Blizzard

 

 

Last night's drive from the Salt Lake City airport was a blizzard with 24 inches of snowfall at 10 PM. Windshield wipers froze on the windows, the median strip and yellow lines obliterated as the car swung from side to side over frozen snow crusted asphalt. Houses buried in snow glowed with lights inside like tiny miniature Christmas villages. I think I hear jingle bells but no it is silent except for the crunch of tires on fast falling snow.

 

 

This morning it is 4 degrees Fahrenheit and the light in this town is dazzling with blinding white rugged mountains and cobalt blue skies. My breath smokes like a dragon as I walk the plowed sidewalks in Park City, Utah.   Skiers and wannabes stamp and puff and scurry into steamy cafes for frothy lattes and cinnamon buns.  Antique shops and Art galleries open doors welcoming.

I am ready for a day around the fire at the lodge. My thrift store finds the Best. I am wearing a fake white curly lamb jacket bought for under $7 and a Peruvian wool cap for $1.  An old red plaid flannel shirt and a long skirt (made from a found shower curtain of grey ruched fabric ($2) wrapped and pinned and secured with a man's black belt)  is worn over  black wool leggings.  All this bottomed off with black jump boots and for color and warmth a blue argyle sock tied around my throat !  My backpack full of Agatha Christie mysteries, sketchbook, and Sharpie pens.

 

Rainy Day GoodWill

Black clouds in early morning make the coffee extra good as I sit on the little covered porch and watch the pouring rain, the blackbirds gathering in the chartreuse grass, the waterspouts gushing.  Perfect day to browse at the local thrift store. I have a special mission.

The kids are coming to the beach house for a week. Good gracious survival tactics needed.  Surviving in the bush among wild beasts was good preparation.  In the Serengeti the camp boys drew on my shirt, comical, delightful creatures dancing front and back.  Taking inspiration from Vivienne Westwood's Gold Label Collection of 2008 I will have the kids paint clothing.  Scouting Goodwill for light colored cotton shirts, skirt and pants, I buy at no more than $3 whatever offers a smooth surface.  It was a purple half price day and I was in luck, white oxford cloth boys shirts for the little guys, a khaki Safari shirt for the big guy, and for the girls a white linen blouse, a green dress, and a wide brim straw hat.  They will all will be covered in paint before long.

I buy fabric paint and face paint, brushes and plastic rolls. Prepare some African drum music to get the kids in the mood. Excitement builds as I imagine creative juices flowing through little fingers. Think I'll title the happening "The Enchantment".

Writing Company

 

 

I dress today in newly found Goodwill clothing. A long denim skirt with Peruvian embroidered leather belt, a plaid ruffled blouse and a velvet beret. (Total of $12!!)  My notebook stuck in an old leather satchel. Purple sunglasses complete the look as I prepare to discover coffee houses in Seattle, Washington.  Starbucks was born in this city partly because of the cool wet weather. I take along my notebook to record the adventure I seek.

Staring at Eliot, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Parker, Joyce, Nabokov, Orwell, Kafka they are having a ball drinking wine and absinthe, smoking, wearing hats pulled low over slicked back foreheads, bundled in overcoats against the chill of sitting in an unheated pub. Dark rainy late afternoon somewhere in Dublin, Prague, Vienna.  Some engage in wild debate, some sip coffee absently, some read from an open book, some tell jokes, some grin at another woman, some grin at me.

They wear brown, steel, crème, ochre, sienna, most men in neckties, women in wool jackets, scarves, cloche hats. The café is dark, smoky, dimly lit by curtains and grime. But they are in the company of genius.

I sit on a stool at a small red Formica table against the wall. A woman in a pastel fleece, clutching a flowered Vera Bradley bag and a paper cup of coffee is reading her Nook, slumped so much I am sure she is asleep until she flicks the new page with a lazy finger. Large couples enters carrying heavy leather satchels, wearing business suits and one opens  a red spiral notebook and begins  talking loudly. More people enter all of them fat ordering Frappuccino’s and brownies. Where is the poetry?

Outside the sky is cobalt blue, and the trees are flaming scarlet and gold, a bite in the air, a zip in the step, the poetry is there not here.

I want to discover. There must be something here not just for that company of genius.

Two fat geezers enter in shorts, a red long tee shirt, bald, with big white sneakers, the other wearing a black cowboy hat, grey tee shirt and jeans. He lays down a pack of cards, and a backgammon board. They order coffee, bottles of water, large plastic cups filled with ice, two bagels with crème cheese, enter in their gift card numbers. Their voices rise in volume.  I find the poetry now.  It is out the door and I leave for the scarlet trees.

Painter's Smock

Found this delightful grey smock in the Plus Size rack for $5 a sequined tank for $2 and rayon sienna colored trousers for $1.00.  Terrific painting outfit I say. Who cares if a little oil paint gets spattered about on an outfit under $10? And I am ready for the patrons and collectors who gather outside my studio door in search of the latest and best paintings. Certainly they would be more impressed with an artist who wears an outfit such as this as opposed to a ragged tee shirt and dirty jeans.  I will wear the combo many times. It will inform my work. I will paint in colors of sienna, Payne’s grey, shrimp, and add a little bit of aubergine. Soon I will show you the results. 

I am thinking of Zanzibar, of the dark, back alleys and the smoky nights, and the warm colors. Hauntings and Memories I will try to pull out of the brush.   Gather the jangles of bicycles and twitter of birds. Capture the festive streets with merchants peddling hand crafted wears from tiny shops open to the air.

I will travel through memory now in my painter’s smock.

Tough

Stomp. Feeling tough today. This Japanese World War II jacket is emblazoned with dragons, tigers, and eagles. Empowering as I slip into its satiny depths.   Warm, light, I could sleep in this if I had only a bench in the park. I wear it over a black dotted Swiss circle skirt over old crinolines fluffing out, feminine. My head wrap? A navy wool swimsuit bottom by Janzen, the white belt buckled snugly to keep it in place. Shades and heavy boots and stomping through the city streets. GROWL.

 

I see:

An old man shuffling down the road, the cuffs of khakis dragging in the dust, suspenders holding them up over a bone butt. Wearing a bow tie above the grey white shirt covered in sweat stains, an ill fitting cowboy hat and maroon bedroom slippers completed his outfit.

Nodding, grinning, and saluting every passerby he was known as Ol'Jac he had walked main street for twenty seven years but no one knew his real name or where he slept at night. He had regular stops. Mornings he visited the donut Hole and was given a bag of yesterday's doughnuts and a cup of steaming black coffee. This he consumed sitting on the steps of Central Bank before it opened at ten. Later he took the dirt path to Uppy's service station where he stood hands in pockets listening to gossip from customers, nodding and saluting when spoken to. But it was in the park that he got excited. Sitting on a green bench under a leafy maple tree he watched the collage students moving between classes, crossing the green, riding bicycles with coats flying, and strolling with arms full of books or messenger bags slung across their chest. Every day he would see some cleverly put together young person daring convention, defying gravity, wearing a painters palette. Jac noted every detail often scribbling in a ragged notebook he kept in a back pocket.  Stub of a pencil he sharpened with his old boy scout knife that hung on a chain stuffed in a front pocket.

I will stuff a small notebook and a stub of a pencil in my pocket. I will sketch what I see.

Sam and Omie's

1937 charter fishing started on OBX. Sam had a little cafe on the beach to feed early morning fishermen and jaw in evenings about their big catch. 

Flip flops and tattoos   

OBX

85 degrees breezy, perfect. Outer Banks of North Carolina. Kite surfing extravaganza. Hang your livers!  Lazy hammock days. Happy Hour dress in honor of that turquoise Zanzibar sea. Dress wise Anything goes here. Bikinis cowboy boots. Flannel shirts. Orange green yellow Happiness. 

Blossom

Whoop and Holler, sing and dance, stomp those feet and let it ring.  I'm sick of wearing black. Sick of simple, expensive, conservative, elegant clothes. I want color, lots of singing bright color and pattern upon pattern, a riot of over the top designs. These women from Tanzania know how to dress for fun. They may have picked their costumes from a heap of hand me down rags, piled high by missionaries or UN workers. These ladies are not worried about being dressed for success, they are having fun.

So inspired off I go shopping for the rags of thrift stores.  Hours go by and there is little to inspire as I  hunt for bright color, flowers, stripes, layers. Visiting a second thrift store and nothing, I  circle and circle my cart through the aisles of short and long sleeved shirts, plus sizes, pants, dresses, skirts, even lingerie but nothing. It is only when  wandering to the back of the store to browse through linens that zap, and zap, and zap it happens. Without moving my feet there comes together the grandest of cottons, another, and another, and another.  I scoop them up, a hat, a scarf, sarongs...  

A straw hat,coco colored from Eddie Bauer, a silk scarf of muted browns, pinks, turquoise, and a cotton bordered cloth printed in geometric floral patterns in shades of coco, lavender, creme, and tangerine.

Then over there I  spot a similar pattern just three hangers away in reds and oranges, then another one in muted golds and cobalt. Another and another. I have struck gold. A complete summer wardrobe here among the pillow cases, sheets, huge comforters,placemats and hand towels. The cloth at $1.99, the hat at $2.50' the silk scarf another $1.99.  Matilda wheels her cart around to the next aisle and oh my goodness there are more fabulous cotton lengths, they are even seamed once to make a tube that would slide over the amplest hips. Gain, loose, even pregnant these garments work on any figure, fold neatly into small stacks, can be worn as dresses, skirts, shawls, even head wraps. They hide drips and smudges, dust and grease, launder lightly and look fabulous flapping in the breeze from any clothesline. With colorful tee shirts think of how many can be packed into a carry on suitcase! Sandals, beads, bangles, straw hat, here I come BEACH!

 

Back home fashion

Back home inspired by the color and style of those Tanzanian women. I try wrapping. Not unusual for the women to use three or four squares of colorful printed cottons wrapped in creative ways. It will take me some practice!  The more pattern and color the more fun and happy the look.must say it looks far better on dark skin. This look would create quite a stir at my local grocery store. Perhaps with a little practice it will be the look for an art opening. 

17 Amsterdam

Matilda finds her cafe on Dam Square

Pussy cat outdoor cafe.

Red light district fashion

# 17. Dar Es Salam

Sadly leave the sea today.  Morning peace with espresso in the shade of the promenade watching white robed young boys flocking like seagulls along the water's edge. 

With a bright cushion relax in the shade on primitive rope and branch chaise lounges.

At sunset she leaves The House of Wonders in a long white caftan to sail alone in the old wooden dhow guided by a small black body. Into a pearl sea as the sun sets gold and purple.

By the stars a miniature plane flies into Dar Es Salam.

# 16. Persian Princess

Checking grades at Institute of Public Administration.

Chilling out at the highest point for the princess. baths built by The Sultan. Before marriage 1832. Another built for his 99 concubines. Pristine. Virginal.

Slave caves and house used for smuggling slaves out to Europe and Arabia. Terror descending coral cliffs to slavery.

Ginger beer overlooking turquoise.

Dhow sunset cruise. If I saw you in heaven.