Tee Hee! Silly Me!

How naive can a blogger be?


I thought I could keep it up forever . . .
long, thoughtful posts punctuated with delightful vintage illustrations three times per week.

But alas, life seems to have caught up with me,
and I have experienced a

Small Works Slowdown!

My sincerest apologies, dear readers. Because I am entering my extremely busy fall work season, I can no longer guarantee a strict schedule --


but I have plenty of ideas in the pipeline
and will post as regularly as I can.

If I could just figure out how to get paid to do it, I'd probably drop everything else and prattle endlessly at the keyboard 24/7 (so I suppose it's a good thing no one has made me such an offer).


Today, the Small Works question du jour is this:



If the Cartwrights needed some swell new furnishings to spruce up The Ponderosa, where would they hitch up a wagon and head?



To Junk Bonanza, of course!

I had never been to Junk Bonanza, so Friday I decided it was high time to head over myself and see what all the hoopla was about. (Junk Bonanza is one of the biggest shows in the country. But I have been on a strict, mandatory "junk diet" for about 5 years now and therefore going to such a show was a little like sending an alcoholic into a saloon in search of refreshment after a cattle drive.)

But . . . Yeehaw!

It was
more fun
than Hoss
and Little Joe
could ever
hope to find
in Virginia City
on a Saturday Night!


My dear old friend Pam is a dealer, so I headed directly to her booth to say "hello".


I designed Pam's card years ago, and was surprised and delighted to see
that she is still using it.



She immediately rewarded me with a stack of
1940's-50's New Yorker Magazines.



Pam and I have been junking together
for many years. . .



I particularly love this 20 year old picture, in which we are divvying up a garage sale coat to split the fabric. What you don't see in the picture is that the packers/movers are at my house preparing us for a move to Chicago. I instructed them to pack this room last, so Pam and I could hole up and pretend the whole thing wasn't happening. We spent the morning doing important things like digging through boxes of old fabric and cutting coats in half, then trying them on and taking pictures.



Through the years we've managed to junk our way through Seattle, Florida, and much of the Midwest. Pam is positively GIFTED when it comes to finding treasures amid the trash.



Eventually, when both our houses were bursting at the seams, Pam went on to become an antiques dealer, and I went on to pursue art.


(Thank goodness I'm still allowed to buy vintage magazines!)


Even though I chose the art biz rather than the antiques biz,


I don't think I'll ever stop using vintage embellishments and components in my work. Because I absolutely love digging through the world's detritus, imagining both the
past lives and the possibilities.


Like old stuff, old friends are best and Pam always comes to my shows, flying to get there if she has to. So I likewise sacrifice, carefully emptying my wallet beforehand and putting on my blinders, and then going (kicking and screaming, of course) to events like
Junk Bonanza.

It's a real arm-twister.

I did manage to come away with a few small treasures, only one of which was a true no-no: a sunny yellow McCoy pot, mint condition, which I justified by immediately presenting it to Hannah and wishing her a Happy Birthday (in October . . .)

I'm proud to say, however, that I didn't buy 3 New Mexico state plates to add to my state plate collection.

And I think that shows growth.

(p.s. Vintage state plates are more fun than growth. Just sayin'. . .)