halloween at VT

oh yes. my halloween was very exciting...i went to mom's. 

they tried to get her to dress up. wear a hat. anything. "that's never been my thing," she said. "what is your thing?" "i don't know..." (sigh)

she did seem to have a good time, though. here she is seeing a lady she sat next to 3 meals a day for 2 years up until about a month ago. she couldn't remember where she knew her from and swears she hasn't seen her for years. but she did recognize her.  

there were lots of children. some were grand and great grandchildren of residents. more were employees' children and i think quite a few were random neighborhood drop-ins.  
i don't know who this one is, but mom couldn't get over how cute he was.
 


but he didn't look so sure about her. hahahahaha. 



there were games. mom even played one.



the local fire station showed up. there was a very good four piece band and singer. hot dogs were cooked. we saw lots of people from the "other side" we hadn't seen in a while. and several of the folks from the alzheimers floor dressed up. one, Billie, even won the costume contest! all in all it was a pretty good time. the important thing is, mom got out for a change and enjoyed the experience.

here are all the pictures i took.

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NaBloPoMO #1

This is the first (or 4th if you've been reading my NaBloPoMo warmup posts) in a series of daily posts in which I hope to explain the research, history, development and installation of a mosaic created over a nine month period in 1990. It was, indeed, as close as I will likely ever come to experiencing the pain and ultimate joy of birthing a baby...

OVERVIEW:

- The Purpose of the D.A.R.T. Art Project -

The South Irving Transit Center, located in the heart of old downtown Irving, Texas, was the first park-and-ride bus facility in the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) system and opened in 1988.

170 years ago, the urban land on which the building stands was heavily wooded. At least nine different Indian tribes traveled through the area. They hunted buffalo on the Grape Vine Prairie; black bear, turkey and deer in the Trinity River bottoms; and in some cases each other, when they weren't trading goods.

DART's plan all along had been to incorporate a public art project into the structure: a project that reflected their goal of mass transit and also celebrated the rich heritage of historic Irving. Dart officials and a committee of 7 Irving citizens came up with the concept of depicting the early foot trails used by Native Americans and early Anglo settlers throughout the area. An existing 300 square foot tile floor inside the facility was the proposed site.

In 1989, I contracted with DART as the artist to execute this momumental work. This was DART's first public art project and my first experience working for either a government agency or a committee. The final result was well worth any difficulties thus encountered in its creation and is now, I believe, a significant cultural asset to the community.

This photo shows my then 4 year old* daughter, Josephine, "following the trails" at the opening ceremony on July 4, 1990.

- Early Irving -

The transit facility lies in the extreme northwest corner of the original 80 acre plot of Irving, Texas. A major foot path used by early settlers throughout the region skirts just to the north of it and roughly defines the route of what would eventually become DART's first rail line. (That public commuter rail line now connects Dallas and Ft. Worth and was DART's first rail venture. It opened in 1996 with a stop at the South Irving Transit Center.)

Detail depicting the original 80 acres of Irving in black with the mid-19th century foot trace above in red. The blue tile shows the meander of Indian Run (creek), the green represents prairie and the brown depicts timber:

The above photo shows less than 1/10 of 1% of the total project, but that small detail is notable in at least two ways: first, it shows exactly where the on-site viewer is standing (the upper left, or northwest, portion of the black rectangle), and second, although there are 97 different colored tiles in the entire project, the only materials used which are not made of porcelain are represented in this photograph.

The red is Mexican glass tile, used here and elsewhere for emphasis. The small mottled looking piece in the upper lefthand segment of the black rectangle is made of concrete. When originally installed this "tile" was covered in silver spray paint, which has since worn off due to heavy foot traffic.

That concrete "tile" is a slice of the Berlin Wall.**

Detail in the legend of the map project showing another slice of The Wall: (approximately 3/16" x 3/16")

For closeups of those remnants of the Berlin Wall click on the photos. Very cool...

* Not that you care, but Josephine was actually 7 days shy of 4 at the time. Ain't she cute?

** "When the East German government announced on November 9, 1989, after several weeks of civil unrest, that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin, crowds of East Germans climbed onto and crossed the wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, parts of the wall were chipped away by a euphoric public and by souvenir hunters; industrial equipment was later used to remove almost all of the rest of it."

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall

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process

this is Bird's Fort, which in 1840 was situated near the trinity river between present-day dallas and ft. worth. as there are no pictures of any kind of fort bird, this is actually a generic fort using a composite of typical architectural details of various forts from that era.

what is that white, bird-poop-looking splotch on the side of the guard house? (click to enlarge) heck if i know. you have to remember...this is just a freaking BUS STOP. so it could be almost anything. ahahahahaha.

the process of creation included many months of research, drawing, head scratching, tool development and of course the tedious task of fabrication. of these steps, the research was definitely my favorite part and the next dozen or more posts, complete with (gasp) correct usage of the shift key, will deal less with process and more with the historical purpose and sociological impact of the original survey map used as the primary source for the mosaic project.

this frame shows bird's fort at the termini of two foot trails. it stood in a grove of trees (brown tile) one mile north of the west fork of the trinity river.


this is a slide show of polaroids taken during the process of "building" the fort.



translating the original survey map to a gridwork of 8" tiles:





experimenting with different materials for use as trails and communities.



and one last tease...



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more NaBloPoMo teasers...

see? i haven't always had gray hair.

this is a picture of me with the Beemans, descendants of the first anglo family to settle in what is now dallas. they still lived on their ancestral land at the time this photo was taken in 1990.

we are standing on the mosaic-in-progress in my studio. the oxen you saw in yesterday's post are part of a tile picture representing the arrival of those early settlers in 1841. the white object at the beemans' feet is my original pencil drawing of that mosaic with a team of mules rather than oxen.


this is the finished product. this slide shows approximately 8 square feet of the entire 300 sq. ft. project. check out the groovy shadows.

here is the wagon in progress and the tools used to make it: pencil, tweezers, carbide hammer and carbide knippers. the caption on the polaroid means it was the 3rd (and final) attempt to render the canvas in tile.


this is sam houston. you saw his eyes yesterday... the 1st mosaic i ever attempted. so gimme a break, already.

and this is the xerox of a 19th century oil painting of sam which i used as the model.edit:
actually, my very 1st mosaic was this attempt at doing sam's portrait. purty ugly, huh?and the 2nd was this experiment at making his whiskers...here is the final product in process. (polaroid, with minimal fire damage.)

i'll leave you with this detail of another of the mosaics within the larger mosaic while i try to figure out how in the cornbreadhell to tell the rest of the story. hey, i've got a whole month, no?

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3 days and counting...

i signed up for NaBloPoMo.
yeah, yeah, i know. i hardly ever blog anymore, but that's just the point. *maybe* i will now.

and don't LOOK at me that way, dangnabbit! i swear i'm goinG to try.

so, beginning saturday, november 1, i intend to blog every day for a month. most if not all of the blog posts will be about the project these photos come from.
stay tuned...



i thought i asked you nicely NOT to look at me that way...

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me and my dad?

my dad and i... my dad and me... 

"my dad and me" *feels* better.

 

would you say, "this is me," or "this is i?" and which side of the quotation mark does the puncuation go in that sentence? 

come on grammar police. hep me out.

i bet he didn't know i was hiding a stick behind my back...hahahahaha

 

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[that reminds me...hey, chris of  "inside my heart" blog - for at least a month now i've been unable to view your blog for more than a few seconds before that tab of my browser crashes.  this is admittedly a pretty crappy computer, but it doesn't seem to happen with other blogs, web pages, etc. what's up with that?]

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last week sometime, mom and i were looking at a picture of my daughter and her 2 grand dads taken at her 3rd or 4th birthday party on velasco street. i left it out on mom's chairside table because we both enjoyed looking at and talking about it. 

today she said she couldn't remember why it was there. i reminded her. and i told her again the next 4 or 5 times when she asked why "she" had put it there. i decided to change the subject slightly.

i asked her if she remembered the first time josephine's "other" granndpa in the picture had come to her house. (suffice to say, she couldn't even remember his name without prompting, but when told, she even said the late grandma's name!)

anyway...the story goes that The Colonel and Mrs. Musgrave, my new parents-in-law, were coming to mom and dad's house for the 1st time. the colonel is a rather distinguished fellow. everyone was anxious to pretend to be equally distinguished and respectable, of course.

the musgraves were invited in and after the proper howdy-dos had been exchanged, they were offerred seats for what was, up to that point, a little bit of a nervous occasion... oh, no worries... my brother, who was about 8 years old at the time, had put a whoopie cushion in the colonel's seat. 

PPPPPTTHTTTTHHHHH!! 

it was awesome. (the colonel is now 96 years old and still sharp as a tack. i wonder if he remembers that story and how how hard he laughed at the situation and at himself?)

mom heard this story today as if for the first time and i swear she laughed so hard i thought she was going to choke. at the time, as i remember it, she was freaking mortified. 

a little later this morning i made the whoopie cushion sound again and she cracked up again.

here's mom in her "new" favorite outfit. yes, lynn anne, she wears it several times a week. she'll even tell you it's her favorite if you comment on it.

p.s. i give up trying to hide most of this beyond the read more text. arghhh Read more!

classy. Very classy.

this is my new toaster oven. i paid 2 bucks for it at a yard sale and used at least 2 bucks of soap and water to clean it up.

it works like a charm.

let's just say rick's been in toast heaven all week...


and this is my front door.


i'll paint the front door green tomorrow. and maybe change the decoration...or not...(click pic to enlarge for your viewing Pleasure.)



this is my kitchen. check out the toaster. 

did i mention i have a freakinG TOASTER?!!!!

you're jealous, aren't you?

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who you calling a pussy?

listen to me you #%&*#@* northerners, when it gets down to 50 degrees with 90% humidity and 15 mph winds, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon...i call that c-c-cccold. and it's supposed to get down to 40 tonight??!!

shit.

i think i'd better rearrange my room to accommodate a space heater. sheesh! my feet don't even work in this kind of weather. i've already got all 4 of my shirts on...and i'll bitch if i want to.

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uh oh. i feel a rebus coming on... 
(i still haven't figured out how to space the images the way i want. so, get over it.)

 ...

 

  


or no. wait a minute. maybe i just want to BE a kitty...

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seeking advice

mom lives in a facility that consists of about 1/2 independent-living and 1/2 assisted-living residents. of those in assisted-living, a very small percentage (maybe 5%) are in what they call the memory unit where mom lives.

this morning a resident from the independent unit came up to mom's floor and a made a very generous offer. he proposed to spend an hour each monday morning reading to them and has even recruited other residents to get involved in the program.

next monday he will be reading a mark twain short story...

it is my opinion that they won't have a clue as to the meaning of what he has chosen to read. it is also my opinion..."so what." the real value of the hour will be human interaction.

i have offered to join this reading group, but i would like to find something more "dementia appropriate" to read to them. i know several of the readers here have first-hand experience with what alzheimer's patients might enjoy and i would like your input.* **

so far, my only idea is mother goose rhymes.

not to be condescending or insulting, but i'm thinking they may be familiar and besides, those rhymes never were meant to be enjoyed for their intellectual nuances as much as for their whimsy, cadence and rhyme. right?

ok...i'll stay away from "as i was going to st. ives..." hahahahhaha, that might a little complicated,

but which do you think might be their favorites?

and what other than mother goose would you suggest?


* if you're involved in an alzheimer's forum, would you be willing to solicit suggestions from the participants?

** input from anyone would be much appreciated.

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answer the fucking question, bitch.

i was gonna write a post about takin' mom to buy new underwear, but then i listened to the VP debate and i'm here to tell ya...


That is the last time i will ever say or write, "gonna," say or write, "ya," or say or write a gerund with a dropped *g.*

In addition, I will do my best to answer the question asked.

(there is nothinG beyond the jump. so don't yOU even bother lookinG. i'm GOING to bed. my stomach aches.) Read more!