Hopewell, VA
Pen & Wash
5.5" x 8.25" sketchbook
I was playing around on Google maps and looked up the house my family lived in from 6th grade until my Junior year in college. My room mate and I have been going through some serious bouts of nostalgia, which, for me, is a totally alien experience. I've never been beholden to the past in any way. I can't imagine going to my high school reunion (or college, or nursing school for that matter). But last night, I wondered what this house looked like and remembered that Google maps has pictures.
One of our neighbors from years ago installed a huge water fountain in their front yard. My god was it an eyesore. I saw in Google maps that it has since been removed. But other than that, most of the old neighborhood is unchanged except for the fact that peach trees I watched my father plant as saplings are twenty feet tall. The two trees in our front yard are huge now. But architecturally, the house is unchanged.
Looking at the house, I remember the window in the upper left corner, and the small window you see on the side, led to my bedroom. The two windows below were to our living room, where I spent many hours practicing classical piano. Looking at the house in google maps and then rendering it in art really brought back some memories:
- teaching my younger sister how to read, and having "classes" in math and reading
- my sister's enormous collection of naked barbie dolls (she'd take the clothing of many dolls to make a "wardrobe" for one doll)
- my youngest sister's athletic skills even as a young girl
- mass-producing eggrolls when my Dad was president of the Kiwanis Club, in order to sell to make money for the club (Kiwanis always sold egg rolls when Dad was in charge, the Lions Club always sold funnel cakes)
- going to my sisters' ballet recitals -- in a small town in the South, these recitals were major productions for the community and everyone was there
- the disasterous summer when my parents decided to sign me up for the neighborhood baseball team -- and when I used to pray to the Lord for rain every Saturday (he rarely produced, and I don't know if I've ever forgiven Him)
- having to "crank" my youngest sister's portable crib. We'd take turns cranking it up, and it would click - click - click and keep the bassinet rocking for hours
- riding the riding lawn mower to cut our grass
- the two parakeets we kept cooped up in a tiny cage... our family really should not have had any kind of pets, but we made several poor attempts at it, leading mostly to mysteriously disappearing pets over the years
- incredibly awkward afternoons when pornography or issues of Teen magazine went up in smoke via our wood stove
Oh those were the days.
Here's the same house as above but rendered in Rembrandt soft pastels:
Wait Vi got reading lessons??? Lol I too in raising Jack have been recollecting thoughts of childhood most notably how we never were read to as kids lol. Its a miracle I graduated college lol. Ughh repressed memories
Posted by: Karen | May 29, 2012 at 10:16 AM