Repose of the Soul

"We have all met her, that special woman who draws you into her orb with a radiant smile.  Her eyes light up as you tell her how you've been.  She attracts men, women, children, and animals, for her complete attention is soothing and hypnotic.  When you walk away from her you feel as if you have been bathed in a beautiful warm light."   --Sarah Ban Breathnach, "Simple Abundance"

When I read Sarah's description of the type of woman that makes you feel "bathed in a beautiful warm light" I immediately thought of Susan Branch.  I took this photo at a book signing in 2014 as the couple in front of me were getting their book signed by Susan.  As you can see, Susan had a big smile on her face.  I was the last in line and she'd been signing for over an hour!  When it was my turn she rose up out of her chair and hugged me when I told her my name because she recognized it from all the comments I've made on her web journal over the years. . . .

Bringing joy to her readers is one of Susan's hallmarks.  She has been someone I've aspired to be like, besides wanting to draw and paint as she does.  I practice my handwriting in hopes one day it will suddenly look like hers, but practicing her warmth does not come easily to me.   She does not profess to be an outgoing person, yet she gives you her full attention and makes you feel special while you are in her "orb."  So I was glad to read further in Sarah Ban Breathnach's "Simple Abundance" how I might acquire this ability. . . .

Sarah reminds me that if I will take the time to "step outside my own sphere to embrace others, [I] open [myself] up to the power of Spirit. "  She says, "We are suddenly lit up from inside, and this illumination can transform our looks more effectively than any fancy salon beauty makeover."  This, indeed, is repose of the soul.

P.S.  If you want to print out Sarah's quote with Susan's artwork, drag it to your computer desktop.

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Take Joy!

Grandma Moses Get-Together

Five members of the Take Joy Society gathered together today for a Grandma Moses Painting Party.   Anna Mary Robertson Moses, otherwise known as Grandma Moses was born in 1860 in Washington Co., New York.  She and her brothers would draw on the newsprint paper their father brought home on his trips into town.  Anna Mary would color her pictures using grape juice or berries.  She especially loved the color red.  After she married in 1887 she and her husband moved to the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia.  She birthed 10 children there, but only five survived infancy.  In 1905 they moved back to New York and bought a farm they named Mt. Nebo.  The only painting she did in those years was decorative painting on furniture.   Because she liked to keep busy she took up embroidery and made "yarn pictures" in the 1930s when house and farm work became too strenuous for her.  Here is an example of her yarn pictures. . . .

Mt. Nebo on the Hill

March Celebrations

"The earth is stirring, and by some subtle osmosis, spring is rising in the human heart, too.  Country folks will be poking in the corners for signs--in a bare patch of ground under the shrubbery the white bells of the snowdrops and the yellow and blue tips of crocuses are showing color and will be open with a day of sun," writes Mary Mason Campbell in The New England Butt'ry Shelf Almanac, illustrated by Tasha Tudor.

The Joy of Gardening

If you are a gardener and live where there are four seasons, you're probably like me in February--itching to get your hands in dirt.  Along about now I find myself longing for color.  It helps if there is snow on the ground to cover all the brown, but after a while that doesn't even help.  So this morning I found myself looking through my Photo Library where I collect the photos I've taken of my garden through the years. . . .
I planted my first garden when my youngest was two.  He would be my last child and I knew that nurturing a garden would help me let go of my children as they grew up and left home.  Over the last 26 years I've dug, and hauled, and planted, and weeded.  I've enjoyed walking through others' gardens to get ideas and perusing garden centers for plants.  Each year I look forward to Spring when the perennials begin to poke through the earth again.  I'm eager to discover what has made it through the winter.  Some do not survive, but this gives me an opportunity to start over.

Designing my garden beds is intuitional for me.  This is the part of gardening I love the most.  It allows me to express my own sense of beauty--putting textures and colors together.  But, like life, gardening has it's struggles.  Sometimes it can be disheartening when after a beautiful Spring, Summer brings heat and humidity to decimate my garden.  Colors fade, leaves shrivel, then the bugs and powdery mildew have a field day!

This is why I take photos.  They remind me, like memories, of the best part of gardening and give me hope for Springtime. . . .

                      

For best viewing, click right corner for full-screen

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Take Joy!

Scherenschnitte Get-Together

Several members of the Take Joy Society gathered at Cindy's quaint stone house this month to make Valentines.  She shared the house's history with us:

The farm I live on is called Montpelier and the land first belonged to Evan Shelby whose son  became the first governor of Kentucky. He had a wooden home and we do not know where it was located. Then it was purchased by John Thompson Mason and his wife Elizabeth. They built the houses that are here today and are buried in a small graveyard on the hill behind my house.  The  house I live in was the slave master’s house and it was built in the 1750’s. The next owners of Montpelier were the Barnes family and upon their death they freed all the slaves. The next, and last owners, are the Seiberts. My children are the 7^th generation of the Seibert family to live on the farm.

Cindy comes from a long line of watercolor artists.  Here is her watercolor of what the house looked like before they added on to it more than 30 years ago. . . .

She has other artistic talents as well, like these welded sculptures. . . .

Before we began our craft we had a delicious Apricot Cake and Dollie's Tea Room's special blend tea. . . .

Scherenschnitte means "scissors cutting" and was introduced to Europe in the 16th century.  Cindy wrote it out phonetically for us and showed us samples she'd prepared. . . .

She gave us patterns to trace, but you can draw anything you'd like. . . .

Then she showed us how to place the pattern in the fold of a piece of paper and trace the design on the light board (or you can use the light from outside by placing it on a windowpane).  You want it in the fold because you will be cutting one design through two pieces of paper that you'll unfold when you're done.  This way both sides of the design will be identical.  Then she used an exacto knife--or you could use the special small, sharp-pointed scissors made for papercutting, to cut out the requisite spaces.  Finally, she used scissors to cut around the outer outline of the design. . . .

Here we are cutting out our designs. . . .

Some of us chose to color ours.  If you're brave enough (i.e., confident in your handwriting skills) you can write words along the outside like Cindy did in the samples.  The bottom right piece is the one Cindy worked on while we did ours.  It is not quite finished, but you can see how intricate you can make them if you have the patience to cut out all those little spaces. . . .

Here is a short video that goes through the steps (this is not our Cindy ☺︎). . . .

                               


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Take Joy!

February Celebrations

Mary Mason Campbell writes in "The New England Butt'ry Shelf Almanac" (illustrated by Tasha Tudor), "The long darkness of night is shrinking, and day is stretching after its winter rest. . . "  We had 27 inches of snow last week so it looks very much like winter in our part of the world.  I love looking out my window at all the white as opposed to the alternative--brown.  But I must say I'm loving that when we sit down to dinner in front of the bay window at 5:30 each evening I can once again see outside.  Living further south and west of New England gives me more daylight sooner and I love that.

Mrs. Campbell also gives us some history on the first uses for tea in this country.  She writes that it was first introduced to New Englanders in 1670 and that "no one seemed to know just how to prepare or serve it.  There was no such thing in this country as a teapot. . .it was boiled, then the liquor was thrown away and the tea leaves eaten, sometimes with salt and butter, sometimes with sugar and milk."  She tells of an old Nantucket book that describes the first tea party there. . ."the hostess put a five-gallon bell-metal kettle of water on the crane, poured in four quarts of tea leaves and the whole was boiled for an hour, then the dark bitter liquor was drunk from silver porringers.  Since this did not produce a very palatable beverage, the hostess entertained a practical suggestion that it had not been properly prepared and the liquor had best be used to dye woolen yarns."  Mrs. Campbell includes this recipe, among several, to serve at today's tea parties. . . .

Tasha Tudor found ways to celebrate February indoors.  Making valentines, especially for the dolls, was a wonderful way to spend the still-dark evenings.  Last year the Maryland Chapter of the Tasha Tudor Museum gathered to make their own valentines along with a Sparrow Post mailbox.  You can read about it here.  I've been reading a lot about Beatrix Potter since the first of the year in preparation for a monthly post on Morning Musings about her since this is the 150th anniversary of her birth.  I know that Tasha was one of her devotees so I would not be surprised if Tasha had gotten the idea for her miniature letters and post box from Beatrix who had done the same years before. . . .

"A Time to Keep" by Tasha Tudor

Tasha also liked to celebrate George Washington's birthday.  Her great-great-grandfather Colonel William Tudor had been a friend and aide to George Washington and had helped form the Society of the Cincinnati.  He studied law under John Adams and served as the first judge advocate general of the United States.  I'm not at all surprised that she would encourage her children to put on historic costumes and re-enact our nation's history. . . .

"A Time to Keep" by Tasha Tudor

But I think she probably loved Valentine's Day the most because she was a romantic at heart. . . .

"Around the Year" by Tasha Tudor

"Around the Year" by Tasha Tudor

Note:  Clicking on photos will enlarge them

        Drag recipe to desktop to print

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Take Joy!

Little Golden Books Get-Together

♫Childhood Memories♫

To go along with last week's "Picture Book Perfect" Get-Together the Take Joy Society planned another outing in order to see the Golden Legacy: Original Art from 65 Years of Golden Books exhibit in Hagerstown. . . .

But first, member Carol Brashears, who planned today's activities, wanted to share the mission and lovely building of the Women's Club of Hagerstown. . . .

Here we are admiring a flower arrangement in the Club's very large banquet room, where dinners are served for special occasions and concerts and plays are sometimes performed by local groups.  The portrait is of Mrs. Emmett Gans, the founder of the Women's Club. . . .

As we toured the first floor we passed several displays the ladies had put together and I thought how fun it would be to have another house to decorate. . . .

They had a collection of teapots and dishes to choose from for their Teas. . . .

We sat in one of the parlors while Carol told us the history of the house.  Here we are looking at the Federal-design border along the ceiling that was added during the remodel following a fire in the attic in 2006. . . .

In 1838 Susan Hughes had the Federal-style house built. It has a very interesting history of women owners.  Hughes sold it in 1844 to David Barr, whose widow was able to keep it and pass it on to their daughter Martha Wroe in 1864.  Being Southern sympathizers, the story is told, Dr. and Mrs. Wroe invited Robert E. Lee and his staff to dinner as they passed through Hagerstown after their defeat at Gettysburg.  As they entertained the men one of their sons apparently provided further entertainment by hiding the officer's pearl-handled revolvers in the barn until his conscience forced him to confess.  The house stayed in the Wroe family until the Women's Club bought it in 1923.  You can read more about the house at the Washington County Historical Trust.  What I find unique and special about this Women's Club are the 14 rooms upstairs they rent to "women in transition"--women who need somewhere to live until they can manage on their own.  If you would like to see more of the building (including the banquet room) you can take a Virtual Tour.

The Washington County Museum of Fine Arts was only a mile away in the historic City Park.  This scene greeted us on the steps of the Museum from the Little Golden Book, The Pokey Little Puppy. . . .

On the other side was a scene from Scuffy the Tugboat. . . .

Inside we viewed original art from various artists (no photos allowed), but we were able to photograph scenes from the books that were set up in the Atrium. . . .

Edie was a good sport and modeled for the "photo op" from a scene in the Little Red Riding Hood, . . . .

. . . .which, incidentally, I included in a post last September on Morning Musings after my visit to the little house where Elizabeth Orton Jones lived and used as a model for this story.  You can see the house and the entire book here.

This photo was taken from the Atrium looking through the museum toward the City Park's lake.  Diana of the Chase by Anna Hyatt Huntington adorns the enclosed portico overlooking the lake. . . .

Cindy told us of her visit to the sculptor's winter retreat near Myrtle Beach, SC.  She says the gardens and sculptures throughout are a must-see.  Here is a close-up I took last year on January 11th when I visited the Museum.  We had snow on the ground then. . . .

As we walked through one of the galleries Cindy took us past the Museum's only Norman Rockwell painting, The Oculist. . . .

Whenever she visits the museum she makes sure she hunts it down (they move it about apparently) She told us the story of how her Dad, an artist himself, visited Rockwell's studio.  She was along, but being four at the time, doesn't recall the details herself.  She said her mother, who was also present, remarked that she wished her husband would keep his studio as neat as Rockwell's.  She said Rockwell told her father he wished he could just paint the way he wanted to like Cindy's father was able to do. As a hired illustrator, Rockwell said he had to paint what would sell.

Outside the Museum was another sculpture that caught my eye.  This little girl gets moved around, too, because she was in the Diana portico last January. . . .

It was lunchtime so we headed into the downtown area to the Rhubarb House. . . .

While we waited for our table for six. . . . 

Carol surprised each of us with two Little Golden books. . . .

As you can see we were having a great time. . . .

Most of us got the chicken salad sandwich and either the tomato or corn and potato soup. . . .

Then we ordered several slices of lemon cream-filled cake, which we shared, and demolished it before I remembered to take picture!

.....Sometimes the joys in life just can't be captured except in one's recalling of them.  

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Take Joy!