Monday Wash

Good morning, everyone. This oil (and I admit that it didn't scan very well) represents the archetypical work ethic of country folks all around our country and even our world. Their lives are filled up with chores that seem simple and repetitious but are crucial to their survival. In my experience, I have found they just do the task before them and move on to the next. Monday morning wash was a ritual where I spent some of my childhood. The women would stand at the wringer washing machine and feed the sheets, towels and clothing through the wringers. There was a tin tub or basket that caught the laundry as it dropped from the wringer. That basket was hurried out to the clothesline while the next load was wringing through. Along with the chatter about how many loads were left to do, they planned dinner and supper. Sometimes yeast rolls were already rising in the kitchen with a ham baking in the oven. Who would gather the lima beans and tomatoes from the garden? Who would set to baking the pie shells? Once in a while, while the sheets are swishing in my electric washer, I put a ham in the oven and set to making out yeast rolls. On such a day, I feel grounded.

Home Place

Good morning. This watercolor is of my ideal house. It speaks to me of family, summer, picnics, grandmothers and grandfathers, and of Southern women who always have the prefix "Miss" before their first name, like "Miss Ada." In the lazy Southern town where I spent a lot of my childhood, homes resembling this were abundant and behind every front door was an entry, a parlor and a "Miss Somebody." On Sunday afternoons, it was the custom of my grandmother and my aunts to go and visit these sweet ladies. More often than not, they were widows. It was tough for a ten year old little girl to sit perfectly still on the settee while the ladies exchanged cares, woes, and gentle laughter. I took in all the doillies, figurines and oval sepia tinted family portraits. Once in a while I had to recite a poem or some quotation I had learned at school. There was no escape. But, now that I've come to a place in my life where the children down the street call me "Miss Morna", I very much wish I had the house to go with the title.