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Simms Tabak was one of very favorite illustrators, if not THE favorite. He very recently passed away and since I find that this blog seems more and more to be about losing artists who have touched me, it would be terribly remiss to not talk about Simms.

Although I got to know his books through reading them to my youngest son, Ben, I actually got to know his art when I first used one of his designs to wallpaper the room of my middle son, Mike. That was more than 22 years ago. Sadly, I cannot find a single image to post to show that lovely wallpaper. And it has been long papered over. It do remember that it was leaping kids, a boy and a girl, doing jumping jacks or something to that effect. If anyone has any left or knows where I can get some, PLEASE contact me!

I just discovered a wonderful video created based on his Old Lady WHo Swallowed a Fly book. It is narrated and the music sung by Cindy Lauper. I think this may be the best video adaptation of a kids' book I have ever seen. It seems that I cannot embed it. But go to Youtube and watch. It is totally worth the time.

I think my very favrotie book was the Caldecott wining, Joseph Had a Little Overcoat.

I think that this book is everything one can want in a children's book. It is has a page turning quality, with a lovely repetitive rhythm. It is fun. It is also beautifully illustrated, without being tight and self important and self congratulatory, not to mention pretentious, which is what so many kids' book art is. Not this book. The art has a wonderful mock-primitive feel that is actually extremely sophisticated and extraordinarily satisfying, from an artist's point of view. Any artist, even in the absence of liking kids' books, would love and appreciate this artwork. The art stands completely on its own. To be honest, a lot of art for kids' books may hold up in the children's book

It seems that this blog is often turning into a forum for obituaries of people who have moved me. That may very well be, for I if I am going to write about things that are important to me, then that needs to include losing people or artists who have touched my life. I guess as one gets older and more of those key players in a person’s lifetime pass away, it becomes even more important to acknowledge, reflect upon, and celebrate lives well lived.

Along those lines, several weeks ago I was so sorry to read in the NY Timesthat Jazz artist Billy Taylor had passed away. Here is another blog post about it on Mirror On America. I was  also so sad to read about the passing of George Shearing in today's NY Times. When I want the kind of harmonic jazz that is both contemplative and inspiring, I think of Billy Taylor and George Shearing. Their music  has a distinctly classy and urban New York feel to me.  I love it for the harmonic, sensitive and thoughtful sound, as well as for the fact that it reminds me of early years in New York, listening to live jazz in the city. That sound reminds me of being very young and feeling the world was there for the celebrating and taking.

I was very young.  A good friend of my then-fiancee, Phil's and mine, Norm Freeman, was a student at Julliard. Our summer evenings would often be like this: I would work until my shift was done at Capra's Restaurant in Stony Point, NY. That was usually until about eleven at night. Norman and Phil would pick me up and we would then zip into New York City to catch some live jazz. Getting down to the village about forty minutes later meant we could catch at least one set in a club.

And in the early seventies, you could   hear some great music in the clubs at night. We most often ended up going to the Village Gate (Top of the Gate)  or the Village Vanguard or the Half Note. At the Vanguard we  caught the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis orchestra in a place where we would

 photo from mcgarrigles.com

Besides reading the obituaries of two well know writers in this morning's New York Times, Robert Parker and Erich Segal, I was terribly upset to read of the death of Kate McGarrigle, at 63.

If I had to pin point specific music to be the soundtrack of my life as an artist working in my studio, it would be the music of the McGarrigle Sisters, whom I first heard on Saturday Night Live in the mid seventies, performing "Heart Like a Wheel." Naturally, even with the most limited of funds, we went out and bought that first album, "Kate and Anna McGarrigle," which became the very music that followed me from home to home, and studio to studio. 

The beautiful harmonies and melodies of Kate and Anna filled my small back room studio in Buffalo, New York while I sat and sewed the figures and dolls that first began my true life as a full time artist. When we came back from three months as vagabonds in Europe and settled in Elmira, New York, the album was the first to resume its proper place as number one on my play list. Happliy sewing away in the dining room of an old flat in the even more old fashion town of Elmira (which I loved, by the way), I listened to the sounds of that first album almost non-stop. I loved when they sang of what I thought was upstate New York in "Talk to Me of Mendocino," and I thought for sure I heard a slight smile in the voice of Kate when she sang the lead in "Go Leave," which I always imagined was her send off to her former husband Loudan Wainwright.

Make no mistake: as wonderful as the tunes themselves are the lyrics to the music of Kate and Anna. Theirs is truly poetry set to music in a way that makes it impossible to separate the two. Their sweet voices embraced the words and told the stories and your heart was never left untouched. The only time things went over my head was when they sang in French. I had not a clue about what they were singing. I liked it anyway.

In 1978 we moved to Ithaca so my husband could attend law school at Cornell, and I set up shop in a ramshackle house on Route 79, Slaterville Road. There, amidst the dolls and the cloths and the threads, and the painted eyeballs, played the wonderful, harmonious McGarrigles. 

And there, we happily added two more albums to the play list, "Dancer With Bruised Knees,"

In past posts I have confessed to an obsession with the passing of time. I have had this obsession all my life. I am not sure why, but I have. On New Year's Eve, 1958, I wanted my grandparents to get me a jar with a lid.

"Why?" they asked.
"Because I want to save some some 1958 air," I told them. "Then I will have a little bit of 1958 forever."

When I look back on this memory, it makes me smile and shake my head at the way a kid's mind works--or at least the way MY mind worked. But I also still feel more or less the same way: very aware of the passing of time and wanting to preserve the present moment for future reference and for experiencing it once more. I guess you could say my little jar of air was my child's version of a time machine. But even though I am not filling jars with the air of time anymore, I still feel pretty much the same now as I did then. It's why I love antiques. It's why I play jukeboxes. It's why I will watch anything produced by Ken Burns. It is also why I read the obituary from my on line, home town newspaper every day: The Journal News, Rockland County section.

Yeah, I know. That sounds like something your grandmother would enjoy doing. Still, I do it. Everyday. Sometimes I see the names of parents of high school friends. Every now and then, I see the names of the high school friends themselves. Believe me, that is sobering. The strange part is that when I see no names that are familiar to me, I have a macabre sense of disappointment: no news, nothing of interest. And then, when I do, I wish I hadn't, because I would really have enjoyed seeing that person again at some point in the imaginary future, even though I have not spoken to him or her for that past 35 years.

One of the nice parts about reading obits is that I also check up on who else died, as reported by the Associated Press. In their little sidebar I learned that Killer Kowalski died even before I saw it in the Times. I learned that silent film star Anita Page passed away at 98. I read about famous Peanuts animator Bill Melendez. And I learned about the death of Jim Hoyt.

Who is Jim Hoyt? Jim Hoyt was the last surviving veteran of a group of four soldiers who liberated Buchenwald concentration camp. Jim Hoyt was a an extraordinary guy and an ordinary guy at the same time, because Jim Hoyt was part of a generation of countless soldiers who fought bravely and namelessly in a war unlike any other, where there was a clearly defined evil of great magnitude that needed defeating. Jim Hoyt lived a quiet life, was not a person of renown, and we would most likely never know about him except that he participated in The Oxford Project.

The Oxford Project, from an editorial quote on Amazon:

In 1984, photographer Peter Feldstein set out to photograph every single resident of his town, Oxford, Iowa (pop. 676). He converted an abandoned storefront on Main Street into a makeshift studio and posted fliers inviting people to stop by. At first they trickled in slowly, but in the end, nearly all of Oxford stood before Feldstein's lens. Twenty years later, Feldstein decided to do it again. Only this time he invited writer Stephen G. Bloom to join him, and together they went in search of the same Oxford residents Feldstein had originally shot two decades earlier. Some had moved. Most had stayed. Others had passed away. All were marked by the passage of time.

In a place like Oxford, not only does everyone know everyone else, but also everyone else's brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, lovers, secrets, failures, dreams, and favorite pot luck recipes. This intricate web of human connections between neighbors friends, and family, is the mainstay of small town American life, a disappearing culture that is unforgettably captured in Feldstein's candid black-and-white portraiture and Bloom's astonishing rural storytell

You can visit the Oxford Project website and read some of the stories and see some of the pictures. That is where I went on to read about Jim Hoyt, who's obituary via AP I just happened to catch one day while checking the daily obits at the Journal News. I had never heard of Jim Hoyt, and I had never heard of The Oxford Project, but I am so glad to have discovered both of them. It is incredibly fascinating to see a picture of a person and a picture of the same person 20 years later. That kind of thing has always been my favorite part of the Ken Burns documentaries, and here is an entire book of aging faces, and what makes it even better is that these are ordinary citizens, living ordinary lives that are as meaningful and interesting as any celebrity or historical figure.

This book will be available on the 16th of this month. You can read more on the Amazon link. Needless to say, I have already ordered a copy. If I had thought about it, I would have created this book myself. It is, as they say, "right up my alley."

I do have one question for Stephen Bloom and Peter Feldstein: did you save any 1984 air?

EDITED TO ADD: Please take a moment to read the comment left by photographer and Oxford Project creator, Peter Feldstein. He shares a touching bit of information and an update on Jim Hoyt.

I live in a suburban house with three sons, a husband, and one emotionally needy French Bull dog.

Although I have come to truly embrace the philosophy that I don't have to decorate the inside of the house like an adult anymore, I still find myself bound by the code of certain conventions: roof, garage, heat, indoor plumbing, electricity, cable modem, and, most of all, operating inconspicuously within the confines of 21st century suburbia. That means getting kids to school, nagging about homework, and basically abiding by and teaching my kids to abide by, the social mores of mainstream society.

This is not an easy task for someone who is essentially very bohemian by nature.

I would have been very very happy to have just settled into an undeveloped loft thirty years ago and rattled around old warehouse space in NY. But, life took me the more conventional route about 25 years ago, and I manage to blend in. I make sure I manage to blend in because I also remember sadly a dear artist friend of mine whose two children were so unable to float between their very eccentric artist/bohemian lifestyle and the traditional society they lived in, that they both suffered nervous breakdowns. With that in mind, I keep my flakey house wild on the inside and understated on the outside, so that my kids can feel "normal" while still learning that everything is not always what meets the eye, and that creativity and independence are to be held in high esteem, even if somewhat tempered.

And then comes a story that makes my bohemian hippie mouth water--well, a little anyway. In today's House and Home section of the New York Times comes an article about a couple for whom art and love reigned supreme. Granted, I would never aspire to disrupting my happy family to follow an artistic quest, but I would not mind creating an abode in a similar fashion, although I would insist on indoor plumbing and cable modem.....

Check out "A Handmade Home." There is a wonderful slideshow of the homestead.

On a somewhat related note, and in keeping with my obsession about how quickly time is passing, comes an article about slowing down. If only I could actually do that--SLOW DOWN, I mean--and manage to get kids where they need to be on time. In the meantime. I can read about it. Check out "The Slow Life Picks Up SPeed.", also in today's NY Times. DO in NOW! Oops. I mean do it at an easy pace.

At my house, there are no pets. About 10 years ago, my husband was diagnosed with alleriges to dogs, cats, and a bunch of other things. We had had a cat for years, but Flloyd was kind of grandfathered-in. Once he died, no more pets.

My kid would LOVE to have a pet. A dog would be best, but cat would be great, too. Hamsters, gerbils, birds, even fish - but we said no. Hamsters seemed especially appealing - trembling whiskers, cute little eyes, tiny. Kid's friend had one and kid loved to play with it.

Then kid's friend needed someone to watch their hamster for a week. The second day, the hamster squrimed its way out of its cage and hid on the foor, underneath the bed. By the time kid found it, hours later, it had pooped and peed. A LOT. So my kid had to lie face down and clean it all up.

Now kid never wants a hamster. Ever. Kid shivers at the thought.

I'm thinking I can apply this to future parenting challengs. Like let kid try binge drinking this weekend. Score some smack the next. Meet some nice guys off of Myspace the weekend after that. Etc. Maybe I should pre-innoculate with a dose of reality.

[Kidding!]





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