vintagegal:

Circus Lady by Raymond M. Stagg c.1920

ex0skeletal:

Winged Tapestries: Moths at Large, a special exhibition of oversized prints by Canadian artist Jim des Rivière

For one precious week a year for seven years in a row, the woman timed hanging her laundry out to dry with the crop duster’s arrival. She never saw his face, but he always dropped a handwritten note for her as he made his last pass for the day. At times it would flutter down into the raspberry patch, though one time it got caught on the top of the horse barn and she ripped her best stockings climbing up the old ladder to get it. She didn’t mind, though. In fact, when she made it to the general store to order another pair, her surreptitious smile almost made the clerk charge her an extra five cents by mistake.

She saved each note for after supper, savoring a glance now and then as it rested on top of her pie safe. It wasn’t until her plate was washed and the old claw-foot table was clear that she would splash a little whiskey in her lemonade and sit out on the porch swing in the balmy evening air to examine her treasure. It was there by the steady light of her kerosene lantern that she would unfold cream colored paper from the envelope and study the curves of his S’s, the slant of his T’s. Sometimes there would be a poem, sometimes a pressed flower or two. Once, he even included a neatly folded two dollar bill and told her to go find anything by Mississippi John Hurt. She found a 78 with “Avalon Blues’” on it, and played it at dusk from that night onward.

One sultry Sunday afternoon as thunderheads were building along the horizon, she stood in the doorway where the creak meets the screech in the screen door, watching grasshoppers move across the front lawn. She in turn moved about her property, propping open the gate to the chicken coop, taking her clothes in off the drying line, finally going back inside to pack a fresh rhubarb pie in a green checkered picnic basket along with the old 78 of Avalon Blues and a bundle of letters tied with blue ribbon. She took the crimson scarf that her mama had given her out of the cracked celluloid box on her vanity and wandered out past the fence line to wait. She waved waved it against the darkening sky as the crop duster finally flew overhead. The bi-plane kicked up a cloud of dust when it landed on a barren patch of land a half mile away. She walked out across the cotton fields, and never looked back.

~by Aimee Stewart~

Avalon Blues: http://youtu.be/klcDgu2f_pQ
Photo from the Library of Congress

“Usually at least once in a person’s childhood we lose an object that at the time is invaluable and irreplaceable to us, although it is worthless to others. Many people remember that lost article for the rest of their lives. Whether it was a lucky pocketknife, a transparent plastic bracelet given to you by your father, a toy you had longed for and never expected to receive, but there it was under the tree on Christmas… it makes no difference what it was. If we describe it to others and explain why it was so important, even those who love us smile indulgently because to them it sounds like a trivial thing to lose. Kid stuff. But it is not. Those who forget about this object have lost a valuable, perhaps even crucial memory. Becuase something central to our younger self resided in that thing. When we lost it, for whatever reason, a part of us shifted permanently.”

-

Jonathan Carroll, The Ghost in Love (via insipidexpectations)

—-

I know exactly what ‘this’ is, in my childhood. I had a beautiful kiss-clasp black velvet purse that my mother gave to me when I was about four years old. The kind fancy ladies would use when they went out to dinner in the 50’s. I cherished that thing, and carried it everywhere, filled with treasures. I had two bracelets in it from my mom, typical 70’s bangles with fake sparkles and inlaid stone… one pale blue, the other coral colored, along with my hoard of pennies and nickles, chap stick, candy machine prizes and other found objects.

One day when I was five, we were shopping at a local store called Sav-Mart, and I distinctly remember going to the candy machines up front to get some bubble gum while my mom was at the cash register. I set my beloved purse on top of the machine, got my gum, then walked out of the store. Half way home I remembered I had left my purse there, and was completely distraught. Mom drove me all the way back to the store, but by the time we got there it was gone, and nobody turned it in to lost and found.

I was heartbroken. It was my first experience with losing something I adored… and not only that, but also KNOWING someone else had it. They took it, and didn’t even care that by examining the contents it would be obvious it belonged to a little kid. I remember feeling the total injustice of that, and pouted over it for a long, long time. ~Aimee~

Inspiration for the day: Andrew Bird, a one-man orchestra of imagination.

aseaofquotes:

Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky

Strangest moment after a funeral this weekend? Having a woman cross a busy restaurant just to meet me and tell me I looked like Bettie Page. ~Aimee~

Always makes me smile when my artwork randomly pops up on my feed. Thank you, internet. ~Aimee~

Always makes me smile when my artwork randomly pops up on my feed. Thank you, internet. ~Aimee~

circusofsplendor:

superseventies:

Gala Mitchell 1920s inspired fashion for Vogue Paris, 1971. Photo by Guy Bourdin.

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