The Wright Stuff

Today's post is in honor of Frank Lloyd Wright, who died 50 years ago today. Frink and I are mad about Frank. If this were a perfect world, the object accompanying this post would be our very own Frank Lloyd Wright house (especially this one); but, sadly our budget only extends far enough to cover a shelf full of books about the architect and a few reproduction presentation drawings, lamps, vases, and tchotskies.

One of my favorite pieces is this lamp, a knock-off of a lamp that appears in various Wright structures, including his own home, Taliesen. I love the mini-cantilevers and the warmth of the wood.

Our Frank obsession began over a decade ago, before we were even a couple. We were office mates in grad school, and one year we both had plans to visit friends in D.C. We decided to carpool. As we were passing through Pennsylvania, I glanced at the map and saw a little red label marked “Fallingwater.”

“Isn’t that the house built over a waterfall?” I asked.“I didn’t know that was around here.”


Frink and I had both seen pictures of Fallingwater so we took a detour to see it. It was a life-changing experience. All the pictures in the world cannot do justice to the beauty of this building (although these paintings, by Spanish artist Félix de la Concha come close). At first, you’re struck by the sheer audacity of the design. Who but Frank would stand looking at this hilly, rocky, site on a creek and think, to heck with the view -- My house will be the view! Mere mortals would situate the house so that it looks at the waterfall. But I? I shall make the house part of the waterfall!

As you study the house, other features start to come into focus--the way the cantilever floats above the cascade, the way the line between inside and outside is erased by mitered windows and the stairs that lead from the living room into the water. That visit started our education in all things Wright. We began touring other major homes, especially the Dana-Thomas home in Springfield, Illinois, which we visited half a dozen times before it was shamefully closed by the disgraced. disgraceful ex-governor Blagojevitch.

I especially love the "Usonians" designed for teachers, artists, professors and other regular working folk. These small homes show that it is possible to design houses that have a small footprint and yet are beautiful, serene, and inspiring. Most of the Usonians have red concrete floors, expansive floor-to-ceiling windows that bring the outside in, and ingenious (if sometimes uncomfortable) built-in furniture that makes use of every inch of space with warm wood that doubles as art.

Several Usonians are available as overnight rentals. When we stay in them, we rarely leave the house (except to take photos from the outside.) We move from room to room, looking at the angles -- every perspective offers a new surprise -- and watching the play of light and shadows as the sunlight streaming through the clerstory windows changes through the course of the day. As Frink says, being in a Frank Lloyd Wright home makes you want to live a better life. Certainly, it would make you live a more pared down one. Except for the houses built for wealthy clients, Wright's homes don't have room for a lot of junk.

Our obsession with Frank has educated our eyes and as taught us to see buildings in a new way. As the years have passed, we've become huge fans of mid-century modern buildings and we've discovered the work of other architects. Two favorites are Santiago Calatrava and E.Fay Jones. How can you not love a museum that looks like it's going to fly away on its (movable!) wings? (This photo is from Wikipedia Commons; ours didn't do it justice.)

And how about a chapel in the forest that looks like it was designed by elves? We just toured this E. Fay Jones building, the Mildred B. Cooper chapel. It's not far from another Jones chapel, Thorncrown, which is on the list of the 100 best buildings in America, but I like this one better. We had horrible light during our visit, which was in winter. We plan to go back when the trees have leafed out.

Wright homes you can stay in:

Penfield House

Muirhead House

Bernard Schwartz House

Haynes House

The Seth Peterson Cottage (we haven't stayed here yet; they book about a year in advance.)

Update: Here's an interesting brief tribute to FLW.

Read more!

Preserver of Posterity or Pack-rat?

Putting together my recent post about my small collection of Barbie doll clothes got me thinking about what you do with things like these. I have a shoebox filled with the Barbie clothes my mother made for me some 40-odd years ago, along with several doll dresses and a tiny quilt sewn by my grandmother (just like the full-size ones she made for her children's beds.) I even have a red & white cap and skirt my great-grandmother knitted for my mom when she was a little girl.

I didn't give them to my nieces when they were young enough to actually play with them because they're just too precious and delicate. I suppose I'll give them to the girls when they grow up and have daughters...but of course, the doll clothes will be even older and more delicate then, and those children won't be able to play with them either. So what do you do with things like these?

It seems downright wrong to get rid of such family heirlooms. So, after I took the photos for this post, I put them back in their shoebox in the linen closet. And there they will sit, rarely seeing the light of day, except when they will be passed on so they can inhabit another generation's closets. Which doesn't seem quite right either.

Frink says I should put them on the cat. But I'm pretty sure one of the reasons Frink loves me is precisely because I'm not the kind of person who dresses the cats. (Even though, perversely, I love the website Stuff on My Cat.)

Anyone out there have any better ideas? Read more!

The Art of Dressing Barbie

My mother was an excellent seamstress, a skill I never had the talent, interest, or patience to acquire. (It took me all year and many tantrums to finish the gathered apron in my junior high home-ec class, when all the other girls finished that, the peasant blouse, and the gathered skirt to boot.) My mother, though, could turn a bolt of cloth into anything, from a fitted suit with flattering darts and covered buttons to pleated draperies and matching bedspreads.

But mom's special talent -- or at least the one I valued most when I was a child -- was Barbie doll clothes. My sisters and I had the most fashionable Barbies in town, outfitted in exquisite hand-sequined gowns, sleek satin sheaths, and hand-knit sweaters fastened with buttons no bigger than a lentil. She even made plaid pajamas and a robe for Ken. (This was long before Barbie dumped Ken for an Australian surfer dude, who wouldn't be caught dead in flannel pjs.)

My Barbie’s favorite party gown was a blue strapless number with scalloped flounces held up with tiny rosebuds. If the evening was chilly, she could throw on the matching satin-lined coat, which closed with miniature pearl buttons. (I got rid of my Barbies years ago, so my nieces gave me one from their vast collection to model the dress, which, like most of the other clothes, is now sadly worse for the wear.)

I always felt smugly sorry for my friends, whose Barbies had to wear ill-fitting, poorly-stitched store-bought clothes. Later, after my mother began selling some of her creations, other girls in town also could dress their Barbies in hand-made originals.

Mom sold the outfits so she could buy my father gifts with her own money. These gifts were usually things like boxes of chocolate covered cherries (dad's favorite candy) or bottles of Old Spice, but sometimes she used her earnings to buy him original oil paintings. I have one of these paintings, a landscape by Colorado artist Lyman Byxby. Mom paid $40 for it. My sister has the other paintings, including my favorite, a bold, abstract city scape. I wonder how many tiny dresses, how many hours spent cutting and stitching, these paintings represent.

For much of my life, I was dismissive of my mother's talents. I could justify my behavior by claiming that I saw her skills as mere "women's work" at a time when I was all about rebelling against the status quo in general and my family in particular. And there is some truth to that. But this explanation feels a bit too easy, a bit too neat. The messy reality is that for most of my life I was not a nice person. I was self-centered and tempermental, a bridezilla without the excuse of a wedding. And my mother was the most frequent target of my anger.

Even in Baby Boomer America, the land of perpetual adolescence, it took me longer than most to grow up. Looking back at the younger me isn't easy, and as I write my memoir, I often find myself sinking into depression. But these well-used doll clothes have made me feel a bit better. They have reminded me of several long-forgotten conversations I had with my mother. I don't remember the details, but I do remember letting her know how much I cherished the doll clothes, the fanciful birthday cakes, and the other things she made for me. And for that I am very grateful. Read more!

(Distant) Family Tensions: What Should I do With Great-Grandfather's Sword?

UPDATE: The votes are in! 66% of voters said I should give the sword to my nephew.

When I visited my Great Aunt Jackie a few weeks ago, she made a request that left me feeling a little confused and disturbed. How do you say "no" to the 95-year-old Great Aunt who more or less raised your father?

Here's the story: We were sitting on the couch in her family room. Frink and Aunt Jackie's daughter, Annabelle, were conversing at the other end of the small room, and Annabelle's 30-something son (Lawrence) was sitting in an easy chair listening to both conversations. (It was the first time I had seen Lawrence since he was 7 or 8.) A few minutes earlier, Lawrence had opened up one of the glass doors of a book case and showed us "his" pipe -- an elaborately carved German pipe from 1800 that used to sit on great-grandfather's mantel. Aunt Jackie is leaving the pipe to Lawrence.

Anyway, my Aunt and I were chatting along, reconnecting after not seeing each other for more than a decade, when she sighed and said, "I wonder what ever happened to my father's Knights of Pythias sword."

"Oh," I said. "Dad gave it to me." Aunt Jackie, I should note, gave the sword to my father 35 or 40 years ago. She was at my wedding 25 years ago, where the sword played a small part in the ceremony.

"I would so like to have it back," she said. "When I gave it to your father, I didn't have a grandson. I would so like my grandson to have it."

I looked up and noticed that Annabelle and Lawrence were listening with keen attention. It was obvious that they had all talked about this before Frink and I arrived.

I stammered out that the sword was one of the only things dad owned that had belonged to his grandparents.

"I sure would like it to go to my grandson," she repeated. "I didn't have a grandson when I gave it to your father."
The object in question is an elaborately etched silver ceremonial sword like the one in this photo. Such swords were widely used by fraternal organizations in their rituals from the late 1800's until WWII. It's not worth much -- $250 at the most. But it belonged to my great-grandfather. I have always intended to pass it on to my nephew, who shares his grand-father's and great-grandfather's name. (For the story of how dad changed his name when he was 6, choosing the name of his beloved grandfather, see the related posts below.)

The sword is one of only 5 or 6 of my great-grandparents things that was passed down to my dad, and through him, to my sister and me. Everything else--antique furniture, silver, china, artwork, scrapbooks, photo albums, and so on -- went either to my father's sisters when his mother passed away or will go to Aunt Jackie's daughter and then to her children (including Lawrence.)

I know this sounds complicated, so here's a little family tree:
This conversation left me deflated and disturbed, casting a shadow on an otherwise wonderful visit. I stand in the same relation to my great-grandfather as Lawrence does. If I were a male, I wonder, would Aunt Jackie make the same request? If my father were still alive, would she ask him to give the sword back? Would my father reply that he wanted it to go to HIS grandson? (Knowing him, probably not. He would think it, and he would be very hurt, but he would probably give it to her.)

Thirty-five or forty years seems a long time. At what point did the sword cease to be Aunt Jackie's and become my father's? I think back to the gaudy diamond cocktail ring another aunt left me a decade ago. It wasn't my style, so I gave it to a distant cousin I hardly knew. If I could do it over, I'd give it instead to one of my nieces. But I can't imagine asking for it back.

We saw my Aunt, Annabelle, and Lawrence again at brunch the next day, and the sword didn't come up. But the whole matter tarnished my visit a bit, and left me uncertain about what to do. My sister says it wasn't fair of Aunt Jackie to ask for the sword. But how do you say no to a direct request from the 95-year-old Great Aunt who practically raised your father?

What would you do? Cast your vote in the sidebar at the top of the page.

Related posts:
The Party Grandma
Stumbling Down Memory Lane
Willa Cather and my Grandfather's Peace Pipe
Read more!

Postcards from 1944 New Orleans

(Click on the photos for a larger view. Click the back arrow to return.)

"My Dear," my uncle wrote in 1944, "The little man has had a very full day, and is now having his demitasse at Broussard’s, an old restaurant in the French Quarter. Shrimp remoulade, soup, plus a few other items. Friday night I have a reception at Antoines, supposed to be something in the food and atmosphere line. Pretty soft, isn’t it?"

This was the message on one of the 6 postcards my uncle sent from New Orleans. I'm not sure what he was doing there in 1944, but it probably had to do with WWII. The cards, marked with a "Red Cross War Fund" stamp, are addressed to my aunt in Houston. They had moved to Houston from St. Louis because Uncle E. wanted to do work that supported the war effort. This followed a devastating rejection when he tried to join the military, one final insult from a bout of TB he suffered as a young man. I remember my aunt telling me how they had to save all of their gas rationing coupons so they could drive their car from St. Louis to Houston. So, when I read my uncle's comment about the"soft" time he's having, I detect mixed emotions: pleasure at indulging in some hard-to-find luxuries during a time of rationing, mingled with a sense of guilt at not being in the trenches like other men his age.

That's one of the things I love about these cards: the intriguing hints of untold tales. I also love how they reflect my uncle's dry, Noel Cowardish wit, how his voice sparkles and smiles through his brief words. Here's another example:

Darling: This town is not so fun as the articles in Colliers and others would have you think, but undoubtably much more so than in the recent past. Plenty of gambling, but the lid is fairly well on so far as [illegible]. The place fairly abounds in night clubs and joints of every description. Maybe whiskey isn’t flowing freely, but most other kinds of giggle or weeping water are.

Uncle Edmond, I should add, was a teetotaler, having given up alcohol a few years before. Again, while the words are mere ripples, dashed off in a hurry, they offer intriguing hints of a deeper back-story whose details I will never know.

Read more!

Hand-painted Cards for the American Lady

After my Great Aunt Fern passed away and I was clearing out her house, I found a bag marked "Keepsake Cards by Segar." It was full of exquisite notecards painted in the early '80s by a Sri Lankan artist who was a friend of my aunt and uncle. I don't know when she and Uncle Edmond met him; they lived in Sri Lanka in the 60's, when he would have been just a boy. Perhaps they knew his parents. Or maybe they met him during a later visit there.

Once, Aunt Fern showed me a magazine cover featuring a cubist painting by this artist, who at that time worked in a bank. That was the sum total of what I knew about him. But, thanks to the internet (which still seems to me as magical as Merlin's book of spells) I found several articles about the artist. In one, I read the following:

"One of the handful of Sri Lankan artists who is able to make a living entirely from his painting....Segar [would] occasionally make greeting cards for his friends, especially for the American lady who complained that the Sri Lankan cards are copied, western-oriented and do not depict Sri Lanka life at all. His hand-painted cards were so popular that he got the idea to have the outline printed and get his friends and family to hand- colour them."

Reading this made me wonder if the "American lady" in the article was my Aunt Fern. It certainly sounds like something she would say. I can picture her blue eyes twinkling behind cats-eye glasses as she floated out her complaint in that direct, disarmingly gracious Southern drawl. In any case, here are a few charming early works by this internationally known artist. (Click on them for a larger view. The colors of the originals are brighter.) Read more!

Frankie Gets Her Groove Back

My ex-husband didn't share my itchy foot. To him, traveling was a waste...a waste of time, of money, of time he could spend making money. Although I managed to cajole him to take a few trips during our 25-year relationship, my itchy foot went largely unscratched. As did most of my other needs.

I was 40 when we divorced, childless, shell-shocked, completely unsure of myself. (My ex-husband told me I was no longer attractive. Apparently, he couldn't forgive me for not being the same thin babe he met at 16. I've never seen the woman he had the affair with, but evidently she was more his type.)

The end of my marriage meant the beginning of my travels. For my first solo trip, I chose Iceland, Sweden and Norway, countries that seemed unthreatening to a middle-aged woman traveling alone. I loved every delicious, frightening, exhilarating moment. If I wanted to stay a few days longer than planned, or spend a whole day in a museum, or jet off someplace else on the spur of the moment, I could. I didn't have to debate or consult with anyone.

I knew I loved traveling, but I didn't expect to enjoy my own company so much. And the last thing I expected was to get my mojo back.

I was in Olso, standing on the stairs outside the art museum, pondering where to go next. A young Brit asked me what I thought of the art. We chatted about the paintings--Munch's The Scream was more pastel than I expected--then moved on to literature as we strolled to an outdoor cafe. As the sun began to set, we decided to seek out a spot for dinner. Somewhere over dessert, it finally dawned on me that this young man (14 years my junior) was attracted to more than my sparkling wit and knowledge of Huckleberry Finn.

It would be a better story if I told you we ended up in the sack, but in truth, nothing happened. At least not on that trip. We corresponded and talked on the phone, and the following March I found myself in England, where we spent a lovely week in a romantic 17th-century cottage on a lake.

Although we're no longer intimate--one of the attractions was that we lived in different time zones -- I'm very grateful to my British friend. It makes me smile when he calls every so often and asks if I'm still with My True Love Frink. He sighs when I say yes and then fills me in on the young hotties he's dating.

So, you may be wondering, what does all this have to do with the polar bear necklace at the top of this page, the object that all this wisdom is supposed to be about?

Fast-forward to the next year. I was traveling in Iceland and decided to take a day-trip to Greenland. In a tiny store, I bought the polar bear carved from reindeer bone as a memento of my trip. On the small plane back to Iceland, I met a travel writer. He, too, found me more attractive than my ex-husband had. We spent a few invigorating weeks traveling around Greenland together. I have fond memories of this trip, even though I ultimately realized that I was more enthralled by the travel writer's job than the travel writer himself.

Today, when I look at my little polar bear necklace, I see more than a $5 trinket. I see adventure, freedom, and friendship. And most of all, I am reminded of my first solo trips abroad, when this middle-aged broad got her mojo back. Read more!