Socks in a Bag

From the age of 6 until about 11, I danced in the Sheila Tully School of Irish Dance.  (Apparently there is a website now.) We had the laced up leather soft shoes, the ornate celtic designs on dresses, and the night before a feis--the name for the dance competitions--we slept with curlers in our hair. Ouch. (Apparently, the girls wear wigs now.) I cannot find any pictures from this time in my life. A true tragedy.

Vintage two-toned Umbro Shorts

I remember all of our "practices" in the basement of my Catholic school. We practiced in our Umbro gym shorts, over-sized t-shirts, athletic white socks, and criss-cross-laced-dance shoes. I remember Sheila Tully--Herself--making that distinctly satisfying 'click-click' of a tape into the cassette player and pressing the play button, the distorted accordion sounds would blare, our promenading and hops in rhythmic unison...Doting mothers would stand in the hall chatting while their daughters worked on jigs, two hand reels, hornpipes, and if you were an older girl, the hard shoe dances, too.

Once, when we were lined up in formation with one toe pointed out, Sheila Tully, herself, walked down the line and stopped in front of my toes, "No socks today?" I shook my head no and my face went flush. My mother was not doting in the background during Irish dance class to see this embarrassment and she was certainly not keeping track of my socks. If I wanted to dance with socks, I would have to be the one putting the socks in my bag.

So here I am now, 20 years later, putting socks in a bag. This time I am not going to an Irish feis. I'm heading to Rio to perform in Carnival! My mother is not here to help me pack my socks either. Instead, I am packing for a trip because of everything she taught me. She taught me to do things for myself and to go after what I want. It's her absence, once again, that has shaped her influence on me. A year before my mom passed away, I remember her telling me that she wanted to go to some community dance event at a summer festival. She always wished she danced more. She didn't care if she was the only one over 60. I never had a chance to take her there. But I am taking her spirit with me on this specific journey to Brazil, with enough sunblock for the both of us.

When I told my Aunt Mary about this amazing trip down to Rio de Janeiro to dance with Samba schools, she told me, "You know, your mother always lived through you and all of your adventures. She would have done all the things you are doing if she could."

Last week, I was volunteering at a concert at the Old Town School of Folk Music, the miraculous organization that is helping send a group of us down to Rio. At that concert, I heard this song and it described the feeling of my mom and leaving on this trip. "My mother, she once told me, you you gotta be as bright as you can...my suitcase, it once told me, you gotta be as light as you can."

Dear Lisa Frank, What Skills Do Middle Schoolers Need?

 As I am preparing to teach a class called "Middle School Skills" to a group of incoming 6th graders on Monday, I started digging for memorabilia from my own middle school years to try and channel the feelings of that time of life. (I've been told I am permanently 13 years old so this wasn't a big stretch.) I came across this amazing letter that dropped me right back into the hallway... carrying heavy text books, trapper keepers (those things were so awesome, a foreshadowing of my love of bookmaking and paper arts perhaps?), and erasable pens, wearing rolled plaid skirts with oxford shirts tucked in 'just enough', and perpetually denying that you had a crush on someone. And as you will see in the letter, I was declining offers to smoke Pixy Sticks. Allow me to explain. Remember those candy paper sticks filled with flavored sugar called Pixy Sticks? We'd go to Helen's corner store and buy the sugar candy and then we'd walk to the park, pound back the stick of sugar, (then some of us) would light the hollow paper wrapper at one end, and pretend to smoke it. I kind of feel like I'm going to get in trouble with someone for telling you this. But it happened. I saw it. I was too chicken to say yes but felt pretty cool to be asked. UGH! Now that is getting at the complex, socially awkward heart of middle school.

You can't tell this letter was addressed to me because my avatar (I didn't know what this word meant then) in junior high was Martha. I have no idea why. We also addressed letters to each other with our personal symbols so that if a teacher caught us they would have to figure out who was the "shooting yin yang star" and who was "martha a.k.a. squiggle line with dots."
I also don't know who wrote me this letter. The symbol system worked!!! I must have lost my ability to decode our pseudonyms when I turned into an adult! I have narrowed it down to about 3 friends from middle school who I am all still in contact with regularly, or at least on Facebook. (Hi guys! Which one of you wrote this? Are boys still putting your belongings in inappropriate places?) If you went to grade school with me, you can probably figure out who is who in the body of this letter. I hope there is enough distance from junior high now to share this. Ha! I'll let you all interpret the rest of this gem of a letter. But I'm still left to wonder, what skills do middle schoolers need? Are you there, Lisa Frank? It's me, Martha.

Woman in the Wind Who Has Lost Her Nose

My yoga teacher said today, "Peel away the things that no longer serve you." That immediately meant to me that I should be peeling away the tension in my right hip, and all of the muscles around it. Blasted runner's hips!

 "Car Ride from Bird's Point of View" Graphite on Paper, c. 1989.

I did this while also thinking about all the things I've been purging this past month since I've gotten back from Mexico. This included old clothes, pointless grudges, obsolete grad school binders, and dust collecting on the top edge of hanging picture frames. I also thought about my digital clutter that is still peeling away: useless photos, documents, doubles of almost everything, incorrect formats, mystery articles and forms that I downloaded (in my sleep, maybe?) 

One of the nice things about peeling away what you don't need is unearthing what it is that does serve you...namely, an envelope (analog, not digital) of your childhood drawings that your mother kept.

"Woman in the Wind Who Has Lost Her Nose" Ink on Paper, c. 1990.

Here is this week's picks from years 7 and 8 of my childhood. These are clearly the years when one has an acute sense of ladies' shoulder pads and a fascination with things in flight.

Awareness of the placement of shoulder seams? Check.
Understanding of knees and elbows? In Artistic development.

You can see through to the other side of the paper a little bit where my mom had dutifully written  "Jean Age 8" and "Jean Age 7".  For the piece I am titling, "Woman in the Wind Who Has Lost Her Nose," I am willing to believe I was onto the next drawing and had forgotten to add the suggestion of a nose. I am also willing to believe that I did not worry myself with things that did not serve me. In this case, it was a nose. The image is better without it. I will take this as a lesson from my 7 year old artist-self: Don't bother with things you don't need, move on to the next project, and just keep drawing out what you see around you.

Free Chicago

I went cross country skiing at Northerly Island this past weekend. What is this Island you ask? It's right by the Adler Planetarium and used to be Meigs Field. Mayor Daley turned an airport (bulldozed secretly in the middle of the night) into a recreational park on the lake in the 90s. Still confused? Then you probably aren't from Chicago. You can see a google earth blogger write more about it here.
The blog writer is very excited that, " At least we can keep Mayor Daley from the satisfaction of seeing his new park in these popular applications."
The skiing and snowshoeing is FREE at Northerly Island. You can even rent them for free from the Chicago Park District there. Parking is also FREE. More info here.

 The second free thing I must tell you, particularly if you are a teacher, is about S.C.A.R.C.E. It is a non-profit recycling center for educational materials.  I drove out to it all the way in Glen Ellyn, IL but it was totally worth it! Who's this Ellyn? She's my new best friend and she lives in the Glen. Just for being a teacher and reporting what I take, I was able to walk down the aisles grabbing books upon books off the shelves. JACKPOT. They have other donated items come through besides books but books is what I needed and books is what I got. Did I mention it was free? Go to their website! http://www.scarceecoed.org/

Nerd Alert

Okay, here's a quick blurb of images to sum up the week. "Must. Make. Things. Connect." -said the little thesis voice in my head. Here's a book work from an undergrad at SAIC's BFA show. Book artists. We just keep doing the same thing over and over! And I fully admit I love it. This genre just keeps repeating itself!
Now watch how I connect this book image above to the view from my Thesis class below. (My thesis is related to books.) This is also what a thesis binder looks like, boys and girls.
Now I will connect my thesis class to this image of a lecture I attended. I was late for my thesis class that day actually because I was sitting in on an art history lecture about the human body through history...or something. The professor claims it is the first lecture ever given in history via an iPad. I have no proof of this but I felt cutting edge.
Now I will connect this nerdiness above to a whole different nerdiness below. Soul Asylum. Yes. Soul Asylum. I saw them Saturday. There, I said it.
This image is just for emphasis. (You know, this blog post is sounding remarkably like my annotated image list from my Curriculum and Instructions class- inside joke: FMT.)
And this image is connected because I thought this, too, was a riot. As it turns out "Latino fiesta" tastes remarkably like my favorite cookie that I dearly miss from my days in Australia. The amazing Tim Tam. I actually left some clothes out of my suitcase in Sydney so I could pack more Tim Tams.
And now I will connect that image to this image of the aforementioned excellent Australian cookie...or bisquit as they say.
I miss you, Tim Tam. But, alas, I found a new lover: the Latino fiesta.

If you've made it this far down the blog post (congrats), please leave a comment for me answering this:
What is your definition of a nerd?