Like myself, many people in creative fields have a parent who passed along their creative genes, and towards whom we have a deep sense of gratitude for, among many other things of course, starting us down this sometimes meandering career path.
For me, it was my mom. However, she didn’t work in a creative field of any sort…
she worked as a secretary (archaic term used back then) in an insurance office. For nearly twenty years she worked what had to be a pretty mundane job in a local State Farm Insurance office, until surgery for cancer of the uterine and the advent of office computers rendered her “obsolete”.
Semi-retired in her early fifties and probably feeling somewhat used and abused, she nonetheless poured her energies into creative outlets like collecting and refinishing antiques. Without a doubt, her collections and handiwork played a large part in developing my own appreciation of things that were well designed (although she would never have condoned my preference for “modern stuff”).
She would create these incredible arrangements of framed paintings, wreaths, and art objects on walls throughout the house. There could be no TV or stereo in the living room unless it could be hidden away in an armoire or something… the modern electronics just didn’t mesh with her growing fondness for the simpler, more primitive styles of antiques and collectibles.
Eventually Mom began carving primitive figures of animals out of wood and assembling intricate wreaths and sculptures from sticks, branches, fallen palm fronds, pine cones, and twigs she would find on her walks. By then in her seventies, this led to her final creative phase of carving little wooden pigs out of those found twigs and sticks. She would first call them “twig pigs”, then “log hogs”, and in their final incarnation “devine swine”. She would sell quite a few at local antique, craft and gift stores in Bisbee, AZ where she and my dad had moved in the early 1990’s. The two pictured above are part of a small collection that my brother and sister and I still have left.
Mom died 4 years ago after a long ordeal with dementia brought on by a fall outside their Arizona home. The last few years of her life were tough for all of us and unfortunately she wasn’t able to continue to pursue her creative outlets due to her condition. Hopefully in some small way, any project that my sister, brother, or I undertake carries on her legacy.
Today would have been her 90th birthday… thanks Mom, for everything, and Happy Birthday.
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