Art Projects

If you need a perfect circle, you can remove one from the bottom of a paper cup.  This is exactly what we did for a project one rainy day.  There was no more paper, so we three were on the hunt for suitable materials.  I had three wire hangers.  We had pulled the triangle shapes at the bottom into large amoebas, approximating circles.  I had cut the feet off two pair of mother’s panty hose and we had stretched them over the hanger frames, tying them near the hook ends of the hangers with red yarn.  They were ready for glue.

Dan cut some things out of the stack of funnies.  Lin had the rabbit from the front of a discarded cereal box.  I was making pom-poms.  Making pom-poms is not hard.  You wind yarn around two discs, cut it in half, tie it off and give it a hair cut.   Some seeds and beans from the pantry make a nice mosaic.

Mother came into the kitchen and dialed the phone.  It was our signal to leave.

We crept into the living room.  This room was not used except for company.  Surely there was nothing in here?  “We’ll just double check”, said Dan.  And so we crept around the room while mother talked, dragging our art kits quietly.

The room had recently been redecorated.  The carpeting was the thickest and softest dark blue plush.  It squished between our toes.  To me, rolling over that soft carpeting was like crossing an ocean.  The sofa was a lighter blue velvet boat floating on that ocean of blue.  At each peak of the dust covers hanging over the legs on the bottom of the couch, there hung a silken blue tassle.  So beautiful!  And in each corner of the room was a raging red raspberry chair.  The armrests on the chairs had coverlets which doubled as hats when we were allowed in the room.  The drapes were Mediterranean blue brocade, and behind them hung the most delicate while sheers.  They were perfectly creased.  I learned many years later that is carefully done with steam.    I had my blunt nosed scissors.  I cut the center blue tassle, so the couch would still look balanced.  Then I climbed behind the couch, gathered those perfect creases the way they taught us in school,  and cut myself a single perfect snowflake from the hem of the white sheers.

All of the booty we gathered was carefully glued to our stocking covered hangers and hung where the projects could be admired.

Mother called us for lunch.  She lined up paper cups on the counter and poured punch into the bottomless cups which simply floated off the counter in a sea of sticky red.  Poor Mother had no idea what was happening!  She had no idea what was happening all day!

I found my project in the bottom of a box of things mother saved a few years back.  Hanger frame, ruined stockings, pom poms, couch tassel, and a frayed white snowflake stuck to it.  The beans fell off long ago.  Who knows, maybe they even sprouted.  I do know it cost her  something and that is why she saved it.

After that she always had a “kit” ready for me.  It was a lunch box filled with art supplies, and I loved it!

I personally keep a load of art supplies for my daughter.  The worst that has happened is pencil on walls.  She knows she has an eraser.  So she writes freely and then erases stuff.  I can live with that.  No so different than life really.