CMAppleton

Snow River by H. Makelin

We were driving down a street in Arlington, VA and saw a homeless woman on the median holding a sign. At first I couldn’t tell if she was a man or a woman, so thin, no curves, jeans and rumpled t-shirt. At closer look I saw she was a woman and holding a sign that said “Homeless Artist.” There were three of us in the car, all of us artists returning from antique shopping and a visit to another friend’s studio. I said, “Let’s give her a dollar, or something.” I started looking around the floor of the car and in my purse – in the past I’ve given homeless people on the streets bottles of water or apples, things like that. I had nothing so I reached for my wallet. Cheryl rolled down the window and called her over saying to the rest of us “If we can do this before the light changes.” It was rush hour and no one behind us was going to care about giving a homeless woman a buck once the light changed. When she got to the window Cheryl said “We’re all artists too.” I pulled out a few bills, Susie in the back added hers, Cheryl too and she handed the bills to the woman. All the while I’m thinking, “I hope this isn’t like the time I was walking toward a raggedy man sleeping on a picnic table just off the W & OD trail, and was about to hand him a $20 (had no smaller bills and no place on the trail to get change) and his cell phone rang. Cheryl handed her the money and told her we were all artists too. (It was a long light). The woman seemed excited about that and said “I have a website.” (?) A homeless person with a website. She started digging in her purse for a card and I said “Just call it out, I’ll write it down.” I went on her site – she has a BA and an MFA and worked for ten years in the Library of Congress and then quit to pursue her art. Her name is H. Makelin and the painting above is called Snow River and is on the 'free stuff' page so I figured it was ok to put it here. I can't stop wondering what happened to her, how she got to that median holding a sign.
Her website:
http://www.shenandoahstarlight.uni.cc

Thursday

A recent painting/drawing of Laurie, 22" x 30".
Laurie brought more farm fresh eggs and fresh herbs. We also had organic tomatoes, tuna salad with pickles, whole wheat pita, avocado dip made by Fae, grapes, fresh raw veggies, and I think this was the day Laurie brought her homemade brownies. We have altered our schedule to allow time for a critique before drawing, so the model comes an hour later and everyone brings something they are working on. Wonderful to get this feedback on a work in progress. It also gives us time to solve the problems of the world, talk about our lives, our families, our thoughts and ideas, all that stuff. It is buffet, drawing, art support and critique, think tank and group therapy.

Lost in Translation

Dan, Toni and I were in Germany at a theme park to entertain Toni, she was a teen at the time. I am not much into theme parks but thought it might be interesting to check out a German version.
It turned out to be a really nice place, clean, interesting things to look at, lots of rides. Toni was at that stage of teenagery where rides are the thing. Dan likes rides too. I figured I’d sketch, people watch, eat bad stuff. I never mind being left on my own. As we strolled around we came upon a haunted house that looked like a copy of the one in Disneyland. A castle, a mote, so we all decided to do the walk-through of this thing. There were tons of people in line so maybe it’s pretty cool – we were thinking.
As we entered we noticed there were signs along both sides of the line, but they were in German so of course we had no idea what they said. The line turned out to be pretty long, but we didn’t mind because it was interesting people-watching – the teens with their pimply faces and tattooed arms making out and laughing and doing what teens do the world around. As I was standing there wondering if their nose and lip piercings ever got tangled when they kissed, I realized some of them seemed to be checking us out. Maybe they were checking Toni out. Maybe it showed that we were foreigners, maybe we looked weird.
We inched forward, eventually moving inside the stone walls of the castle. Little trolls kept sticking their heads out of dark crevices trying to scare us. (Yawn, this was going to be pretty corny, I was thinking.) There were more signs in German. The other people in line seemed to enjoy staring at us. Observing the others in line more carefully, I realized we were the only people over the age of 17, except Toni. This might have developed in to a concern had I not been interrupted by Toni chatter and Dan asking for the water bottle.
Finally we were herded into an open room and all of the doors on all four sides of the room slammed shut with a loud WHAM. A cold dank smell. I was imagining what it must have felt like to be in a room like this, in Germany, in 1943, and then one of the doors slowly creaked open. The crowd raced into this newly opened area like they knew what they were doing. It was dark and difficult to see where they were going and why. We were pushed along in to the round, cold and dark room. Soft blue lights emanated from behind seats that lined the curved walls. Everyone was racing to get a seat. Ok. I’ll get a seat. Our hesitation meant we weren’t able to sit together, so Dan and Toni were across from me, I was sitting in a seat in the middle of seven or eight teenagers, boys and girls. There were straps, I hooked them up. A man appeared in front of me and took the glasses off my face. I said “No, I need those.” He said in his thick German accent “Will give back when over.” I said “No, I’ll keep them with me.” He said, with a frown “Hohkay.” The teens to my right were looking at me like I was a three-headed bug.
Soon the lights went out and there were noises that sounded like a steam engine. A black pipe-like bar appeared from above and came down over my shoulders locking me in a small cage. My feet dangled below me. An engine seemed to be speeding up. Then, without warning – BAMMMMMM – I was shot a thousand feet into the air at 500 miles per hour straight up, then stopped, instantly, my seat bouncing, my legs flying all over, my heart stopped, my glasses god knows where. Then, again, no warning, BAMMMMMMWHOOOOSH – straight down 500 hundred miles an hour – on the floor in a split second, same thing, legs dangling, heart racing, LETMEOFFATHISTHINGYOUFUCKerrss . . . . BAMMMMMMOOOOOSHHHH again straight up a million miles in one one-hundredth of a second, through the roof, my heart is in seizure and I have no voice, no vision, no will to live – just GETMETHEFUCKOFFOFTHIS . . . . BAMMMMMMMOOOOOOOSSSSSHHHHHHHHHH . . . . just kill me now. Pleasegodpleasegodpleasegodletthisbeovernowpleasegodiwillneveruse
yournameinvainagainmotherfucking
goddamnshitWHHHAMMMMMMMM.
Then it was over.
Silence, chaos, laughter. I looked up and saw Dan and Toni looking at me with large round eyes, clearly wondering if I was going to need an ambulance or if I was going to be mad at them or just searching my face for some indication that I was alive and not going to kill them.
As I walked out of the castle on trembling legs I realized the signs we were passing while in line probably said things like “Not for people with heart conditions . . . . etc.” It now made sense, the kids staring at us, I was thinking as I passed the same man who tried to take my glasses, he looked at me with a sad face and shrugged his shoulders as I walked by.