We have our own personal trio watching over us from the windowsill above the kitchen sink, where they silently dispense wisdom as we work daily in our kitchen.
A salt-glazed snowman with arms made of twigs from the garden, a bobble-headed "Fighting Bob" LaFollette and one of my late mother-in-law's nutcrackers from her extensive collection.
I am very good at ignoring advertisements and click-bait when I am on FB. But last week I was so smitten with an image that I fell prey to temptation — and I am glad I did! I discovered the Radical Tea Towel company and ordered half a dozen of their politically-inspired designs as gifts, along with the towel directly below for myself.
Here's part of an inspirational message from the flyer that came with my order:
"It feels like modern politics has got a bit lost, doesn't it? In a world of rightwing populism, it's a lonely place for progressives, liberals and socialists alike . . . But scratch the surface of radical history and you realize there's always been hope."
The company is a family-owned and run business (that began on the kitchen table). The towels are manufactured in the UK from US cotton and printed with eco-friendly water-based inks. They also note that they have donated $15,000 to "good causes" and that they pay all their taxes.
I mainly ordered images related to women's suffrage but the images and texts printed on the towels run the gamut from RBG to Walt Whitman, FDR to Malcolm X, Crazy Horse to Martin Niemoller and on and on. Each image/event is explained when you click on the item on their website.
I ordered my towels on a Friday and they were at my door the following Tuesday morning. The colors are true to how they appear on their website and the quality of the cotton is excellent. They'd make the perfect gift for you and all your "true blue" friends.
To get your day off to a positive start, enjoy this new song from Ben Sidran, a Madisonian whose literary and musical talents are known far beyond our town.
On June 10th, 1919, Wisconsin ratified the 19th Amendment to the Constitution giving women the right to vote. Former state senator David James of Richland Center came to Madison to witness the state legislature vote on the amendment. Once that happened, he found himself on a train carrying the official ratification documents to Washington, DC. Though the Illinois legislature voted for ratification before Wisconsin, James was the first to get the official documents to the U.S. State Department making Wisconsin the first state to officially ratify the 19th Amendment.
The Wisconsin Historical Society hosted an event at the Capitol commemorating this historic event one hundred years ago. There was music, speechifying and waves of women in white. The descendants of David James were on hand to reveal Wisconsin's original 19th Amendment document which was displayed — framed and under glass — during the ceremonies at the Capitol. A perfect way to spend a lovely June afternoon with friends.
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My husband, Mark Golbach, and our friend Dan Ely took over 16,000 photographs of this Madison landmark as it was being taken down. When Mark came home the first day I remember thinking that it was going to be a drag to have to look at these deconstruction photos everyday. By day three, I could not wait to see what he'd captured with his camera. Another great show by two excellent photographers.
For those of you who don't live in the area, you can browse some of Mark's work on his website: mgolbach.com. You can also visit the publish-on-demand company Blurb.com, click on the "Bookstore" and then type "Golbach" in the search bar. You should see a dozen books Mark's made over the past four years or so. You can preview all the images in each book by hitting the "preview" button. Demolition, Metal, and "Hill Farms State Transportation Building Demolition" (a promotional magazine he did for the demolition company), all came out of the same project.
Happy 40th Anniversary
Monte and Alan
❤️
Every May 1st for forty years, I think of my long-time friend, former roomie and fellow college art student, Ann Marie aka Monte. Here she is on her wedding day, May 1, 1979 with her Maid of Honor: me (on the left). This photo is proof that I once had a different hair style and color! And just one of many small Brownie snapshots of a most memorable day.
I remember someone hung a May basket on her garden gate, the only time I've ever seen that happen in real life. No doubt a common occurrence in Bekeley!
When friends talk about wonderful weddings — though my own was lovely — I always describe Monte's. The bride, an award-winning jeweler, made the wedding rings. Her mother, a skilled and creative seamstress, made her daughter's wedding dress. This photo doesn't begin to do justice to the beauty of the fabric or the design. The wedding cake was the contribution of the bride's brother, a rising chef. The ceremony was in the garden of the happy couple's Berkeley bungalow.
Looking through my pictures of this wedding was like looking through my own wedding photos: More bittersweet with every passing year as I remember all those who are no longer with us.
Dear Monte: Though it has been a long time since we've been together in person, you and Alan and your families are always in my thoughts and heart — especially on this day.
Despite the fact that I live in an urban area, prairies are a common sight around town. There is a city-maintained prairie at the end of my street which we have often walked through. The nearby University Reseach Park (URP) is landscaped with swaths of prairie surrounding the assorted contemporary office buildings. The land itself is gently rolling rather than flat which makes these landscapes of interest any time of the year. Should you drive by them right now you can clearly see how prairies are managed: by regular burning. This process helps to restore and enhance native vegetation which, in turn, filters and improves ground water quantity and quality.
We took a shortcut through URP the other day and discovered they'd burned the prairies and we missed seeing it take place. Mark has helped a couple of friends burn their prairies which is a pretty dramatic sight.
The sign notes that this area is a "Native Habitat Planting" and says "Please do not mow, plant or dump" and describes the benefits of the planting.
Here's a brief video of what that controlled burn process looks like at URP.
The URP prairies are localized plantings and generally smaller than what many people are doing with prairie restoration projects in the country. Curtis Prairie, at the UW-Madison Arboretum in Madison, is the world's oldest restored prairie. When it is burned it is quite a sight (below). The Arboretum was recently listed in the National Register of Historic Places, recognizing its significance as the birthplace of ecological restoration.
my mother was born. It is really difficult to grasp that concept. This year is also the hundred anniversary of my Dad's birth and that of my late -father-in-law. When they were alive, it never seemed odd to think back to 1919 when they were born. Maybe because it felt no different than when we ourselves count back each year when our own birthday rolls around. But 100 years is another era, another century. It feels like an unimaginable distance.
Our weather forecast today is for a high temperature in the 30s F° with the possibility of snow. As a Buffalo (NY) gal, my mom would be amused at that. It's the one thing that is familiar about this date: quirky April weather on her birthday.
D'Youville College graduation portrait, 1941
i've always love this photo, which is the one she used for her engagement announcement.
She still had long hair when she got married in April, 1946. But that was the last time she let it grow that long. Four children required an easier bob.
During one of our late winter snowstorms, I was bored and decided to try to find some family history info by using Google. To my complete amazement, two newspaper stories popped up about my great and great-great grandfathers. That set me sleuthing about the Pennsylvania anthracite coal mining industry where my grandfather and his father both worked when young.
As these things do, that sent me down another rabbit hole for a book housed in the legendary library in the State Historical Society Building in Madison. The book was in the lower stacks and as Mark and I were walking towards the area where it was shelved, we discovered this limestone detailing. What a surprise!
This lower library storage area appears to have been built on the other side of the original building. That limestone clearly seems to be a once-upon-a-time exterior wall. It's right where you go from one room to another and the wall is extremely thick which seems to corroborate our guess.
It is interesting, mysterious and kind of scary to be off in the middle of nowhere surrounded by books. So I was glad I was not alone. I was checking the book out on Mark's university library card, so he was forced to come with me. He snapped this photo as I made sure I had the right book. Turns out this is where books on women, work and feminism all seemed to be stored.
I'm almost finished reading my find: "Their Fathers' Daughters: Silk Mill Workers in Northeastern Pennsylvania, 1880-1960" by Bonnie Stepenoff. Turns out that many silk mills located in this coal mining area to take advantage of the fact that children, especially girls and young women, were willing to go work in the mills to try to help out their families by bringing in more income. As with the cotton mills in Lawrence, MA, as the women began to organize for better wages, hours and working conditions the mills moved south to where there were fewer laws and people would work for less. Alas much of the book suggests how little things have changed since then — at least when it comes to a living wage.
Before Women's History Month is over, I want to share some images of work by a few of my favorite women artists. They work in different media but all use the garden as subject matter. Most of them had gardens themselves. It's difficult, however, to find many photographic images of their gardens compared to images of their art. Clare Leighton, Evelyn Dunbar and Valerie Finnis are all deceased. Elizabeth Blackadder and Frances Palmer are still working. You can easily find images of their work and information about all of them online.
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I wrote about Clare Leighton here. I have a 1935 edition of this book whose cloth cover is greatly faded. I have to admit that I would love to read what Carol Klein has to say about Leighton in her introduction to the reprinted book from Little Toller Books. Leighton is known for her wood engravings.
Clare Leighton
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Evelyn Dunbar
Evelyn Dunbar is famed for her mural work and garden art. She also was the only only salaried female war artist commissioned by the British government during World War II. Dunbar is noteworthy because she recorded women's wartime work in her paintings. She documented the war efforts of women on the home front, with the Women’s Land Army, Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, and the nurses of St. Thomas Hospital.
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Valerie Finnis
Valerie Finnis was a famed gardener, teacher and photographer. She captured many well-known horticulturalists on film as well as taking plant portraits. A few of her garden photos are displayed on the wall of her workroom in the photo below. A number of plants are named after Finnis as well. Ursula Buchan's book on Finnis is a great place to start if her work interests you.
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Elizabeth Blackadder
Elizabeth Blackadder is one of my favorite botanical artists because she paints loose, lively portraits of plants, her cats and any of her other treasure that catch her eye. You never know what will appear in her work. She appreciates Irises, in particular, and is known for her paintings of them. But my eye was delighted by the Toad Lillies in this work.
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Frances Palmer
Frances Palmer is the only American in this group of women artists. She has a spectacular garden on the east coast and is known for her Dahlias. But Palmer is a potter and grows flowers and foliage that she uses to showcase her vases and containers. Much of her work is glazed in white or pale celadon. These blue and white pots are among my personal favorites. But I don't think my finances will ever allow me to splurge on one of her creations. Instead, I look at her website and Instagram for inspiration on putting together floral bouquets.