The world is but a canvas to the imagination.

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly. Buckminster Fuller

Most grants and funding made to social service agencies addresses basic human needs. The not-for-profit I work for, the Humanitarian Service Project, does that too with our summer Feed the Kids Project. At Christmas time, we help families with two to three weeks of food and gifts for all of the children. And year-round our Senior Citizen Project delivers a monthly food package to needy seniors in our area.

But there is more to life than basic needs. Our Children’s Birthday Project, is described on The Common Grant Application as “an early intervention program for children ages 3-12, to bring joy and self-worth to poverty-level children on their special day at an age while they were still impressionable but before they were subject to intense peer pressure and the appeal of negative influences such as gangs.”

That’s a mouthful but what it boils down to is we think even poor kids should know their birthdays are worth celebrating!

So, we collect new toys and books, school supplies, and stuffed animals. Every box also includes what we call a party-in-a-box with all the makings of a fun birthday celebration like cake mix, frosting, paper plates, streamers, and party favors.

Now, we are hoping to include an arts and crafts kit in the birthday boxes if our donors support the idea. Arts and crafts kits with drawing and painting supplies of all kinds, craft supplies—you name it. We see it as a creative and positive opportunity to enhance the lives of our program’s children. With schools cutting back on funding for art education, I think many kids grow up failing to discover their innate creativity. And poor families just scraping by surely don’t have money left over to spend on art supplies.

All week I have been caught up with this notion. I have a growing list of ideas with over 30 suggestions so far. If any of my readers know of organizations or manufacturers who might be able to help as we get this underway, please let me know. We are a small grassroots organization, highly regarded, but also with a small staff.

I am excited about the possibility. Here is the list I have come up with so far. Wonder what I have forgotten?

Be Big

I entered this contest yesterday. You should too. You don't have to be a kid either. Scholastic is encouraging everyone to Be Big and think creatively about how we can help our communities. Go for it! You have until June 26. Wonder what I suggested? Just ask.

Delightfully Macabre

My latest weekend passion is researching fabric designs either online (today) or at my local JoAnn Fabric store. Blame the fascination on my attempt to combine quilting with my love of design.

I was struck by this fabric called ‘vida de los muertos’ by Alexander Henry and had a hard time picturing how one would use it. Thankfully, the folks at J & O Fabrics had suggestions for this “delightfully macabre imagining of the daily routine of skeletons.” How about Hawaiian shirts, bags, crafts or an outfit for Rover? And then, I found a link to the bib pictured here.

Maybe one day you will see fabric by yours truly.

Obama Girls are Real Dolls

(Crain’s) — The nation’s first daughters, Sasha and Malia Obama, have joined the ranks of Barbie, Rainbow Brite and Strawberry Shortcake. Ty Inc., maker of Beanie Babies, released “Sweet Sasha” and “Marvelous Malia” dolls earlier this month as part of its TyGirlz Collection. Westmont-based Ty launched the line in 2007.

In our culture of celebrity, how can new First Lady Michelle Obama think her daughters will escape our American fascination? Yes, it’s celebrity by association but celebrity nonetheless.

Sasha and Malia Obama are cute enough for the genius who brought us Beanie Babies to name a couple of TyGirlz, “Marvelous Malia” and “Sweet Sasha.” According to Crain’s Chicago Businesss, at first a spokeswoman “confirmed that the dolls were created to resemble President Barack Obama’s daughters.” The next day that changed to, “They were not designed to look like any living person.” Really? It’s not hard to argue who might have inspired the name choice. I’ll grant lawyer-mom Michelle that.

However, despite potential legal issues this is a bit extreme. Mom, pick your battles. There will likely be bigger issues with protecting the girls than this--more egregious examples that do warrant attention. The dolls are not offensive and if they inspire sales for a Chicagoland company, isn’t that helping the local economy?

Most of the folks at the Huffington Post disagree with me. I read one page of comments and found one sole TyGirlz defender who said her daughters liked the dolls. Of course, everyone else seemed to jump all over her. Maybe y'all should go after Dover Publications and others making money on the Obamas. I prefer to concentrate on real matters of national importance. Let us not lose the focus that lead to Obama's election as President by silly and distracting diversions like this.

When Whimsy Strikes

In looking for an image this morning, I consulted Dover’s Pictorial Archive Series, “Life” Magazine Cuts & Illustrations 1923-1935. Life got its start in the late 1800s with founder John Ames Mitchell patterning it after the Harvard Lampoon.

Mitchell, himself a cartoonist, gave many budding artists a start including Charles Dana Gibson, who was famous for the Gibson Girl.

During Life’s heyday, works of some of the country’s greatest commercial artists appeared on its pages including illustrations by Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss.

Dr. Seuss fashioned a career illustrating for big advertisers like General Electric and Standard Oil, drew political cartoons, joined the Army during World War II and eventually wrote and illustrated children’s books, which we remember him for best.

This is the illustration that caught my eye this morning. I don’t know how it was originally used, but I thought it needed some orange.

A Work In Progress

Part 4
I’ve decided on the dimensions, theme and color palate. I took scissors to cloth, cutting out several appliqué pieces and selecting the background material.

The beauty of my self-inspired design is that I can change my direction at any time. This first section, however, is fairly inflexible.

And I set about embroidering by hand the first appliqué letter. I will spare the details and show the first completed piece. If you know me well enough, you will figure out what the following letters of this first word will be.

Care to guess?

Quilting Away, Part 3

Part 3
I don’t want to reinvent the wheel but I’m going about this quilt project from the ground up. Yes, I know there are software programs but I suspect they are too basic. I have a grand vision and will thus strike out in my own direction. I have read that other designers use the computer and maybe I’ll stumble upon their hints along the way.

Today’s field trip was to two Springfield quilt shops and Hancock’s Fabric store. By the way and entirely off topic, I must ask a perplexing question: why were so many men shopping with their women folk? My husband wouldn’t be caught dead in a shop dedicated to sewing.

The first stop was overwhelming. Not only do I have to figure out how to make the quilt after I design it, but I have to choose the fabric. The fabric choice is astounding. Just like having too many telephone companies to choose from is confusing for me, so is this.

I bought some fabric and brought it home to ponder. Pondering begat another trip, this time to Hobby Lobby for more red or more precisely, crimson.

Quilt Design Project, Part 2

Part 2
First off, I researched quilts and techniques. I lean toward a quilt that is appliquéd. This French term means one layer of fabric is placed over another layer of fabric and sewn in place. This appeals to my design instincts and I did a computer version of the design first. I know I should just do a simple patchwork quilt as a rookie, but I am not content with simple.

Right now I’m not sure how much I’ll show of the process. This might be the last you read of it until the quilt is complete. However, if progress is fulfilling, I’ll share. I have made field trips to scope out fabric, and I loved traipsing through rows of rolls and bolts. Not one item was purchased at first for after all, this was research.

Quilt Design Project

Part 1
I’m the type of person who is happiest with a project percolating in my head. If you saw the movie Waitress, I’d say I’m like the title character always creating new kinds of pies in her mind. I do love pies, but in this case, my head is turned by designs, colors and shapes—not yummy pies.

At any rate, learning to quilt is my current project. Granny Martin was a quilter and my mother picked it up when she retired from over 30 years working for the U.S. Air Force. Let’s just say Mother was happier quilting. However, I want to make a quilt like no other. No standard designs. I will blaze my own quilting path. Dear gentle readers, you will be a part of the mystery. Will my quilt be in the same league as Granny’s and Mom’s or will it be one big poorly-stitched disaster?

Coloring books

Do kids still color in coloring books? I know I loved them. If I had to be home from school because I was sick, my mom always picked up one at the drug store when she collected my prescription. And even in healthy times, I could often be found coloring away. Maybe they do curb artistic expression in some, but I credit them with giving me a chance to experiment with color. Anyway, I went on to do my own thing eventually.

Dover Publications puts out some of the nicest coloring books these days and they are a fairly inexpensive way to introduce kids to art. This designer likes and uses Dover Publications often for inspiration. If you sign up for the Dover Sampler, they’ll even E-mail you free designs to download each week such as this floral sample.

Looking at the sample almost makes me want to round up the Crayolas. Speaking of which, check out this link to Crayola.com for online coloring fun. You can choose from colored pencils, markers and of course, Crayolas.

Do you remember how exciting it was when school started and you got that huge box of crayons? There seemed to be infinite possibilities then. I charge you to explore your creativity. And don’t tell me you aren’t creative, because I will just think you aren’t trying.

Note: the sample is from Color Your Own Great Flower Prints

Okay, Now I Really, Really Did Win Something

Just last week with tongue in cheek, I posted about winning one of those infernal E-mail Yahoo-account-cloggin’ contests. I think y’all knew I was kidding, didn’t you?

Yesterday, the lady from the Montgomery Humane Society called me up to let me know I’d won first place in the “Through the Cat’s Eye” contest that they were putting on as a silent auction fundraiser. I had to ask her to repeat what she said for I hardly call my painting style “art.” It’s painting. But painting the bathroom is also painting and I don’t call that “art."

I’ve been doing a lot more painting of the bathroom kind lately, and “Butch,” as I dubbed my work, was actually completed a couple of years ago. What with getting ready to move and all, I thought he needed a home. When I saw the call for entries article in the local paper, I said, “I’m taking ‘Butch’ to the Humane Society.” And that dear gentle readers, is how I actually won 1st place at a juried art show.

Scotty and I walked onto the hallowed grounds of the Montgomery Country Club, my first and probably last time there, to attend the reception. Visions of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and grand parties of the Jazz Age entered my head. These icons of that decadent period met at a dance at the Montgomery Country Club while Fitzgerald was stationed at nearby Camp Sheridan. They even lived in Montgomery for a few months when they weren’t gallivanting around the world with the likes of Ernest Hemingway.

It was a pleasant evening. I collected my little check and looked at the other entries (none like my folk art) and went home with the knowledge that the old cat was good for something after all.

P.S. Butch was a real cat. Bill and I acquired him while living on 13th St. in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. We were University of Alabama college students at the time, and Butch became a part of us that we couldn't or wouldn't let go of even though there was no real reason to keep him around. He was too ornery to foist off onto someone else, even a cat lady.

He'd jump out and scratch Bill and hide under the bed when Bill chased him with a broom. When little Jeff tried to pet Butch, Butch gave him a scar that he still sports on his face. Butch wasn't a lap cat, didn't catch mice, ate and pooped like cats do and for the life of me, I can't imagine why we kept him around. He was too mean to die and lived until he was 19 years old. I'm convinced he's in the equivalent of where bad people go. Well, if you are sentimental, maybe all cats do go to heaven. But he had an attitude. "You pull my tail, kid, I'm gonna get you." Maybe that's why we tolerated each other.

A Great Little Sucker-Upper

I love my Oreck upright vacuum cleaner. When we bought it a few years ago, it came with the Oreck Super-Deluxe Compact Canister Vacuum and a cordless iron. I love the compact vac for a reason Mr. Oreck probably doesn’t promote. Yes, it comes in handy to clean up the paint chips and dust I’ve been kicking up around the house. But my favorite thing to suck up with the little cleaner is wasps. Sometimes I leave the door open and with no screen doors, invariably a big fat wasp finds its way in. Then, I have to think about exactly how close to I want to get to the creature to kill it. Is it death by smacking it with Time Magazine or a possible reprieve by sucking it up into the little vac’s bag? Kind of a catch and release. I’ve learned to carry the vac outside and leave it a while in case Mr. Wasp decides to crawl out the hose to freedom again inside. Yes, that did happen and I had to “catch” him again. So far I haven’t gotten stung and the little vac that’s “Strong Enough To Pick Up A 16-lb. Bowling Ball” has been mighty enough to pick up every wasp, fly, hornet, yellow jacket or big fly I’ve come across.

Outsider Art and My Home Town

I grew up in the country outside of Prattville, Alabama. Back then Prattville was a little town of around 6,000. Today, it’s a fast-growing bedroom community for the white flight from Montgomery. In the past, the town was noted for its founding industrialist father, Daniel Pratt, and his cotton business. These days more people come to play golf on the nationally praised golf courses that are a part of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail.

Prattville, or rather Pink Lily, is also home to outsider artist Charlie Lucas. Lucas, known for his metal sculptures, lives in this little community north of town. It’s just down the road from where I grew up, right near Bridge Creek. As a kid, I rode the school bus through Pink Lily, but no one got off or on since it was before school desegregation and Pink Lily was a “black” community. Who would have thought that this odd mixture of typical rural Southern houses would one day be home to someone famous?

Just driving by the sculptures randomly occupying a field in front of the Lucas home, you’d never know Lucas’s work can go for big bucks or that Prattville named a special day for him. Neither would you think that the house was home to a man who had lectured at Yale and traveled to France as an artist-in-residence but who could not read because of dyslexia.

I thought the nickname Lucas gave himself, the Tin Man, was because he works in metal. However, he says, it was because he only had ten dollars in his pocket. In an interview with Miriam Fowler in 1991, Lucas said of himself,

My career is at the point that I want it to be. I don't care if my name is in lights. My art is my family and friends. Through the Kind Spirit the pieces that I don't sell talk to me and teach me. I'm real happy about myself. I'm teaching myself to read. In school I just wanted to study art. My teacher said 'No! You need to learn a trade. Art is for white people.' Now I can do anything I want to do. . . Now people recognize me and say 'there goes Charlie Lucas.'

If you ever find yourself driving down Interstate 65 from Birmingham to Montgomery, pull off at the Pine Level exit and see Charlie's sculpture garden for yourself. I think it's the exit right after the giant Confederate flag and it would only take a few minutes of your time. E-mail me for directions or else you might get lost and run into Prattville's other roadside attraction, the Cross Garden.

A couple of local galleries feature Charlie's work, and it’s available online at Alabama Live Arts. He’s branching out into painting too. New York Woman featured above goes for $5,000. Not too shabby for Pink Lily’s most famous resident.

Snickers Ad Pulled

I really didn’t care for the Snickers candy ad that aired during the Super Bowl--you know the one now kicking up yet another “controversy.” My reasons weren’t those of the gay and lesbian groups raising the stink, and they really are irrelevant to my view here. We have gotten to the point where damn near everything created, designed, broadcast, printed, or disseminated over the Internet is dissected with the precision of a surgeon’s knife and examined under a microscope to the nth degree. Let’s face it. If you watch television, listen to music, look at a magazine, go to a museum, pass a billboard, attend a play or movie, read a book, or just crawl out of your hole and explore the world around you, you most likely will be offended by something you see.

Just get over it and realize that in a free society (and thank God or whomever that we live in a free society) this is reality. Do you have to like it? No. But if it offends you, please don’t decide for me that it will also offend me.

Super Bowl Ads Disappointing

So, I watched about half of the Super Bowl and may have missed some of the ads, but I don’t think I really missed much. Hey, big advertising gurus, where’s your knock-my-socks-off creativity? My favorite ad was Carlos Mencia’s English as a Second Language Class in Beer. Carlos’s advice: if you are asked for a Bud Light, you say, “Me no speak English.”

Then, I’d give a wet noodle or maybe a wet t-shirt would be better to GoDaddy for their dumb ad. It seems to be the favorite “bad” ad; and therefore, I believe it to be successful. We are talking about it and I remember it.

The Snickers candy bar ad with the two grungy mechanics coming together for a “kiss” gets my vote for the grossest ad.

And lastly, does anyone watching the Super Bowl and eating party food really care to be reminded of heart disease? What a killjoy that ad was!