The Latest in Kitchen Design...Circa 1962

The May 1962 issue of Family Circle featured six pages of kitchen ideas. Many of the design elements are popular again today, including the hanging pendant lighting, colorful clear glass, bright colors in kitchens, and open shelving and hanging utensils and pots and pans. We see islands with eating areas and integrated refrigerators. Plants hanging in the kitchen are also being seen now. Our 1962 kitchen looked nothing like this! but our kitchen remodel, still  in the planning, might have some of these features.

Today we have desks for computers in the kitchen,

I love the double sinks

Charles Dickens Quilt Top Completed!

Before our move I had purchased the border fabric for my Charles Dickens quilt. This week  I finally was able to add the border! If I EVER finish the quilting of my "Green Heroes" quilt, of which I have one long border left to do, I will hand quilt Dickens next.

I hand embroidered scenes representing Dickens's novels and used fusible appliqué for his portrait which was then thread embellished. Using reproduction and 'older' looking fabrics I set the embroidered blocks together with various squares, triangles, and strips. Totally unplanned, by-the-seat-of-my-pants quilt-making. I tried my hand at hexagon flowers for the first border, then added the final stripped border.

The illustrations came from various sources including my own drawings, original art from the books, and adaptations of clip art or photographs. The titles and Dickens signature are all based on Dickens's own handwritten manuscripts.

I trust I will enjoy quilting this more than my Green Heroes which has a black background border.

The Details

On our visit to the Detroit Institute of Arts I found myself noticing details. Like this wonderful floral basket from the statue Zephyr Dancing with Flora by Benzoni. 

 How did he carve all that stone to create such delicate and lacy flowers? It amazes me.

In the room were examples of first century statues, including one from Herculaneum with it's wonderful folds and pleats.

Medieval artists loved to render the luxurious fabrics in detail. Amazing.

Those ornate fabrics truly marked a person's class. As did the plainer clothing of the common folk.

This portrait of a mother and daughter by Peale shows fabric less ornate and showy, but ultra-feminine, airy light. I loved how the doll looked just like Mommy but was dressed just like daughter. Perhaps it reflects how young girls want to grow up to be just like their mother. Especially when mother is so elegant and beautiful!

Jane Griffith Pennsylvania Dutch Designs

Another great gem I have is a booklet of Jane Griffith's Pottery House Pennsylvania Dutch Designs, full of black and white line drawings from her pottery. I can't find anything about her! But these would make great embroidered or appliqued designs.

Family Secrets, Ghosts, and Greed: Sudden Light by Garth Stein

The Riddell family has a problem. The patriarch Samuel thinks he has a moral duty to fulfill the intentions of his ancestors and let the family estate return to forest as an expiation of the sins of the fathers. The 'fathers' having been a money grubbing, soulless timber baron who decimated the forests of Puget Sound for family wealth. 

Samuel's daughter Serena wants to sell the land to developers and take a cruise around the world. Brother Jones is in a trial separation and thinks that money will solve his martial problems. He has returned home to assist his sister in making the old man sell and has brought his fourteen year old son Trevor along. 

Trevor has never seen his father's childhood home or met his estranged family. The bright, bored teenager perceives there is something more going on and sets out to solve the family mystery. He is assisted by the ghosts of his ancestors. What he learns is not nice. 

When I requested Garth Stein's A Sudden Light  from Simon and Schuster through NetGalley I had not realized it was a ghost story. It is also Gothic, derivative, and discomforting. It is a family drama, a coming of age story, and a mystery as well. Have I left out any genres? Romance? Yep. Got it and it's a gay relationship. And incestuous lust. Philosophy, religion, morality, and environmental issues all show up as well. In the words of Tim Gunn, it is a "hot mess."

The creepy psycho aunt and the ghosts were bad enough, but it was the overuse of easy information dumping and plot problem solving that made me put the book aside for a few days as I considered finishing it or forgetting it. I can handle ghosts, if I know it's a ghost story. Finding one secret room with a hundred year old diary that reveals his ancestor's secrets is iffy. Finding another 100 year journal that sheds light on his great-uncle's death is stretching credulity. Finding hidden letters that reveal information that brings about the denouncement is overboard. And all those back stories told by ghosts...

Perhaps had I realized I was reading Genre fiction I would have come at it with a more open mind. (Amazon has it listed under Genre Fiction, Horror, Ghosts. Other places it is categorized under Young Adult, Coming of Age!)

Stein said his original idea of writing about a house turned into a play which turned into Sudden Light*. He also references that it is about father-son relationships. It is a good look at How Not To Father. Both Trevor's mother and his father's mother are referenced but are absent. Which leaves us with Serena, that crazy girl.

There are a lot of reviews online by readers who enjoyed this book. Some mention it's failures or weaknesses. Others related to Trevor's struggle with "manhood" as he dips his toes into the complexities of the adult world.

Stein's previous book The Art of Running in the Rain was a best seller when I  read it with a book club a few years back. The story is told from the family dog's point of view. Everyone loved it. Except me. My problem was... it was improbable that the dog could know and understand all the things were were asked to believe he knew.

*http://www.garthstein.com/garth-introduces-his-new-novel-a-sudden-light/

Sudden Light by Garth Stein
Simon and Schuster
Publication September 30, 2014
 $26.95

• ISBN-10: 1439187037
• ISBN-13: 978-1439187036

A VIsit To The Detroit Institute of Arts

Uncle Tom and Little Eva, Duncanson

Indian Telegraph by Stanley

Head of a Negro by Copely

Watson and the Shark by Copely

On Sunday afternoon we visited the Detroit Institute of Arts. They have some real treasures. Recent financial issues have brought the art to the table as a way of raising money for the bankrupt city. So far the art has been protected from sale.

Frederick Church's Cotopaxi

George Washington by Peale

Vincent Van Gogh self portrait

When I was in Eight Grade my homeroom and music teacher arranged for our class to go on a series of cultural field trips. The art museum was included. Afterwards I begged for my family to take me back.

In the Garden by Mary Cassett

A Woman by Mogdalini 

Matisse

Van Gogh

Every visit I see familiar paintings which I recall from childhood and notice others that had not struck me before. There were also paintings on loan from other collections, keeping the experience fresh. These were new to me:

Three Top Sergeants by George Luks

Fisher Boy by Charles Webster Hawthrone

Merrymakers by Carolus-Duran

The museum has learning experience throughout. Whistler's painting Black and Gold was controversial in its day and children could read about it and comment.

We bought a membership although we can attend free of charge as our county taxes helps to support the museum. I look forward to many more visits.

The Lily Pond by Charles Harry Eaton