Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies.  Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian.  The Smithsonian selected her photo to represent all teens from a specific decade.​

            The canvas is pulled and I staple it onto a wooden frame. Seeing the white blank space, I envision filling it with color and creation; seeing a white piece of paper waiting for my words causes a similar excitement. I lift my oak box by its leather handle, unclasp the brass hinges, and the fragrance of linseed oil against the bitter scent of turpentine emerge. Removing a smooth wooden board that fits exactly into a slot inside, I clamp on two round yet tiny tin cups. I line up the sable brushes with their very long handles, adjust the wobble in my light-to-carry easel, and stand before my supplies. I grin and fill one cup with linseed oil as thoughts go back to the very first oil painting I did:
            As a pre-teen, in my parents’ living room, amid silk damask upholstered furniture, a Baby Grand piano, and a French Provincial design false fireplace, I unwrapped the 'magic box.' Metal tubes had odd names: cadmium yellow, burnt sienna, cobalt blue. A vase on a round table that I’d seen over and over now was ‘seen’ differently, and I opened the new three-legged easel, put the already-prepared canvas board on the narrow ledge, and knew I’d capture the colors of the object. My parents didn’t object to my working in that room showing me that things are not important, people are.  My mother knit, and the 78rpm records had music playing; my dad had to change each once the needle got to the end of the shellac grooves. I put small drops of paint from tubes, squeezing as if each held toothpaste, and used a metal palette knife to mix them into what seemed like a mess. I knew my mess was the color blend I wanted.
            At that time, camera film was black and white, but my ‘camera eyes’ printed the vase in full color, with a slight interpretation of the way I felt viewing both the object and my painted strokes. My parents praised. If they minded the smell of oil, linseed liquid, brush cleaner, they didn’t say. The painting, once dry, was taken to be framed and hung. As they'd always done, my parents made me feel important, encouraged all my creative yearnings, and provided the tools to develop them.
            In undergrad school, once I switched from Arts and Science to the School of Education, my Sociology/Anthropology minor had to be changed; high school teachers would not have that as a subject. Also, my Speech and Drama major could no longer be pursued for the same reason. I switched to an English major and an Art minor. A Mid-western university had a summer program, for credit, and a life oil painting class was offered; my dad allowed money to be used to sign up for Advanced Shakespeare, Advanced Literature, and Oil Painting; I had to get special permission to take 3 courses during the summer as only 2 were considered 'correct.' I so wanted all three, although the main reason I was going was for the art course, different from what I was taking in the New England university I attended. The ‘magic box’ had very few original tubes left with crimped metal where I squeezed; but colors were replaced once gone. Now the wood inside had traces of hues, and the palette was stained by years of paint.
            I’d turn 20 when my junior year ended and the plan was to have those summer courses, and get my BA as soon as I turned 21. Unexpectedly, breathing ceased for my 45-year-old father just weeks after my twentieth birthday. My mother insisted I have the summer school experience already scheduled, and I carried my grief and boarded the first train to Chicago. I had a private sleeping room arranged, in advance, by my father.
            I raged with King Lear, understood politics with Coriolanus, felt Whitman beside me looking out on the river...but felt both excited and sad when a room with sturdy easels and the fragrance of paint was entered. I wore the dirndl skirts my dad so liked, and my favorite had ribbons of yellow horizontally and ribbons of black vertically. My brush, holding vermillion, connected with that skirt as I bent forward; tears filled my eyes and spilled over. Turpentine would not do more than spread the intense color on the fabric and ribbons. The model moved, left her platform, and took a necessary break.
            I used that time to find a pay phone and make a collect call as I needed to hear my mother’s voice. “I ruined my skirt, and daddy can never buy me another,” was what I blurted out without thinking of her loss or her grief.
            She was always available to comfort and this hadn’t changed. “It’s a skirt, dear. Enjoy your class; create something from only a blank area; wear that skirt knowing you didn’t save it but used it and the paint stain will be a reminder that things are not important, only people are. I love you. Go back to class.”
            I still find solace in creating from a blank area and see the abundant, meaningful possibilities in making use of white woven fabric. Recently, one of my granddaughters was eager to show me a photo on her phone. She’d used, for the first time, an oily kind of paint on a rectangle of canvas stretched on wooden frames; what I know about that vs. acrylic and, did I like what she’d done? Acrylic didn’t exist during my education years, but I tried that medium about 5 years ago wanting something that didn’t require more than water to clean up, and water to dip brushes into as well. I began to give her information about linseed oil and the distinct scent of turpentine, but found myself giving her the story about a white dirndl skirt with ribbons, and the philosophy of tangible items being temporary, but love and encouragement lasting a lifetime.
 
 
© 2016 The Write Place at the Write Time
 

Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies.  Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian.  The Smithsonian selected her photo to represent all teens from a specific decade.

​Gender-neutral toys are seemingly so important since 2020.  So why did I lift a specific doll from a store’s shelf, feeling almost self-conscious that I preferred this item for a granddaughter?
 
Stuffed puppies squat next to her crib, near a wind-up toy making music to aid sleep.  But I so wanted to purchase an old-fashioned doll not another squishy item.
 
Should this very first doll be cuddly or stiff, flexible composition or porcelain, baby or child?  Some of her relationship to the personal world of her imagination and self-play could develop with and because of her dolls.  My choice could be part of the first step on that path.
 
Might she eventually want to mimic the doll’s expression, hairstyle, or even the clothing? What was seemingly a pleasure-purchase became pressure.  A nearby toy, regal in red velvet holding a fur muff caught my attention; it was the costume.  On the glass shelf below was one with a wholesome face, the body clad in a velour top and denim jeans;  a white wool scarf swept around her shoulders. 
 
What doll could be part of a private arena that would enlarge as she grew?  Should I look for familiar clothing she’ll see in her specific climate region?
 
Identification.  Hm. A key word.  Bottom shelf had a wide-eyed doll sitting cross-legged.  Her pale corduroy overalls were similar to items I'd mailed.  'Silly,' I talked to myself.  'Too clean.  What was wrong with that.'  Corduroy overalls, I remembered from my own child-raising years, were "play" clothes.  Often covered with rug lint, cookie crumbs, droplets of milk, stains from liquid vitamins, they looked unwrinkled only when taken from fragile tissue paper before ever being worn.
 
I moved to another section of glass shelving noticing droplets of dust clinging to the surface. Long-braided, carrying a flower basket, a doll in an ankle length pinafore stirred memories of my older sister's braids that schoolboys used to pull and yell 'ding-dong' as if each pigtail were a bell pull.  Thick-haired fashion dolls in bright red lipstick but wearing what resembled christening dresses appeared incongruous.    
 
A bisque figurine covered in a satin-and-lace-hooped evening gown caused me to pick her up.  My wedding gown had a double hoop, and the diameter of the nuptial skirt was as wide as the aisle space between pews.  My daughter's bridal dress had a chapel length train extending from a slim gown without gathers or flare.  Times change.  A cliche.  Not trite, however.  Hoops were obsolete for my sons' wives as well, and best left for Scarlett O'Hara.
 
Seems the clothing either attracted or rebuffed, as did excessively painted lips and adult hairstyles.  How shall I select?  Snow White's 'Mirror Mirror on the wall' began to run through my head.  Mirror, Mirror.  Yes.  Back to identification.  I saw it:  a infant-doll with huge blue eyes, no eyelashes, flaxen hair. Barely perceptible eyebrows were straight. This nose had no definition except for the tip where rounded nostrils formed.  The upper lip, thin pointed and light pink, showed a fuller lower lip close to a rounded chin.  Cheeks, pushed out further than eyes, were so like the fat pads on my granddaughter’s, and I was pulled by a certain pouty expression just like her mother had as a young child .... a "mirror". 
 
It was no longer important if the arms moved, or how the body was connected.  This face reflected my granddaughter’s face, her mother's, and probably my own at one time, would share the child’s bed, pretend tea parties, rocking chair hugs, and life.  A composition-form toy might be both a first and special companion for her. Perhaps when she scolds or praises this doll, she'll be talking to herself.
 
As the cashier accepted my credit card, its sound jolted me back to reality.  I looked down at the payment station to focus on the doll, then signed the sales receipt.  Now, removed from surfaces adorned with other toys, how did I feel about her?  Perfect.