Category Archives: Things

Mom’s Artwork::Exhibit 13: Rickshaw Driver

Family, Memories, Things, ,

This image of a man in (Vietnam?) hung in the living room of my childhood home. I think it was Vietnam because the war was in full swing at the time and the magazines were printing photos of people there. Like the Woman at Night, mom probably found a photo and painted it. Again, it was unusual that a small town white family in the midwest would have a painting of an Asian person on their wall, especially if he were Vietnamese. I cannot imagine my cousin, Harold, would have been happy. I liked it though.

I always through he looked like a family friend:

This painting, like the Woman at Night, will go into storage since there is nowhere to hang it here.

Mom’s Artwork::Exhibit 12: Portrait of a Woman at Night

Family, Things, ,

Sometime before Christmas 1969 my mom painted the portrait of an African American woman standing under a street lamp at night. I am pretty sure she found a photo in Life or Look Magazine and made a painting of it. She was always looking through magazines and cutting out interesting photos. She had at least one file cabinet full of clippings and magazines.

This painting hung on the wall near the front door for a few years. I was proud of mom for this painting. At the time I thought it was well done, plus it was of someone that didn’t look like us. I think she captured something in the woman’s expression. Is she sad? Angry? Tired?

I was proud that our home displayed a painting of an African American woman.

This was painted during the civil unrest of the late 1960s — possibly in 1968 even where there were riots even in our hometown after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.

I wish I had available wall space to hang this painting, but the walls in the attic are too low. I’ll store it and let Andrew and Clare decide its fate.

Decision echo

Emotions, Memories, Things

I hate going through memorabilia and making decisions on whether or not to keep something. Even when I’ve made the decision to get rid of something but don’t and then find it again I have trouble letting it go. For instance I had a box of things I was going to give to a used book store that also sells things like old photos, posters, and other paper memories. In that box was the box of book plates that I decided to get rid of in 2024. I no longer donate to that bookstore (bad owner) so I still have the box of bookplates among other things I’d decided to donate. Now they are on my maybe keep pile and the emotional turmoil I went through making the decisions has worn me out and I just want to lie in bed playing games on my phone.