Wednesday, March 03, 2021

Book Art for a Wednesday in March

Sharon Maczko's The Mind at Play

Who says cats are the only living beings who appreciate a good cardboard box?

When I was little, the places Mom and I lived in were too small for me to have a set-up like this inside the house. When the weather warmed up and things dried out enough, I took an old ratty blanket and my books and other provisions out behind the shed and into my cave in the forsythia bushes. That cave was beautiful and golden when the forsythia were in bloom, and cool and secretive and lushly green in summer.

I love this painting for the memories it invokes. Although the lighting makes that shelf of toys look positively creepy, that light can also be the light of knowledge and imagination radiating from that box and its occupant. A place to hide away, lighting, and books! And not just books, but mysteries! Those books (and the ones on the shelf) look like Nancy Drews to me. What do you think?

Did you have your own favorite hideout when you were a child? 'fess up!

7 comments:

  1. That is a beautiful picture, Cathy. And it reminds me of when I was a kid and found all sorts of little hidey-holes to read. There's something about nice, snug, quiet place to read...

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    1. Someplace where you have privacy to read what you want to read and dream what you want to dream.

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  2. The worst was when my mother was showing the house before we moved and told my brothers and I to play outside. Instead, I took a flashlight into my closet and was reading. When my mother opened the closet door.... It was extremely embarrassing for me, but Mother laughed and shut the door.

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    1. I don't think I would've had a problem, since I was known to carry my books up into an old apple tree to read. But then, I didn't have brothers or sisters who could've pestered me!

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  3. I had my own room with my parakeets in it. I would shut the door and read. But also, my bedroom window opened up onto a brick-framed terrace. And in the summer, I would crawl out the window and just lay there. No one ever checked on me. Then in high school, after we moved, I chose the small bedroom. So I made it into a cozy nook, where I could read up against the window with the tree branches touching it and the sun pouring in.

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  4. It was nice. And in high school was when I started the habit of staying up very late, snug in my room, reading, reading, reading.

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