My least favorite subject in grade school was Art Day. Sure, it only lasted 50 minutes, but it felt
like a 12-hour shift every time. Other
kids loved marching down that long hallway
for torture every Tuesday, but even though Walter Cronkite had recently announced
the invention of lung cancer, I would have preferred to wait in the teachers'
lounge during their Art Day smoke break.
Art Day was humiliating - they made me use just my imagination. Nothing else.
Except paints, markers, rolls of butcher paper, glue, cotton balls,
crayons, macaroni, pipe cleaners, tape, yarn, and one ton of multi-colored
glitter the principal shoveled from a dump truck on Mondays. But that WAS IT.
Adding insult to injury, I was born into a family of
professional artists who could sculpt mashed potatoes into something so
beautiful it made me weep. I sculpted a
perfect brontosaurus in sixth grade, but when Mr. Amadio opened the shoebox
littered with clay pebbles and toothpicks he asked if I had thrown it off the
bus.
I had not.
I accidentally drew a perfect reindeer in second grade for
the Christmas mural. When my older
sisters stopped by for a private viewing, they piled on tons of praise while my teacher tried catching anybody's eye to
wink. She only caught mine. I still blame that hex for the perfect
reindeer's sleigh-pulling partner I drew later that day. He resembled an angry cigar with way too many
legs.
(On, Dancer! On,
Stogie!) Santa got a 'handicap' sticker
that year.
But our school district allowed something fun during Art Day
twice a year - CRAFT HOUR. The biggest
stressor that day was whether my hand
could shoot up fast enough for a leatherworking kit.
I usually ended up with those colorful, spongy loops intent
on becoming hot pads. Mom used the hot
pads faithfully, even though the spongy loops panicked and fled to one side as
the oven door opened - leaving a clear path for Mom's fingers to go on ahead
and check the REAL temperature of that casserole dish.
When they were laundered they became little padlets - still
capable of squishing to one side, but that talent wasn't necessary. Even Mom's tiny hands could only manage to
keep two fingers and part of each thumb on the spongy padlets. Those dinners flew into the dining room with
Mom in hot pursuit, hoping to aim the flaming goods in the general direction of
the table.
When I signed up for today's Introduction to Leatherwork I had
hoped some natural talent might shine through since my father owned a saddlery
when I was young. He made saddles and
chaps and bridles - each piece cut from large pieces of leather, then tooled
and dyed and laced...
Here I must admit that I have no idea about the actual
process. It was just the job he went to every day.
My class started off without Art Day flashbacks from the
years when eight-year-olds licked paintbrushes to set off a screamy
teacher. Today's instructor was so nice! He had a real passion for leatherwork and
actually believed the rest of us could, too.
I made sure to shake his hand early on so he'd notice all ten of my
thumbs before I picked up the giant leather-pounding mallet.
But I was not prepared for the way the leather smell made my
throat a little lumpy with memories of the saddlery. Or the way the wire-handled lambswool swabs dipped
in earth-toned dyes made me blink a lot.
My sister Jenny and I logged many hours waiting for the
saddlery to close if we hadn't taken the bus home from school. We climbed on saddles, played 'Zorro' with
fishing poles, and made bracelets out of shiny spurs. I never asked Dad to show me what he was
doing back at his workbench.
There are no saddleries where I live now, so I didn't
mention anything to my classmates today.
They would have seen me as the crazy lady who rattled on about a strange
dream she'd had, instead of the crazy lady who suddenly realized a whole wealth
of knowledge about leatherworking died less than a year ago.
We made two projects today.
There were no wallets, but that was just as well because the stamping part was harder than it looked
and those kits had come pre-designed.
First I made a bracelet for my daughter Abi. I must have known this day was coming when I
gave that girl a name with three letters - they centered themselves perfectly. (If she'd been christened Esmerelda, I would
have invented the nickname Esi for her starting today.) Then I got brave enough to use three different tools to create a design. It made me sweat.
I stamped a buffalo into the front of a keychain for my
sister Debby since she loves All Things Yellowstone. I tap-tapped in a little design around the
edge and thought I was done before noticing a stamp with a tiny eagle. Dad loved eagles. I wasn't brave enough to stamp it into the front,
so I pounded its outline into the back.
But when I turned the keychain over, the eagle's shadow
showed through on the front - right above the buffalo's head.
The teacher felt awful - he hadn't seen what I was doing or
he would have stopped me. He asked if I
wanted to start over and offered to help me get it right.
What? I loved the result - it was better than
the Virgin Mary on a waffle! I was
thrilled that it still showed up after I slathered on green dye - and especially
happy that I hadn't accidently stamped that eagle closer to the buffalo's rear
end.
I'll not pretend I could ever recreate one tiny bit of
whatever happened at that workbench in the saddlery. And as a post-retirement hobby, this one would
alienate most friends and family after approximately two rounds of Christmas
gifts.
But I left class with no glue in my ears, no glittery grit
between my teeth, and my heart brimming with whatever the feeling is that's the
exact opposite of humiliation.
Best Art Day ever.
(What causes a wronged
person to chuckle melodiously instead of smacking someone upside the head? Attitude!
Learn how to walk away - right here - next Friday.)
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