Appalachian Sweet Wood Mountain Studio

Many moons ago I started a blog. It is a dysfunctional procrastinating mess due to many different distractions including social media, namely FACEBOOK and PINTEREST. I cannot promise anything (even to myself) that I will be less dysfunctional in the future but I am driven to write this post.

I recently had the pleasure of visiting my Aunt Dayne Edwards in Dickenson County VA. The reason for my return to the place I was born was a sad one - the loss of my beloved Uncle Bruce. My sister wrote a beautiful article about this that you can read HERE.

Having been enchanted by the wonderful works of wood art that she creates many years ago, it was the first time I visited her studio up close and personal. 

Apple Tree on the path to Sweet Wood Mountain Studio

How peaceful and wonderful to have a place such as this to work without computers, noise or distractions.

Here with my niece Sandra Colley Paquin about to show us the 1900's sewing machine she completely restored. 

Saws, drill presses, bits, lathes, and the wonderful smell of fresh sawdust and tung oil. All operated by this tiny dynamo of a woman. Under the sheet there is a restored organ that required hand carved missing pieces that I wish I had taken more photos of. 

Although this machine was found at auction it is the same treadle type my grandmother used. As Dayne said, "there is something so relaxing about using these machines". Not only did she restore the wood work on the cabinet, she replaced all the belts and missing parts (thanks to E-Bay)to get it in perfect working condition. 

A close-up of the art you see on the back wall above. The art she does is called:

Intarsia 

Intarsia is a woodworking technique that uses varied shapes, sizes, and species of wood fitted together to create a mosaic-like picture with an illusion of depth. Intarsia is created through the selection of different types of wood, using their natural grain pattern and color (but can involve the use of stains and dyes) to create variations in the pattern. After selecting the specific woods to be used within the pattern, each piece is then individually cut, shaped, and finished. Sometimes areas of the pattern are raised to create more depth. Once the individual pieces are complete, they are fitted together like a jig-saw puzzle and glued to wood backing which is sometimes cut to the outline shape of the image. (From Wikipedia)

There are portraits of her grand children, my grandmother cooking beets outdoors, her parents feeding chickens or milking cows. I am amazed at the detail and how tiny some of the pieces are that she must cut to fit. Some of her scroll saw blades are as tiny as a needle. To me they are absolutely charming and wonderful.

While most of her works are not for sale she has pieces at the 

http://www.virginia.org/Listings/Shopping/AppalachianArtsCenter/

Hope you enjoyed the visit as much as I did. Thanks for the inspiration Aunt Dayne!

  

Halloween *Murder *Mystery

*You decide*

Promised you a story and what better day to report than on Halloween 2012?

Great Grandmother Eunice (Nicey) Anderson's home as it looked 1977. Secret room behind trees.

Back in the hills of Western Virginia - circa 1920/30's - many tales were echoed back and forth between the mountains. These stories were a way for the locals to get information as well as entertainment since most homes did not have electricity or even running water. 

My Great Grandmother Eunice (Nicey) Anderson was a true mountain woman.

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Strong willed but with always a twinkle in her eye, you were drawn to her but intimidated at the same time.
There was one room in her home no one was allowed to enter. No one did. Naturally this became a contender for whoppers as stories were whispered about as to why she would keep this room private.
This is the story I heard at a very impressionable age:
Great grandpa Morgan (Nicey's husband, whom she has born nine children with) had been in a 'bar fight' and crawled all the way up the mountain while full of gunshot wounds. Mountain women were sometimes as apt to be able to remove bullets as any of the horse and buggy country doctors around there. She got him into their feather bed and story goes she tried to remove them but there were too many and he began to beg her to finish him off. No 911, no hospital, no help before it would be too late. I was told that she refused at first but with his continued moaning and begging for mercy and her conviction that no living thing should have to suffer, she slit his throat with her kitchen knife and held him softly until he bled out there on the bed. The same bed that was still in the secret room until the day she died. 

These were Nicey's garden shoes and fork still on the porch in 1977. She died in her garden  Dec. 16th, 1967.

O.K. Hard to believe. But I did for years. It was a very hushed tale and I felt privileged, if not horrified, to know the story and never asked questions as this happened way before I came along. She was left to raise 9 children and had a very hard way of life - who was I to inquire?

Woodstove main source of heat or to brew a mean pot of coffee.

Brother Rod on Nicey's front porch 1977. The house was torn  down shortly after this photo was taken.

Great Grandpa's Obit

Granny Julies's cement well for her water pump and where she did  the laundry once a week.

About six months ago my niece posted this on Facebook:

Morgan T Anderson the Dickenson Star

Now this explains what really happened - at least to sheriff's and court records. It chills me to know the man who shot my great grandfather could be alive and well and maybe living near us. But this still does not explain what happened so long ago in the cold dark night in the mountains in that feather bed.


Happy Haunting!
 

Old Slides and Negatives and Family History...

Oh, the things I have discovered that I can do with my iPad and new HTC Sense with its cool digital camera. I have thousands of old slides and negatives that I have put off purchasing a slide/neg scanner for but now I do not have to! You can also use a light table but the iPad acts like one with a little app called Hello Photo which works quite well with my HTC cell phone camera.

This is a slide strip of my daughter Julie that is over 25 years old.

This is cropped, tweaked and enhanced. Not very good for making prints straight on but might make a nice transfer and other mixed media. 

Since most of the negatives I have were large, I used my Light Tracer table for these. I grouped them together and took the photo with my phone camera.

This was a photo negative that I cropped out of the group.

This is what I got after inverting image in Photoshop:

Again, images are not crystal pristine but I am loving what you can create even with the negatives themselves!

In my very next post (maybe later today) I will show how and why I got involved in going through my stacks of slides in the first place.

Hint: It involves the murder of a family member and is a spooky read for this time of the year!