When I was a kid growing up on the South Side of Chicago, my mother and Grandmother used to bring in Peonies out of the garden. It seemed to me like there were millions of them. They would soak them in the bathtub to make sure the ants met their maker and didn't end up chomping on the Wheaties in the pantry. This seemed like a late spring tradition and following it, I never bring the peonies in the house until they have been soaked in a bucket of water.
We lived on the block of 70th and Sangamon, in a two flat building. My grandparents lived upstairs. What a great place to grow up. There were huge apartments at the end of the block, and the neighborhood was host to more kids than we could ever count. So many neighborhood games, whatever happened to those? On summer mornings you would wake to the click click sound of the jump rope hitting the sidewalk; girls playing Double Dutch. Ten, twenty, thirty, forty.....counted in cadence, till you tripped and gave up your turn.
Root beer floats, Ice cream trucks with aqua colored Popsicles. We hid under porches, ran through gangways, and never seemed to tire. We played hide and seek at dusk, and if you didn't want to be found you could find just the right place.
Little corner stores with candy on a piece of paper. Bull's eyes. Bazooka Bubble Gum with comics on the wrapper. In the evening people sat outside on their porches and drank ice cold beer. If it was really hot and very still you would get a whiff of the Chicago Stockyards, an awful smell. They were a good distance away, but how that smell did travel.
But I digress, back to the peonies! How this painting ended up being not about peonies, but more about the glass is a mystery. Well maybe not. I liked the abstract shapes the stems made in the cut glass so that sort of took over. OK well, more than sort of.
We lived on the block of 70th and Sangamon, in a two flat building. My grandparents lived upstairs. What a great place to grow up. There were huge apartments at the end of the block, and the neighborhood was host to more kids than we could ever count. So many neighborhood games, whatever happened to those? On summer mornings you would wake to the click click sound of the jump rope hitting the sidewalk; girls playing Double Dutch. Ten, twenty, thirty, forty.....counted in cadence, till you tripped and gave up your turn.
Root beer floats, Ice cream trucks with aqua colored Popsicles. We hid under porches, ran through gangways, and never seemed to tire. We played hide and seek at dusk, and if you didn't want to be found you could find just the right place.
Little corner stores with candy on a piece of paper. Bull's eyes. Bazooka Bubble Gum with comics on the wrapper. In the evening people sat outside on their porches and drank ice cold beer. If it was really hot and very still you would get a whiff of the Chicago Stockyards, an awful smell. They were a good distance away, but how that smell did travel.
But I digress, back to the peonies! How this painting ended up being not about peonies, but more about the glass is a mystery. Well maybe not. I liked the abstract shapes the stems made in the cut glass so that sort of took over. OK well, more than sort of.
6"X6" Oil on gallery wrapped stretched canvas. $100.00 tcoy1@msn.com Sold
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