Old and Still Cool

I typically see my grandparents twice each year on their cotton farm in Littlefield, Texas. It’s flat, dusty, and just outside of Lubbock. Does this paint any picture for you? Well, if you’ve been fortunate to see Lubbock, then enough’s been said. But regardless, it’s a place I look forward to visiting because my grandparents, possibly out of a mindset from the Great Depression, keep everything: cleaned used foil, Zip-lock bags, every National Geographic since the ‘40s, broken tools in the shop that may be melted down someday, and a collection of mousetraps. The experience is similar to that of an antique mall. The ones that have select vendors who place meaningless crap in their booths like their son or daughter’s first pair of shoes, or Johnny’s rusted, red tricycle that looks kinda cool, but not appropriate for an antique show. Their old farm house is ready to explode with stuff. Stuff – this is the only word I can think to describe it. Some, if not most, sentimental stuff - but this is relative. And each time I visit, I explore like I’m Alice in her Wonderland. But out in the barn alongside a line of vintage and new John Deer tractors rest five refrigerators from my grandparents’ lifetime in their farmhouse. Many of us have found it funny. They’re lined up like a firing squad, and hold inside of them old tools, scrap metal, and various other pieces no one would call their treasure. Oh, and these refrigerators don’t work – of course. That’s why they’re relocated to the barn.

My small watercolor above was completed when I had to move inside the barn after west Texas winds tore apart my easel. They quickly became a fascinating subject and took on personalities like a live model would in a life drawing class. And I think it’s one of my favorite pieces because the personal connection is so strong, and it conjures up many stories. This one I won’t part with just as my grandparents wouldn’t part with a used sandwich bag – cleaned of course.