sue clancy – artist

This week I primarily worked on fine art commissions that are holiday gifts so no talking about that. Now about booties and books:

My wife and I had been discussing our need for new house slippers … but what kind? Where to get them? So with our questions in the air it so happened that we visited our friend Suzan in her home. Suzan met us at her door wearing some thick warm looking slippers. She explained that they were like thick socks but with no-slick tread on the soles of them and they were called Bombas. Ah-ha! we said and ordered some for ourselves. Here they are on our feet with the cat looking pleased that we have fuzzy feet now too.

They’re very comfortable slippers and pleasantly remind me of my two grandmothers. Recently I told about my Grandma on my Substack newsletter and people liked hearing about her … so here’s more:

The Grandma I lived with – called Grandma in the warmest sense of the word – didn’t have much money, worked part-time as a cook for a church and ran, with her best friend, an under-the-table illicit catering business. In the 1970’s Oklahoma if women were in business it was frowned upon. But making ends meet was an issue for Grandma and her friend … so clandestine cakes, pies, breads and whole meals were made on the wink, nod and an envelope of cash slipped into an apron pocket.

The small one bedroom house Grandma and I lived in was heated by 3 gas “stoves” – techically two small gas floor furnaces and the large kitchen stove – 3 sources of heat, 2 minuscule and 1 large, for the 4 rooms of the house. The kitchen wasn’t much bigger than her pride and joy of a stove. On cold mornings Grandma would get up, strike one match and, wearing only her nightgown, would walk barefoot through the house lighting the stoves. Woe betide if a second match was needed. She had been a young woman during the Great Depression and being frugal was like breathing. But there was an abundance of hospitality, generosity and emotional warmth. She could cook a clear broth, it would taste amazing and be in amounts that could feed a neighborhood. Like the stone soup fable, despite having no money it seemed there was always plenty of good things to eat. So as the kitchen stove heated in the mornings good-cooking smells from the often used stove would waft into the nearby bedroom. After lighting the three gas stoves she would get back into the bed we shared (only one bedroom remember) with her cold arms and ice cube feet.

My other grandmother – very formally called Grandmother with the G fully capitalized – was fairly wealthy. Grandmother’s centrally heated house had 3 bedrooms, a huge living room, a sewing room, a parlor that contained both an organ and a piano, a kitchen with a breakfast nook and an adjacent formal dining room that could, it seemed, seat 20 people. A china hutch with enough matching bone china place settings for everyone dominated one wall. As a child I thought this was The Great Wall Of China.

Grandmother couldn’t cook to save herself but during our visits she would get up in the mornings to make coffee and sometimes eggs and bacon that, when served, were vaguely reminiscent of eggs and bacon if she hadn’t burnt them to charcoal on her electric stove. To do this hurculean cooking effort Grandmother would wear an embroidered silk robe, covered with colorfully sewn flowers and birds, over her nightgown and crocheted booties on her feet. The word booties was Grandmother’s name for house slippers. One didn’t ask for word explanations from the queen. Despite her sternness and wealth I had the impression that she lived as if she was one misstep away from catastrophe. So while Grandmother’s house was physically warmer (central heating 😮) it felt more precarious and emotionally colder. Grandmother did crochet as a hobby so when I was still in grade school I asked, begged and pleaded with her to make my Grandma some booties like hers. I was aware of how risky and brave I was to ask this. To my relief Grandmother reluctantly agreed and also made me a pair – in green yarn – which I promptly outgrew. 

Now the books: Here’s our house lion in front of part of our library.

I’ve been reading several books that have inspired my recent sketchbook thoughts about hope and the human spirit. My thoughts, as written in my sketchbook, were shared on one of my recent email newsletters – this drawing below is just one example.

I’ve been thinking of how important rest and play are to fostering hope and joy. Human brains simply need downtime to process thoughts and emotions. We need the play and lightheartedness that gives us space and distance from those emotions so we can let our subconscious selves do the processing.

Part of me is beginning to view the current non-stop “information” (including disinformation and misinformation) and the 24/7 hustle culture here in the U.S. as itself abusive to basic humanity and creativity. Too many people simply can’t take time to think as they work 2 and 3 jobs to make ends meet. Even people who have enough money seem to feel pressure to “keep up”. Until very recently there haven’t been many efforts to curb the greedy manipulation that keeps wages low and social safety nets threadbare while keeping consumer spending expectations and demands high.

One of the tactics abusive bullies use on their victims is non-stop emotional chaos that never allows a victim time to process their thoughts or feelings. If the victim can’t think or articulate the issues even to themselves then the abuser has even more power and control.

The ability to take steps toward constructive change relies on hope. Hope relies on imagination. Both hope and imagination rely on having enough rest and play. Having hope makes it possible to imagine a desired future – whether for yourself or others.

The saying comes to my mind “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they will never sit.”

Having hope also means trusting in yourself and your resilience while trusting others and their resilience as, together, we think about steps needed to reach a hoped for future. In order to do that imagining and trusting I’m thinking that being rested and able to take time to play are some of the practical steps a person can take towards having hope and the maintenance of one’s spirits.

Having imagination means forming mental images of that which isn’t yet real but you can see in your minds eye ways that it could be. This kind of imagining takes regular practice – especially when times are hard. Imagining is done via such mental play as “perhaps this then that” and “what if?” and curiosity about what currently is, what has been in the past and what could be in the future. Such playful imagining requires time for thinking, being playful and lighthearted while openly considering all options. This act of trying to imagine is hope in action.

Anyway, given the fraught state of things here in the U.S., I’m very grateful for the democratic wins in recent elections especially for women’s rights. It bothers me that some Republicans seem determined to remove women’s rights, seem enamored of gun violence, are refusing to honor election results and are needlessly threatening the basic funding and functioning of government. As a result I feel even more driven to do my whimsical creative work that helps keep my own playfulness and hopefulness alive – and perhaps helps keep my friends’ spirits up too.

Here are some sketchbook pages related to my thinking which also are in my newly published sketchbook A M Sketching – drawings done at breakfast.

Even while being quite busy making holiday portraits I felt driven to make a reproduction of my sketchbook for my friends.

Speaking of friends: two of the above sketchbook pages, along with the cover of my newly published sketchbook, also appear today in collaboration with my friend Kate Morgan Reade in the Monday quotes at the Verbihund Cafe! It’s Kate’s kind way to introduce my newly published sketchbook to the world beyond my own blog and newsletter – how nice is that? Thank you Kate!!!!

Back to the books… Here’s some of the books I’ve been reading lately and getting hope and encouragement from:

A nonfiction book about time and living life well within the constraints of time titled “Time And The Art Of Living” by Robert Grudin

A fiction book by the same author, Robert Grudin, titled “Book”. It’s a funny story about academia (never mind the gun on the cover)… the footnotes are a character in the story!!! 😮

I hope you have some warm slippers, or booties 😁, some good books to read and time to hope and imagine.

See you next Monday.