Legacy of Letters Jan 2021

 

My husband’s grandfather, “Louie Pops,” had a huge personality and was a significant influence on our lives. He was a prolific letter writer (Three decades of letters and articles he sent us are located in three overstuffed boxes in our living room.) He religiously read the New York Times each morning, carefully clipped articles that somehow brought to mind someone he loved. (Just a passing and vague reference to your alma mater in a newspaper or magazine would reward you days later with a little white envelope in your mailbox with severely angled, barely legible handwriting stuffed with a meticulously folded clipping and notes written in the margins.) Once you were selected to be on his mailing list, this river of communications from the US Post Office flowed freely and regularly for years. We joked he kept the post office in business.

The first December after we were married, we received this short letter, simply explaining the ritual of lighting the candles at Chanukah, and the translated from Yiddish a prayer that is to be said allowed. Pops was a deeply religious man, but extremely tolerant and well read on all religions. (He was a BIG fan of Pope Francis.) My husband considered himself Jewish, but his parents lack of religious guidance didn’t provide him a formal religious education. We had already decided to raise any future children we had Catholic, as my family practiced, however I also understood being the child of divorced parents my husband cherished what family traditions he remembered from his youth, and celebrating the Jewish holidays with his grandparents was definitely one of those memories. So, for 25 years, we have done the best we can honoring Chanukah, Rosh Hashanah and a Passover in our household with foods and rituals, explaining to our boys the historical significance of each holiday and how it directly relates to their own religion of choice and family traditions.

I started with a Vicki Boutin mixed media printed foundations paper with two very old Stampin’up! patterned and washi paper collection kits, and decade old Chanukah paper I had in my stash. I broke into a new collection of Ella & Viv Spice Market and used the Medina paper. I also used some gold washi tape, DCWV brights cardstock, faux enamel dots from the dollar store and Nuvo glitter drops. I love my new kingart dual tip brush pens, and the alpha and K&Company medallion stickers I snagged on the 99 cent racks at Michaels recently. I tried to follow the mirrored Stick it Down January 2021 single page sketch below when layering Tim Holtz Distressed Oxide Wild Honey, Speckled Egg and Hickory Smoke inks brushed through two different stencils (Vicki Boutin Kalidascope and Scrapbook.com Vintage Moroccan) over the preprinted background. Fineline red tip and unknown ATG glue. CM 12” straight trimmer. My favorite part of this page is the colorful chipboard and accitate medallions, which were an afterthought and not in mind when I gathered my possible materials at the beginning of this project. 

I really liked the modernity graphic menorah on the somewhat tacky old Chanukah paper so I included it on the page and submitted to the January 2021 Paper Issues fussy cut challenge.

I designed this as a stand alone layout, but did have its neighboring page, Happy Hanukkah January 2021 in mind to draw upon some artistic inspiration.

 This entry marks one year since I started this blog. I’m so grateful there I’ve been consistent with my entries all year. It’s been a great release to document my thoughts during this stressful time, and happy that I’ve found a medium that allows myself to successfully journal and produce art after many years of trying and failing. Apparently it takes 50 years to make a habit stick.🙄

sdm-