells of the fabulous people my eye alighted on some that would change my world. The patch work. These beautiful colors set in black looked as if someone had put jewels in a sea of night. All the men and women wore these some as jackets others as skirts but they where dazzling. Picking out a jacket and skirt for our selves we then pick up a few dolls. The dolls where made from palmetto hair and eyes had been sewn in with beads adorning the necks and all that beautiful stitch work and piece work done in miniature for the dolls. Works of art. I have held onto these treasures all of my life and looked at them often and marveled at each stitch.


Another Taste From The Past
Recently I made a pound cake from another recipe that I found on the site All Recipes.com A good one but not really the best tasting. I kept running over what had made my Grandmothers so special and that is when it hit me. Sour Cream! So rather then hunting down the recipe, I returned to the All Recipes.com and found one. Breakstones' sour cream pound cake.
I think it turned out just perfect. I used a tube pan. The kind that you would use with angle food cakes, the one that the bottom lifts out. Instead of greasing and flouring the pan to prevent sticking I greased and then sugared the pan creating a wonderful crispy crust when the cake was finished baking. I believe that will be all for tonight hope you enjoyed it now I am off for a cupa tea and a nice slab of pound cake.

My Mother

You may be wondering how far down my roots go as pertaining to art. How do I get my ideas what was my background? Did I go to school? Did someone show me? Did I sit at the knee of an artist and apprentice? Well the answer is... kind of. I wrote earlier about the artist Beatrix Potter and her world. Of how she had visitors in her home that consisted of the four legged kind. How she learned to see the world with in the world. Well I had that kind of teacher too in my Mother. A woman who showed me a world that some go through a life time and never see. We would explore the country side of our Native Fla. Looking in the rivers for alligators and birds and minnows. We would take samples of pound water and bring it back home to peer into a microscope to see the life that was invisible to our naked eyes. She would offer me books that would reveal what was inside others like my favorite author Edger Allen Poe who's poem Annabel Lee is one of my all time favorites (included at the bottom of my blog for those who would like to read it) or Kahlil Gibran, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rudyard Kipling's Just so Stories, A.A. Milne and on and on. The roads that my Mother forged and trailed and pioneered would become my basis for creation and for inspiration. In later years when I would go down my own paths of life I would have these wonderful roads that would lead me back to the core of who I was. It is on these creative and inspirational paths that I find my best work.
I refer to these lessons as paths, for that is how my Mother travels, always going ahead and beckoning me to follow. Always looking and testing and creating.

We recently had the opportunity to go on a short hike that was fantastic. The world that we both have lived here in Tennessee was once again explored by Mother and Daughter. Things seen once again by our eyes searching for those hidden things in the wood that would be treasures. But the biggest treasure we found was within our selves. The memories of our life and who we had become.

This is as far as you my dear reader and I go for now. For now all you get to see is the place in time that we are in. I will not tell you of the adventures of my Mother and Myself. For this time you will not hear of the time that my Mother went to the Post Office (or as we called it the P.O. Box) with our "friend" Opy (the Possum) on her head. This time I will not get into the story of how we raised 4 squirrels. I will not take you down the road to the "Home Place" and show you the outhouse where you could see bats fly out. I will not introduce you to the meanest Tom Cat this side of Arcadia Fla. No, for this story I will just sit back and smile to myself and keep those times for me for there are many. And they are what I feed on. But have no worry I will take you one day my constant reader to those times and places that I hold dear. But for this time if you want to see more then click on here The Edith Collection. Here in every stroke of her brush you can travel to our memories ... her memories, and see the "friends" and the homes, the passages of different times and seasons. For this is my Mother.

Annabel Lee It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of ANNABEL LEE; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea; But we loved with a love that was more than love- I and my Annabel Lee; With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsman came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me- Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we- Of many far wiser than we- And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride, In the sepulchre there by the sea, In her tomb by the sounding sea. Edgar Allan Poe http://www.poemhunter.com/ More information about the poem Annabel Lee Reader comments on the poem Annabel Lee More information about the poet Edgar Allan Poe