Happy Christmas to You!

I’ve been putting off writing about Pippin because I don’t really know where to start. It was all so overwhelming in the beginning that I didn’t blog about it, and then I didn’t know whether to start with the present moment or start from the beginning until we caught up. I finally decided I could do both, and so I am introducing Pippin with this photo that makes me feel so joyful. It was taken last year at the barn where we were boarding; they have a holiday get-together every year called “Christmas for the Horses” at which a real tree is decorated with carrots, apple slices, and candy canes; and the horses, decorated for the occasion by their owners or barn kids, are turned out two at a time to nibble away. In the photo above, Pippin (on the right) is with his best friend at the time, a newly-off-the-track Thoroughbred named Remy.

Once the horses have had a few minutes at the tree, they get to visit onlookers at the fence who offer more treats and pet their noses while the tree is redecorated for the next round.

Pippin loved it—he’s so gentle with kids!—and this festive event was one of the things that truly filled me with Christmas spirit.

I’m looking forward to finally putting down stories about my time with Pippin in this blog. It’s been one of the most amazingly beautiful-frustrating-rewarding adventures I’ve ever been on. Blessings abound, and I (and Pippin) wish you a joyful, happy Christmas :-)

This Moment in Time

A year and a half ago Covid cancelled my in-person work with the Ohio State School for the Blind, and it’s so good to be back again, sitting on my tiny chair at the round table in the art classroom. Through a TeachArts Ohio grant from the Ohio Arts Council in 2020, we were researching the history of the school, presenting and responding to our findings in creative ways. Before the pandemic shut down classrooms, we discovered a lot in the basement, in old school records, and on rarely seen walls— including a framed letter from Helen Keller herself!

While it was disappointing not to have our plans for exhibitions and an open house come to fruition, the pandemic honed our focus on one important thing: documenting the present moment in OSSB’s history. We reached out to staff, faculty, alumni and parents, asking them to share school memories, stories, or even anecdotes about themselves. Students shared OSSB experiences via quilt squares, wrote essays, and created artwork in response to the pandemic. They made self-portrait photographs to share parts of who they are. The result was a self-published book titled This Moment in Time. (have a look and/or purchase here!). A braille and audio version are also in the works.

The most rewarding part of the experience for me was my conversations with students about their artwork and writing, whether in the pre-Covid classroom or via Zoom while we were all at home. Sometimes funny, sometimes solemn—always poignant—our exchanges rarely stayed on the surface but dove into the heart of what were sometimes difficult, emotional topics.

It's an honor to be back via another TeachArts Ohio grant (thank you, OAC!) to resume work on the original concept for this project, creating a timeline of important events in the school's history. We’ll be making a series of display banners using image transfers and collage. Updates to come!

Long Before

We returned yesterday from our Thanksgiving week with my brother and his wife just outside Asheville, North Carolina. While there we counted up the years, and with the exception of a gap when my parents were too debilitated to travel, my family has rented the same house in the mountains for the last 17 years. As always, it was a great time. On the way down we stopped to visit my new friend Leah at her farm in Tennessee and got to meet her daughter as well as goats, horses, a dog and a cat, and Captain Jack Sparrow, the mini donkey.

We didn't travel with Miss Hazel this year as she never seemed to enjoy being there, spending most of her time holed up under the dresser. Instead, we brought Zora (our new kitten-friend who showed up in our lives over the summer) but I think Miss Hazel must have left her instructions because she rarely left the toasty spot next to the radiator under a nightstand.

We went on walks, worked on a puzzle, read books by the fireplace, cooked delicious meals (my brother's lasagna!), hot tubbed on the deck, and made the yearly trip to Malaprops, one of my favorite book shops. Best of all, we were together.

It's been my brother's dream to find land on this mountain and build the house that my father designed for him years ago. He and his wife have been searching for the right spot in much the same way that John and I have been in Vermont. While our journeys aren’t intentionally similar, they nonetheless feel connected by the roots of our family history— time spent here in Asheville at Thanksgivings, and for us in Vermont, the "coincidence" of finding land in the little town where my parents honored their own dreams by buying a tiny piece of property before I was even born.

I love that my brother and I are both on a search to find "home" on land that is meaningful to us. There is something about the idea of putting down roots in a place that has already grown into your bones, as though it's been part of your future long before you knew it would be.