Looking Into Painted Screens in Highlandtown

Baltimore, Highlandtown, Painted Screens, ,

Yesterday was the annual Maryland Traditions Folklife Festival.  This is a great one-day event in the heart of the Highlandtown neighborhood, usually in mid-June but it was a little early this year.  Part of it is out on the street and part inside the historic Patterson Theater which is now an arts center.

20160604_142012Well, anyhow, in the afternoon my good friend and colleague Elaine Eff and a young and enthusiastic representative from the Highlandtown Business Association (Amanda, I never caught your last name, sorry) led a tour of the painted screens of the neighborhood.  What, you never heard of a painted screen?  Well, luckily, Elaine has written the definitive book on the subject, so you are in luck.  But, for more immediate gratification than waiting for your amazon.com order to show up, you can check out some information on the Painted Screen Society’s website.   You can even learn how to create your own painted screen at one of their workshops.

I love the idea of being able to look out of the front window of your Baltimore row house, which is virtually right above the sidewalk, and being able to see out while no one walking by can see in.  It is like reverse voyeurism.   The screens traditionally depicted a bucolic scene complete with mountains, a lake, a swan or two, and a rural mill or cabin.   In other words, like nothing you would ever see on the landscape of Baltimore.  Nowadays, nouveau screens are being painted with actual Baltimore scenes as well as abstract art and whatever else the painter and/or patron wishes.  A great tradition finding new life.

Here are a few we saw on our tour.20160604_15065820160604_150503

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I Got Misty

Last weekend, my husband and I treated the interns staying with us (who are both from Europe) to a trip to Niagra Falls and Toronto.  Blame it on my mother, but whenever I hear the words “Niagra Falls” I cannot help but think (and start acting out even) the old vaudeville sketch of an earlier generation… slowly I turn, step by step…

20160520_160854Jennifer, the intern from the Netherlands, wanted to do the iconic Maid of the Mist adventure – in which you pile into a tour boat with a couple hundred of your fellow tourists, all bedecked in blue plastic rain ponchos, and are transported as close to Horseshoe Falls (the bigger of the two) as possible without capsizing.  I am always up for a boat ride, so I accompanied her even though I had done this at least once (maybe twice) in the past.

20160520_162135Despite the cattle-like treatment of the blue plastic line-up by the staff handlers (“Move up – move along!”) and the rush of teenagers to the better viewpoints, I have to say the experience was still awesome.  Especially when you get to the base of Horseshoe Falls and the cold mists hit you full force.  This makes you abandon your camera and just live in the moment (because you can’t see anything through the viewfinder except water, for one thing).   I have to admit, I got a little choked up – the majesty of nature and all that.


You forget for the moment that both the American and Canadian sides of the falls are a rabbit warren of tourist traps.  It is just you, and The Falls, and millions of tons of water tumbling and churning endlessly.  There before tourists and Ripley’s Believe It or Not existed, and there forever exerting its endless power.  The refreshment of those few moments was not all in the cold spray and the wet hair (blue plastic is not effective against The Falls).  I got misty in more ways than one.

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Backyard Bee Movie

backyard biology, drama, honey bees, ,

20160514_114145Last Saturday, we had a drama unfolding in our backyard with a cast of thousands.  Thousands of our neighbor’s honey bees, that is.  According to bee literature available online, when a hive with its own queen becomes too crowded, the queen and her entourage decide they need a new palace.  So, they swarm en masse into the air, and then alight, as a huge clump clinging to one another, in whatever temporary haven is convenient.  In this case, one of the trees in our backyard.  I have to say that I was terrified at the initial swarming – I was out in the garden doing some weeding, and all of a sudden the sky was full of bees circling in the air.   But once the bees are safely in their huddle, only a few scouts fly here and there, searching for a proper new home.  They then come back to transmit information to the rest of their hives mates, and they somehow all decide where to go next.

Needless to say, the beekeeper wants to entice them to come home to establish another hive in the backyard, not to find some dead tree in a nearby park or other cozy den.  So, he arrived in his full bee regalia to try to make that happen.  Having never done it before, he had a few false starts.

 The process involved cutting down the branch with the bees, and trying to head them into the empty hive.  (This is when watching from an upstairs window feels much safer than watching fr20160514_130903om outside, even from within the screened-in deck.)
Bees everywhere, some dutifully entering the empty hive box, but most regrouping into another tree clump in record time (seconds!).  If you don’t get the queen into the box, the other bees are not buying it.  Finally, our neighbor got the queen in and the other bees followed, and the drama came to an end.  But, while it lasted, it was a fascinating glimpse into the Secret Life of Bees (which you should read, by the way, because it is a great book).

Culture is Alive in Armenia

Armenia, culture, food, travel

P1060046I have been in Armenia on a work trip for the past week.  (Yes, I am only planning to go places that begin with “A” from now on.)  It’s been an amazing experience.  Since one of the focuses (foci?) of the project we are working on is food, eating has been a big part of the trip.  Since I am planning to write a work blog about “Armenian Snickers,” I will not mention them here, you will just have to wait for that.  But, we have been eating a lot of delicious food.  Yoghurt (madzoon) is a whole new experience here.  Each morning at breakfast at our hotel, I try another combination of nuts, jams, and honey (and even corn flakes) with this thick drained version of yoghurt – think the best Greek yoghurt with no sour “bite” to it.  Also, it is made into soup called “spas” with grains and a particular type of herb (it looks like tarragon in the soup, though I am sure people use different types of herbs.  This recipe calls for cilantro.)  Imagine our group of researchers in Areni, in the Vayots Dzor province, at a bed and breakfast which also serves lunch on its patio, eating this refreshing soup for a second course.  First course consisted of a variety of salads (one with horse sorrel is particularly good in my opinion).   Main course was a sort of chicken and wheat stew called “harissa.”  P1060047Then tea or strong Armenian coffee and “gata” (cake).  This was after visiting one of the most spectacularly situated historic monasteries in the country, called Noravank.  Good food, beautiful scenery, kind people, interesting (though sometimes tragic) history… Armenian culture is alive and lively, like its yoghurt.  P1060025

Attention to Detail in Arkansas

details, , ,

Two colleagues and I recently traveled to Arkansas to give some workshops at the Delta Heritage Symposium.  On the way from the Memphis airport to Jonesboro (home of the Arkansas State University, go Red Wolves!), we visited the Johnny Cash Boyhood Home in Dyess.    Dyess was an interesting planned community, built by the U.S. government as a WPA project in the 1930s.  Families were picked after a rigorous application process to come live there in brand new houses, albeit in a reclaimed swamp, with designated farm land to work.  (Remember the Johnny Cash song, “Five Feet High and Rising?”  That was about a notorious flood which brought water to their front door in Dyess.)

Kitchen at Johnny CAsh Boyhood home, Dyess, AR

Yes, the Cashes were poor, but they had a nice new home and by all accounts they tried to keep it up well.  I was impressed by the level of detail in the restored house – lovingly recreated with the help of surviving family members.  We were quite impressed at the little touches – historically accurate cleaning products in the kitchen pantry, shaving cream and cod liver oil on the bathroom shelf and a lot more – as well as the bigger items – furniture, quilting frame, linoleum “rug.”  It felt as though a family could walk 20160414_164910 (1)right into it and live in Depression-era style, quite well just as is.  Attention to detail.

During one of our workshops, one of our activities was an open interview (we call them “narrative stages” at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and they usually include a couple more people) with Jonesboro sign painter Vince Pearcy.  Vince learned his art from a master sign painter in the days of lead paint (this prompted a whole discussion about what the consequences were of those earlier sign painters messing around with lead paint without any protective clothing, but that is another story).   Vince paints new signs based on old photographs (he painted the one on the reconstructed Dyess Theater, for one) and commercial signs, but one of his favorite things to recreate are signs from “ghost marks” on the side of buildings.  He has done some dandies in downtown Jonesboro, including this one on the side of the Arts Center.  It emerges from the plaster and brick, unfinished but just right, like a glimpse into a past we can feel and may even want to touch.  It is sharp in its detail, but still haunting.  (Maybe that’s one good reason to call them “ghost marks”?)  Again, attention to detail, continuing to amaze and delight.20160415_185634

 

Look around for attention to detail in your travels, or even right in your neighborhood – or home. In a museum, on a front lawn, or on your own bathroom shelf.  It seems to be a human trait which we often look past.  When we should using it to look into the past.

Makeshift Memories

memories, , ,

What’s makeshift is not the memories, actually, but the method of delivering them.  In the past week, I have encountered two memory projects of interest – one at our local library and the other at a memorial service.  I was most closely involved w
ith #2, but #1 caught my fancy as well.  Let’s start there.

This, in case you can’t tell from the photo, is a listening station of World War II memories from local20160402_131302 citizens.  It is almost retro in its simplicity.  I couldn’t resist trying it out.  There’s a boom box, and you pick one of four thematic edited recordings.  I picked one on victory gardens.  The sound was fine, and the story was well edited, and the directions (just put on the headphones and pick the track) were clear.  There was also a transcript of the story.  In this world of everything online and high(er) tech, the hands-on quality of this method of delivery was refreshing.   Bravo, Arlington County Public Library!

The second example was at a very moving memorial for recently passed Smithsonian Under Secretary for Education, Claudine Brown.  My friend Diana recruited me (very willingly of course) and her interns to help with the crafting of a participatory memory quilt made from paper.  The premise was, again, very simple and even lower tech than the listening station:  attach 20160404_172631heart-shaped post it notes to attractive squares of craft paper and let anyone so moved write/draw a message or symbol or some combination in honor of Claudine.  The squares were hole-punched in the middle of each of the four sides, and then connected to each other with pipe cleaner pieces.  As you can see, the display method was also simple:  we borrowed a yellow (Claudine’s favorite color) tablecloth from the caterers of the event, and covered a big sheet of alligator board (from a sign left over from the 2004 World War II Memorial opening event, which was hanging around in our office, somehow very fitting!)  and balanced it on several chairs.  It was a little curvy, a little funky, but still very beautiful in its own way.

The only trick was getting the table cloth out from under in order to return it to the caterers.  But we managed, and hopefully the quilt will have an afterlife.  I am sure Claudine would have liked the ingenuity and simplicity.  She probably would have approved of the library listening station too.

Metal Meditations – One Walk, Three Observations

Round Barn Press blog

I’m thinking of launching a new weekly blog feature.  (Well, I guess when this hits my blog site, I will have actually launched it.)  The premise is, I go for a walk around the neighborhood with my cell phone camera handy, and notice three things and take a picture of them.  These three things need  a theme (sorry, I am a curator what can I say?).   So, my theme today is “things made of metal.”  20160331_164022

Observation #1 is a tiny metal car (probably a Matchbox) on the curb between sidewalk and road.  What wayward child left it there?  It is obviously well used, perhaps a favorite toy of this child.  Yet, he or she left it outside on the curb to the fates.  Or someone else found it in the street and placed it there in hopes its owner would find it?  Who knows.  But it is fun to speculate.

Observation #2 is the gate to the “mini-park” that our kid20160331_164131s (as in, the neighborhood kids since we only have one) used to play in when they were younger.  I never noticed, but this metal gate has the name of our neighborhood fashioned into it.  Who was the metal artist who constructed this sign and added it to the gate?   The same craftsperson who made the rest of the gate?  Nice job, regardless.

Observation #3 is a (partially) metal bird house.  (Or is this a bat house?  It doesn’t look like other b20160331_165407at houses if so!) There are actually three of them, that I saw at least, in the Thrifton Hills Park at the end of the streets I was walking down.  There is no explanation of why these are here; no markings indicating their intended inhabitants.  No clues whatsoever.  If anyone has any ideas, I would be happy to learn what sort of bird or other creature these are intended to house, and what benefits they might have for the neighborhood.

One walk, three observations.  Try it in your neighborhood, and watch this space for my next foray into the unknown and mysterious thematic material culture of Maywood, Arlington, Virginia and maybe some other places I might walk around in the future!

Cherry Blossom Chagrin

Well, here in DC it is cherry blossom time again, and yesterday evening my husband and a friend of ours and I went walking around the Ti20150412_130047dal Basin to see the blooms.   (Full disclosure, this photo is of last year’s blooms.)  We began to talk about all the things that make us grumpy while walking around the Tidal Basin during Cherry Blossom Madness.  These include:  Photographers who set their tripods up in the middle of the walkway.   Parents with double strollers hogging the sidewalk.   People jogging – really, you can’t find a better place to jog than a sidewalk clogged with tourists?  People walking multiple dogs.  Not just one little dog, but three medium to large sized dogs.   On long leashes that get tangled around people’s legs.  Oblivious people taking selfies with the trees.  Kids who pick blossoms off the trees for a souvenir.  Okay, so there are always too many people, not enough sidewalk, and things that are going to annoy you.  But, still, the cherry blossoms are gorgeous and despite it all, you have to enjoy them and share them with everyone, be they considerate or not.  The blossoms remind us of everything lovely and fleeting, soft and seasonal.

New Round Barn Press Site!

Round Barn Press blog

For those of you who have been following me on my Homestead site, I have finally taken the plunge into the world of WordPress.  It is going to take me awhile to learn this new platform (thanks to all my friends who already use and have been giving me pointers, as well as the You Tube videos that walk one through), so stay tuned while I figure this out.  I am sure once I get it figured out, it will be a whole new ball game.