Peg Kerr's Journal

I fell to a rather low ebb this week: probably because there is less and less sunlight every day, and I have had my foot stuck in a surgical boot for the past week (meaning I can't do my usual exercise).

By Wednesday I felt rather desperate, and so I impulsively drove to the Minneapolis Institute of Art. I parked about a block and a half away, and by the time I'd limped to the lobby, I was regretting not bringing my cane. I felt impaired enough that I only made it upstairs and spent time in one gallery section, just sitting quietly on the couches and benches in one room or another rather than walking around exploring. Simply viewing a small amount of the art was a comfort. I would have liked to have been nimble enough to explore more, but just the little taste was delightful enough, and an enjoyable way to spend my time. Yay for the heartening power of really good art.

Image description: view through a large doorway in an art gallery. Through the doorway, other galleries with paintings hanging on the wall can be seen. Lower center: a marble sculpture (Ganymede offering a cup of wine to Zeus in his eagle form). Behind the sculpture, partially obscured by it: a round oil painting depicting Jesus teaching in the temple as a 12-year-old. Hovering above the doorway, an ornate footed jeweled box with inlaid marquetry work. Right: a bronze sculpture of Psyche. Left: a bronze sculpture of the capture of the nymph Daphne [?]. Just below each of these two bronze sculptures are matching white porcelain urns, decorated with gold finish. A semi-transparent overlay of a twining design (of the ornate marquetry design on a table) is inserted between the picture of the gallery and the artwork.

Art



Click here to see the 2023 52 Card Project gallery.

Click here to see the 2022 52 Card Project gallery.

Click here to see the 2021 52 Card Project gallery.

I grew up reading books voraciously, naturally, and one of my favorites was a retelling of The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen. I loved it and re-read it many times. Of course, you know where this is going. Sometimes, a tale told in childhood can imprint itself on a child's imagination in a way that echoes for years, and it obviously did for me. I drew upon my vivid memory of that story when I was writing my own retelling, which was published the year I turned 40.

But I didn't have THE BOOK. That special, special book that had fired my imagination all those years ago.

Bits of my memory of the illustrations wove itself into the story I wrote. I remembered a picture of Eliza sitting on the ground, peering up at the sun through a hole in a leaf. I remembered the wicked queen spilling the toads into the bath. I remembered Eliza meeting the fairy in the woods, flying through the air in a woven net held by swans, and huddling with her brothers on the rock in the middle of the ocean. I remembered her visiting the room the king had set aside for her with the shirt he'd found her making in the woods--Eliza wore her hair in a snood, which absolutely fascinated me. I remembered her in her prison cell, looking up with longing at her brother's wing, glimpsed through the grated window. I remembered the scene of chaos when the brothers were being changed back into men, the wild look in Eliza's eyes.

My parents sold their house after I left for college and downsized accordingly. Perhaps they'd gotten rid of the book even before that--probably they did, as there were four of us kids growing up, and we didn't have enough storage to keep forever every treasured keepsake.

I knew that the story was by Hans Christian Andersen. But...how could I find it again?

The problem was that while I certainly remembered the illustrations, I couldn't remember the edition itself. I didn't think it was just "The Wild Swans" alone...whatever it was that I read included several of Andersen's tales. But not the entire collection. When I was going to the University of Minnesota for graduate school, I stopped by the Kerlan Collection of Children's Literature, hoping to find my childhood book. But the Kerlan's stacks were closed. "Just check the catalog and write your request on this slip and we'll retrieve it from the stacks," the librarian encouragingly.

Do you know how many HUNDREDS of editions of Hans Christian Andersen's tales there are, especially in a collection devoted to children's literature? It seemed absolutely hopeless.

And then last night, I was thinking with longing of that treasured book from my childhood again, and it suddenly occurred to me to do what I should have done years ago. I actually smacked myself on the side of the head because I felt so stupid.

What I remembered was the illustrations. So obviously, I should do an image search of illustrations for "The Wild Swans."

I found it in five minutes flat. What's more, I found a copy of the edition for sale for around $20, including shipping. It's on its way to me now. The illustrator was Libico Maraja, and the pictures were published in an edition of several of the tales retold by Shirley Goulden. The edition was published in 1966.

Here (page 1) and here (page 2) are the illustrations that drifted, ghostlike through my imagination in my retelling all those years later. It gives me such joy to be able to put at peace that restless, searching part of myself that had longed to see those pictures for so many years.

My seventeenth Kiva loan goes to a woman here in the U.S. (in Ohio), also named Peggy, who teaches Irish stepdancing.

A bit more frivolous than my previous loans, perhaps, but I want to support women in the arts, and I could use more dancing in my life, dammit.

From my post 5/5/08 "The Tree and the Sun." Click to see close up:



This was sure pretty when I printed it out. I'm going to hang it above my desk at work, and add it to my Trees collection.

We went back to the workshop for the Heart of the Beast to work on the May Day parade. Fiona repainted her book, because she changed her mind about which book she was doing. Then she repainted it again because I pointed out that she had placed the book title on the wrong side. Then she repainted it yet again because someone stepped on it and smeared it. I hope the poor girl will not have to repaint it yet another time. Four times is enough! I have a picture of her showing it off, and once I figure out how to download pictures from my camera phone, I'll post it here it is. I had reminded her of the mistake she made at the last workshop, painting in her windbreaker, and asked her to remember to take it off before she started. I went to check on her a half hour later and discovered, yep, she'd forgotten to take it off, and it was covered with paint. I squawked at her, stripped her of the jacket and washed it off in the sink; we carried it home in a plastic bag. Fortunately, since I washed it while the paint was still wet, I was able to get most of it out.

I took another cute picture of Delia crouched in the center of a cardboard box, contemplating how she was going to turn it into a blue giraffe costume. She enjoyed the paper mache very much, but needed my big girl hands when it came to wielding the staple gun.

I wandered restlessly from one table to another, trying to decide which section of the parade to work on, and indeed, whether I even wanted to be in the parade at all. I have so enjoyed watching it for so many years. Did I really want to give up the fun and ease of being a spectator? C'mon, Peg, I told myself. Break out of your old comfortable pattern, here. Participate, don't just watch. I had thought of joining the books section, with Fiona. I was uncertain whether I really had time to start a costume for myself, especially since I was periodically helping Delia.

There is another section of the parade which is featuring ravens and cranes. One raven was already made, a paper mache headpiece with attached black fabric wings, mounted on a corner of one of the tables. I kept staring over at it. It made me think of the "ravens of unresting thought" which have loomed so large in my life in the past year, in the Yeats poem "The Two Trees," one my favorite poems. I went over and asked the artist for that section of the parade about it. "Oh, that's a piece that a woman made for another event, but we need someone to operate it. Would you like to do so?"

I looked up at the raven, which seemed to be cocking a baleful eye at me, and I smiled. What better way, perhaps, to exorcise those pesky ravens from my life?

"Yes. I will."

The workshops are great fun, a cacophony of excited noises, color, and new ways of looking at things. It is amazing what these artists can accomplish with clay, cloth, shopping carts, cardboard, paint, whiffle bats, flower pots, plastic cabling and a staple gun. I spoke with minnehaha K. for awhile (she was helping Fiona paint grass as Fiona was waiting for her book to dry again). And I had a nice conversation with Aaron, who popped up on my journal for the first time recently, although he has been lurking reading my entries for several years. See lurkers? If you know that you are going to be somewhere that I will be, please introduce yourself, and I will be happy to make your acquaintence.