making fun, part 1: delivery

The parts of my life that get exhibited through social media and this blog are just a few select slices of a much bigger, uglier, more complex existence that would bore you if you were subjected to it.  Obviously, right?  We all know that public posts are very curated, it's just that sometimes we forget.  I'm a private person and what you see from me is very much intentional.  I keep a lot of things for just me.  

This summer, I had to go on a couple of long drives to deliver and pick up artwork and I made a conscious choice to make those trips as fun as possible.  These are moments I would often just keep for myself and not share with whoever reads this, but after the second trip and a couple of key conversations, the teacher in me couldn't help but want to share.  I just kept thinking there was a nugget of wisdom in there somewhere that might be good for one or two of you to read.  And if not, maybe just following along on a ridiculous adventure would be better for you than doomscrolling.  So...if you're interested, come with us on a little trip:

This part of the story is really cool for me.  Back in the spring, Cathryn and Elena (two current students), Katherine (former student, current colleague/peer) and I decided to enter a juried exhibit for sculpture.  Katherine found it and suggested it to us as a group.  Like most fun things, it started like, "hey, what if we all did this together?".  The exhibit was called "Metal Transformed" and all of us just happen to be metal sculptors.  Cathryn and Elena had just spent a year turning metal into amazing sculptures that replicated plants and other cool things.  Katherine has several amazing replications of objects in metal.  Shows like this can be expensive, but I kept thinking this was just a really good idea.  

We entered.  

One afternoon, the text thread started.  "Check your emails".  We did and one by one, we all announced to the chat that we got accepted.  I was astonished.  Not because their work isn't great, but because artists should expect a 90% rejection rate.  We were all excited and began planning how we were going to get our work all the way up to Norfolk, VA.  

With long distance exhibits, I usually enter things that are easily shipped.  If it's more than a couple of hours away, FedEx is cheaper than gas.  With several heavy steel sculptures to send, we quickly started planning a 7 hour road trip.  Heck, with this group, there was no doubt we would have fun.  I'm too old to drive 14 hours in 24 hours, so an overnight trip was necessary.  In May, we carefully packed and loaded our sculptures in the FJ and left my driveway at 6:00 am.

Our first order of business was delivering the artwork to D'Art Center in Norfolk.  This really cool and prestigious Art Center is part of a very cool cultural arts district in downtown Norfolk.  We were welcomed with a cart and access to the drop-off room.  

Cathryn couldn't make the trip with us, so we printed out a flat Cathryn and took her with us.

The Chrysler Museum of Art was literally across the street from the exhibition space and they had a wonderful collection and an exhibit by one of my favorite artists, Louise Nevelson.  

We took our time and saw all the art.  A little overwhelming, but great.  We asked the staff where we should eat and they directed us to a very cool restaurant a short walk away in a cool, historic building.  

We knew we were close to water and we're all suckers for a beach, so we made our way to the shoreline of the Chesapeake Bay just in time for sunset.  It was gorgeous.

We are all coffee lovers.  Coffee was a big part of our adventure.  Katherine and I ran past a COVA coffee and decided that would be our morning coffee stop after a free breakfast at the hotel.  We took flat Cathryn with us.

Here's an important note about the group dynamic:

Katherine is a planner.  She will do hours of research about a city before going.  She will make a Pinterest board, make lots of notes in her sketchbook and she will send you links to videos on YouTube.  When she goes somewhere new, she becomes an encyclopedia that the rest of her travel group can access.  

I fly by the seat of my pants.  I believe in the importance of learning about a place and even doing a little light reading about it, but I enjoy spontaneous adventures.  Katherine and I got to travel to Barcelona and Venice several years ago with a much larger group and she ended up being the Yang to my Yen.  

Elena is happy to tell you her opinion about things, but she is very much a person who will smile and go with the flow.  She says "yes" a lot and that's a perfect quality for a travel buddy.  

Cathryn was flat and basically did whatever we told her.

In this group, Katherine provides the lead and we begin by walking in that original direction but then we all get easily sidetracked by my whims and silliness and we end up having even more fun than we could have planned from home.  

During our first travel day, we experienced the joy of our group dynamic and had a lot of laughs and fun because of it.  Give us some sleep and some coffee (and a lot of bathroom stops) and we're happy as clams.  

So, of course, Katherine knew about the Norfolk Botanical Garden and when we asked everyone we talked to about what we needed to experience while we were in town, it kept coming up.  We had no plans after morning coffee, so we decided to check it out.

Turns out, we happened into a picturesque and perfect day.  

Even at the garden, we looked at maps, did a little research and then totally made it up as we went based on the perfect weather and the beauty of the place.

We literally stopped to smell the flowers.

And we took time to rest.  

Then we stopped again to smell the flowers.

Then we lost flat Cathryn.  I don't want to talk about it.  RIP.

The slow pace we took was also a testament to the great personalities in the group.  We all knew we had a 7 hour drive ahead of us, but we were in no hurry to leave.  We wanted to experience all we could while we were there.  We said yes to a lot of things, maybe everything, and we soaked it all up.

I love a side quest.  The whole day, we heard the noise of planes taking off and landing at the airport beside the Botanical Garden but we couldn't quite see them because of the berm.  After we walked the garden and had a magical grilled cheese and afternoon coffee at the garden, we just had to see what was on the other side of the berm.  Like little kids, we stood at the top, mesmerized by the planes and even waited to wave at one of the groups heading out.  It was so much fun.  

"Do y'all want to get a photo with that strange chicken statue at the gas station?"

"Of course!"

Based on billboards, North Carolina is famous for weed vapes and gummies.  Based on billboards, Virginia is famous for peanuts.  Tempted by the road signs, we decided we needed boiled peanuts on our drive home.  We followed the signs to a very cool little town and peanut shack only to find it closed at 5:00 pm.  We were bummed.  Still, we looked through the window and took a few photos.  We made a note that we would try to catch it open on our return trip.

Elena likes to color.  No story, she just likes to color.  

"Elena, have you ever been to South of the Border?"

"No, but I want to go."

"Sweet!"

*Swerves onto the exit ramp.

So we stopped at South of the Border, even though it was late and all the stores were closed.  The bathroom was open because "Pedro never sleeps" and neither does that bathroom attendant.  (Because according to billboards, South Carolina is famous for South of the Border.)  And we still got to walk around in the enchanting glow of neon lights and take photos with the critters.  

An hour or so later on the interstate, I watched as an oncoming car lost control and flipped several times through a road construction zone.  The adrenaline from that experience kept me wide awake until we made it home pretty late.  Well, that and the fact that good travel buddies always stay awake and make for good conversation.  We were tired and I'm sure all of our butts were sore from sitting in the car for so long, but we were all happy.  Happy to have our work exhibited together, happy to have experienced so many fun things together, and happy to be back in our beds at home.  

If you want to read about the return trip and get the moral of the story, you'll have to check back in when part two drops.  

1st and 2nd summer

The question came today.  “So, what are you doing with all your extra time this summer?”

It wasn’t aimed like a weapon.  Wasn’t intended to provoke.  Still, I could hear the tacit message.  “You have three months off of work.  What’s that like?”

Teachers who work on 9 month contracts get this question a lot.  Sometimes it’s not so much a question as it is an opportunity for the person on the 12 month contract to say “Must be nice!”

For the K-12 teacher, I’m sure there’s an overwhelming sense of rage hearing this question from a person who gets to take a half hour or even an hour lunch break where they can eat a meal without interruption, maybe even use the restroom.  It sorta sounds fair to allow a human to use the restroom whenever they need to for three months when you deprive them that freedom for nine months.  If you are not in the loop, K-12 teachers can’t leave students unattended by law and in the 3-5 minutes they have between each class period, they have to reset their rooms and stand in the door to greet students.  Peeing is not allowed, and you can absolutely forget about pooping until you get home.  

While that part is easy to point to as an infringement on a basic human right, the much more difficult part of the job is being “on” for 8-9 hours each day when you are around students and having zero breaks as you must continually assess and reassess the educational situation for each student in your room.  The mental and emotional toll is difficult to describe.

I teach legal adults and I do have the freedom to pee when I want to, but usually that’s a freedom I can make time for once during my educational day.  In the sculpture studio, I do have to be physically present much more than a non-studio professor so that I can supervise and monitor for safety.  There’s also so much emotional and educational surveying, assessing and adjusting that needs to be done.  I’m not sure how much time you spend with 18-22 year olds, but their emotional needs are very, very high.  And that’s if they’re good students who actually want to be there.  Heaven forbid you get one that is in a bad mood, is having relationship troubles, or just plain hates you and your class. 

College professors are bound by job requirements related to academic research.  What most students and non-professors don’t understand is that this academic research takes a LOT of time and energy.  Some professors have 1 hour class periods and they get to spend their office hours doing research and writing articles and books.  I can only assume they get to have weekends off and maybe they even enjoy a few vacations and weeks off during the summer.  

I more than meet my requirements for academic research every year because I love what I do.  For me, a studio art professor, academic research looks like making new artwork, applying for exhibits, grants and fellowships, and traveling to exhibit and research artwork.  And this is where you lose some people’s sympathy.

“It must be nice to get to draw some pretty pictures and call that research” is a statement I heard from a colleague who was completely out of touch.  If I’m honest, I wanted to say that from my perspective, it must be nice to sit in an air conditioned office and type an article and call that research.  I didn’t say that because I’m at least smart enough to understand that I don’t understand everything.  I’m sure their research is difficult.  I’m also sure they have no clue about how difficult it is to imagine, plan and create a new body of relevant artwork.  

Creative research takes a level of focus that is tough to maintain during the semester.  For many professors, this forces them to choose between teaching and creating.  Some choose to pull back from classes and focus more attention on their own work.  Others choose to prioritize their students and just make art when they can.  I take a lot of pride in my teaching and I love my students, so while I do create artwork throughout the calendar year, much of my annual creative output comes during May, June and July.  

My answer to the question about what I’m doing in the summer is typically one word, “working”.  Am I getting up at 5:00 am to run in the dark?  Heck no.  I’m definitely sleeping to at least 7:30 am and taking my time having my really good coffee and my kid’s breakfast cereal.  Am I stressing about what I’m doing that day?  Heck no, I’m cool as a cucumber and my blood pressure is low.  But let me assure you, I AM working.  

Probably harder than you.

I mean, unless you do a lot of physical labor every day.  I’m not out here competing with roofers in the summer, but I am putting in hours of physical labor along with the more difficult to measure intellectual labor, the latter of which may just keep me up in the middle of the night because my brain doesn’t want to stop thinking.  

I think I’ve made 5 new large drawings on wood since classes ended.  We did a sand sculpture competition (that would have given summer roofers a run for their physical money).  I made new work for the Summer Studio Sale.  I’ve delivered and installed public sculptures and driven 7 hours one way to drop off artwork.  I’ve been busy this summer.

In a few weeks, I’ll return to campus and I’ll pass a professor in another department in the hall or I’ll sit with them in a meeting.  They’ll smile and ask how my summer was.  I’ll smile and say it was nice.  It was.   But not because I did nothing for 3 months.  Not because I relaxed on a beach for 3 months.  Not because teaching is easy and teachers “get summers off”.  

It will have been nice because I love what I do and I’m happy when I’m teaching and I’m also happy when I’m 100% focused on making new artwork.  

Now that my Summer Studio Sale is over and much of my home has returned to its normal state, I plan to enjoy my 2nd summer.  1st summer is the last half of May and most of June.  That’s when most of the new artwork was created.  Then it takes a few weeks to prepare for and to host the Studio Sale.  With that behind me, I can once again focus on making new drawings and planning a new outdoor sculpture.  I have to make that 7 hour drive a couple more times to pick up artwork and I also have a couple of solo exhibits I need to submit proposals and information for.  All of that needs to happen during 2nd summer, before classes begin in mid-August.  

Compartmentalization is one of my superpowers but I’d be lying if I left you to believe that I don’t think about school during the summer.  There’s honestly not a day that passes when I don’t think about upcoming projects and opportunities for students.  I’ve already been ordering materials for projects and planning when two of my students are going to be working on a commission.  I’m teaching 2D Design again this fall so I’ve been thinking about how I will meet the incoming freshmen where they are without scaring them away.  I’ve also been thinking about the students I haven’t quite cracked open yet.  Is there still time?  Do I still have hope?  How much effort will I be able to give them beyond the baseline?  Can I put Tony the Tiger in my new drawing?  Will the neighborhood black bear eat me on one of my runs?  Can I get up the nerve to ask that person if they will model for a drawing?  Why is this hawk walking around on the ground digging?  Sorry.  There’s a lot going on.  

the summer studio sale !!!!!!!!!

It's time for the Summer Studio Sale!  The one day of the year you are actually invited to my house.

Saturday, July 18 you'll be able to tour my drawing and sculpture studios and purchase super cool artwork at super affordable prices.  This year I have more amazing guest artists with work for sale.  Here's everything you need to know:

Most Importantly...

Yes, you should come.  Don't know me that well?  Not sure if its for you?  Don't have a ton of money to spend?  Come!  We would love to see you, talk to you, and there are things for every budget!

The location.

6815 Hwy 49 Laurens, SC 29360, it's probably about an hour from everywhere but well worth the drive.

The date and time.

Saturday, July 18, 10am to 5pm

The goods.

Drawings, sculptures, and wearable art will be available from me.  Other guest artists will be here too.  Cool garden art will be available from my friend Leroy Perkins.  You have to see it all.  I'll also have all your favorite butt drawings at ridiculously low prices.  Seriously, we'll have all the stuff you can't live without!

The prices.

There will be art priced from $2 up to the hundreds.  There's no gallery commission here, so this is as cheap as you'll ever see it.  Something for every budget!

The payment.

Venmo and cash are your best friends.  We take debit and credit cards but The Man wants to take a cut.  We prefer to take cash from everyone.  We accept Venmo to @doug-mcabee-2.  We can also accept Paypal through the "send money" option to georgiedmac@aol.com but again....cash is best.

The food.

We'll have complementary snacks and drinks worthy of the drive.  Sweets, drinks, and all sorts of great goodies.  These will go fast!

The internet.

If you can't make the drive, you may make internet purchases beginning at 10am on July 26.  There will be very limited items listed here for online shopping this year.  If there's something specific you want, message me directly.  Shoppers who show up may have a head start on the good stuff, so please text, DM on Instagram, email, or call me to be sure the item you want is still available.  You must pay by Venmo or Paypal at the time of the purchase.  Venmo to @doug-mcabee-2.  Paypal payment can be made by using the "send money" option, not "goods and services" to georgiedmac@aol.com or you can email me and we can send you an invoice by email with Paypal link for payment.  Please add the shipping cost to the price when you pay.  If you don't pay shipping, arrange to pick up your item.  Online shopping happens here on this post below.  (Preview online below as updated photos appear.  I'll update this post with photos and prices in the coming days.)

*Shipping will vary based on size and weight.  If you need your purchases shipped, please contact me by text or email before purchasing.

Online shopping begins at 10am, Saturday, July 18.  Some of the items below may be sold on site by the time I receive your message.  (I refuse to be rude and look at my phone while talking to an actual human.)  It's best to shop in person but if you have questions, let me know.

The lowdown.

If you've never made it to the sale in person, you need to come.  There will be tons more than just drawings and sculptures available, WAY MORE than you'll see below.  There will be things that you never knew existed but you can't live another day without.  Plan to take your time.  We love to chat with you and it really takes a while to see everything.  THERE'S SO MUCH STUFF TO SEE!!!!  We are 45 mins from Columbia, 45 mins from Greenwood, 30 mins from Greenville and 30 mins from Spartanburg.

Come on, you know you've always wanted to come to Laurens.  Here's your chance.  Let me know if you have any questions.

ONLINE SHOPPING:

New this year, we are only offering a few online shopping options.  These are relatively easy to ship.  We'll be happy to sell you something larger and more expensive online, just contact me for that.  Here's what you can easily get online this year:

3" stickers, $2 each

ghost, pb&j, olivia, taylor, 6"x6", $25 each

mr. potatobutt, frog, surfers, bruised butt, 6"x6", $25 each

mermaid, sunbather, pickle, italian model, 6"x6", $25 each

walmart shopper, cinderella, pat + bob, selfie, 6"x6", $25 each

runner, marble, banana, biker, 6"x6", $25 each

hula hoop, deer, tinkerbelle, beach mom, 6"x6", $25 each

grinch, monstera, cat, valentine, 6"x6", $25 each

hannuka, bad santa, thong santa, fitness wedgie, 6"x6", $25 each

felix, butter, forever 18, ice chest crack, 6"x6", $25 each

chicken butt, kermit, sabrina, santorini, 6"x6", $25 each

white shorts, beach butt, half moon, calder, 6"x6", $25 each

sabrina ladder, big frog little crack, bathroom selfie, fashion butt, 6"x6" + 6"x5", $25 each

art museum butt 6"x3" $20, wading butt 6"x3" $20, starfish bootie 6"x5", $25

"That's Everything" 9"x8.5" ink on wood 2024

$150

"What's It To You?" 4"x6.5" ink on wood 2023

$150

"Taste Our Paste" 7"x11" ink on wood 2024

$150

ufo, t-rex, 9"x12" canvas, $25 each

narwhal, badass ghost, 12"x16" canvas, $40 each

coffee, sexy, snake, water, lumpy bird, giraffe, 9"x12" canvas, $25 each

fine ghost, sunshine, that bird, heart, bee, eye, 9"x12" canvas, $25 each

"Why You Gotta Be Like That?" 9.5"x7.5" ink on wood

$125

probably about to offend you

It was a hot July morning in 1976.  Mom was already at work and my dad had decided it was time for all living beings to be awake in our house.  He was pretty fond of waking us up by 9:00 am just because he thought it was bad for people to “lay around the house all day”.  My brothers and I were gruntled at having to get up at such an ungodly hour in the summer, but luckily, there was solace at the kitchen table.  

The bright colors and fun characters from Post, Kellogs, Quaker Oats and General Mills were there to cheer me up and to get my day started with a bolt of sugar.  I would eat my cereal while studying the back of the cereal box.  While I took in my sugar, I also took in the latest adventures of Cap’n Crunch.  I mean, if I didn’t help him get through the maze, he might never get his Crunch Berries back.  

Yes, I am grateful that my parents bought us “sugar cereals” when we were kids and I’m happy to tell you why.

First of all, and please forgive me for this painful honesty, you can always tell the people who didn’t eat sugar cereals when they were kids.  With some notable exceptions, they came from parents who were a little too conscientious and were probably the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s versions of parents who believed everything they read on Facebook.  Maybe there were granola parents.  Maybe they had time to be home and cook a natural and organic breakfast for their spawn every day.  Many, though, just heard that sugar cereals were the devil and they ran with that.  All most likely underestimated the pop culture education their kids would miss by not knowing the story of those darn kids always trying to get their hands on Lucky’s charms or the Trix rabbit always trying to get his hands on the kids’ sugar cereal.  Silly rabbit.

More importantly and more seriously, I’m happy that I had the visual influence of sugary cereals in my early childhood development.  Cap’n Crunch and his brightly colored Crunch Berries took me on seafaring adventures on the color filled back of the cardboard cereal box.  Super Sugar Crisp’s Sugar Bear, who from adulthood looks a lot like a smooth talking cereal pimp from movie, showed me how to be cool by not stressing about things.  

There at the kitchen table, my blood sugar levels spiked as my eyes feasted on the sugary sweetness of bright colors, bold imagery and cartoon narratives about good and evil.  I really don’t even have to squint my eyes very hard to see the similarities between that sentence and my latest artist statement.  

I’m basically a human hummingbird so it’s no secret that I love sugar and sweet things.  In recent years, I’ve come to associate bright rainbow colors as the visual equivalent of sugar, especially when it comes to my artwork.  Those bright colors come from white light and light is associated with the birth of our Universe.  You can interpret that religiously or spiritually if you ascribe to such beliefs or you can take it at face value.  Our solar system star provides exactly the right amount of light and temperature for life to exist on our planet.  Everything we are able to see is because of how our eyes perceive that light.  Light is life.  I like to further extrapolate that into light being a symbol of joy, happiness and hope.  

Joy, happiness and hope...those were all there at the breakfast table with sugary cereals.  None of this was serious and all of it was whimsy.  This was the last place that magic and silliness could tickle our tastebuds before we headed out into the real world, a place with no leprechauns, no talking Sugar Bears and no good Cap'ns working hard to bring the freshest Crunch Berries to our tables.  The actual treasure inside those "specially marked boxes" was the secret to a happy life.  Don't take things so seriously.  Life can be fun and silly and magical if you're willing to look for those things.  

As a student of design, I know that those cereal boxes were intentionally using bright colors and cartoon mascots to appeal to kids like me hanging on the back of the metal buggy in the local grocery store.  As the wonky wheel squeaked down the cereal aisle, I would cast my eyes over the sea of color and happiness stacked on each shelf and my mouth would water as I begged my mom for my flavor of the week.  

As an academic engaged in constant creative academic research, I know that those colors and those flavors influenced my visual vocabulary.  I know that I learned a particular way of storytelling by reading the back of the cereal box.  I see how that sugary sweetness flows through my color and imagery choices today as I stand over my drawing table and visualize how a cereal mascot could be the perfect way to suggest something over in that space.  

But then I wonder if the healthy kids will get the reference.  

Then I wonder if they ever knew true happiness and silliness like I did when I tore into that box of cereal after I helped my mom put up the groceries and then had cereal for dinner.

If it's been too long since you laughed, if you don't enjoy your job or if life just has you in a chokehold right now, let me suggest you take a walk down the cereal aisle and pick up a brightly colored box of artificial sweetened cereal with a fun cartoon character on it.  Enjoy a bowl while you study the back of the box and let some whimsy back into your life.  

mrs. pat vs. the patriarchy

Every kid loved and respected Mrs. Pat.

Each Sunday morning, I and every other kid less than 13 years old in my church, went to our respective Sunday School classes for 45 minutes.  These were divided up among grade levels and had small groups of 5-10 kids in each class.  After these small group lessons, all kids ages 5-12 went to “Children’s Church”.  

The adults didn’t want a bunch of antsy kids being loud and moving around during the adult worship service.  At some point, they had the great idea to create “Children’s Church” so they could have an hour of sermons and songs sans kids.  Of course, that meant that someone would need to be in charge of the kids, make sure they didn’t run out into the street and perhaps even provide some quality education for them.  Cut to Mrs. Pat.

She was a perfect mixture of silly and serious.  She had puppets, the old fashioned kind inspired by Jim Henson’s muppets and widely embraced by the Christian culture of the 1970s and 80s as a tool to reach children.  She used animated voices when she talked and every Sunday, she had an imaginative and impressive Children’s Church lesson prepared for the very large congregation of fidgety kids.  

To be an authority figure for so many, she was relatively small in stature.  She was a smaller woman, always in make-up, always in a dress and always ready to deliver a Bible lesson.  Her hair was that always perfect bouffant of the time period with a little bit of blonde always trying to turn to gray.  

Children’s Church was her domain and she ran a tight ship.  There was a schedule and routine of events that was almost military in its precision.  She had done her research and she knew exactly what kids in this age range needed in order to retain information.  She was also surgical in her behavior management.  She was a badass.

I was not always the easiest kid to manage.  Quite distinctly, I recall the first few songs and activities allowing us to move our bodies, to be loud and to have fun.  Near the end of this time, she brought the energy down noticeably and when she began to move into the listening time of the service, even I knew that it was time to be quiet.  When I would get restless or start talking to my neighbor, it only took one stern look from Mrs. Pat to shut me up.

When I think back on the years I spent in Children’s Church some 40-50 years ago, I don’t find it the least bit odd that Mrs. Pat ran things so efficiently.  What I do find odd is how she was even in charge of Children’s Church in the first place.  You see, this was a Southern Baptist Church and she, if you haven't guess it, was a woman.  (I guess you've noticed this post isn't about art or running.  I hope you'll stick around anyway.)

I’m not really even sure this is still news because it’s been a known thing in the churches I grew up in for my whole life, but the Southern Baptist Church recently had their annual meeting and said again, officially that women should be quiet in the church and definitely not have any leadership roles.  I’m not the least bit interested in your opinion about this decision.  If you’d like to discuss the theological background for such a rule, I would welcome that conversation.  I’d love to discuss with you how many Biblical scholars do not believe that Paul actually wrote half of the letters attributed to him in the New Testament and how it’s dangerous to take a single line written 1000+ years ago to a different culture and attempt to apply it literally out of it’s original context.  But that’s not why we’re here today.

When I was in the Children’s Church age range, I have vivid memories of playing in the nursery rooms across the hall from the church office while my mom kept up with the business of the church.  She was the church secretary and in addition to logging the minutes of every church business meeting, she also had other business responsibilities that helped keep the church physically afloat while I stacked blocks next door or simply played under the giant conference table in the office.  Looking back now, it’s difficult to balance how important my mom’s role was for the church and how unfit for leadership they viewed her.

We also had Mrs. Helen.  (Baptists apparently love calling a female Mrs. and then her first name.)  She took care of the younger children during the worship service times.  Mrs. Fay was in charge of Vacation Bible School each summer and did all the planning and organizing for that including the long range planning and the day-to-day planning.  Then there were the nursery workers.  God bless those longsuffering ladies!  Every Sunday they held crying, sick babies dumped off on the nursery while parents (and all the men) sat quietly in the service on the other side of the building.  

Let’s not forget the many, many women who served each Sunday as Sunday School teachers.  For kids, obviously, because how could they possibly teach men, right?  Unless the men were just young boys, then it was ok.  My mom was one of these too, teaching 5th and 6th grade girls as far back as I can remember.  Many of my Sunday School teachers were women until I made it to the teen years.  

Mrs. Pat had a daughter my age.  As my friends and I moved into our teenage years, our friendship with Mrs. Pat’s daughter allowed us an open window into her life outside of Children’s Church.  The church wanted to move to a more modern system of handling Sunday morning worship services and this meant moving Mrs. Pat out of her role.  It was easy to feel the secondhand sensitivity involved when you saw someone so dedicated and serious about her leadership role for so many years get told that she was no longer needed.  The expression I learned in church years earlier was “rode hard and put up wet” in reference to the mistreatment of work horses.  Mrs. Pat spent many years in service as a work horse for her church and was quickly cast aside when the church decided she wasn’t their future.  

She hid her hurt feelings well from us as we were socially around her house for a few years during high school.  She never said a negative word about church to us.  Still, we knew.  Just like we knew there were mixed messages in the rules of the church.  We sat through sermons about how women shouldn’t be deacons, pastors or paid staff ministers.  Then we saw women doing all the heavy lifting behind the scenes in the church.  It was no secret that any strict adherence to such a rule about women not leading in the church would reduce the number of weekly events at the church down to one.  The sermon.  There would be no music because that took the work of women on the piano (Thank you Robin.), the organ (Mrs. Peggy) and more than half the choir.  No Sunday School because men wouldn’t be caught dead corralling all those wild kids.  No covered dish lunches because, duh.  No one would get paid because even after my mom stopped being the secretary and they actually started paying someone to do it full time, she was also a woman (Mrs. Francis).  

Echo chambers are tough places to hear new voices.  When a group of boys get together and make a “no girls allowed” rule, you can kind of understand that they just want to be left alone and maybe it’s innocent enough.  When a group of adult men get together and make a “no women allowed” rule, you have to start wondering what that’s about.  If you believe that comes from a literal interpretation of something written to a middle eastern church over 1000 years ago, you should also wonder why that particular letter got voted into the approved texts and why many other letters that mentioned the important leadership roles of women did not.  And if you want to be truly objective, you have to at least consider why men would want to keep women out of these positions.  Do the men have something to gain?  Something to fear?

Just don't look for answers to those questions in your echo chamber.  You'll only get the same rhetoric and dogma that has the old stamp of approval on it.  Questions are bad in echo chambers.  Education is frowned upon.  Echos are simply the same thing repeated back again and again in systems completely built by likeminded people.  Maybe you are a very learned individual with a PHD or some other letters behind your name.  I think that's great, as long as you understand the curriculum you studied was built around a very specific interpretation of the Bible.  The professors who mentored you had to sign a covenant agreement to not speak, teach or conduct research outside of the established and approved system of beliefs.  They taught you what they were taught from the same system.  And now you believe that's the (capital T) Truth and that every other Bible scholar is wrong.  Hello! (Hello, hello, hello, hello).

If you adhere to a different flavor of Christianity, you probably think this whole topic is goofy.  I mean, didn't the church notice that Mrs. Pat had a perfectly capable husband?  Why wasn't he the one with all the God-given talent for teaching kids?  Surely Mrs. Pat wouldn't have been gifted leadership skills if she wasn't supposed to use them.  

If you lean towards being a Southern Baptist, you should know the Southern Baptist Church has a bit of an image problem that doesn’t stand up to close inspection.  And you have to wonder whose image they are currently bearing.  I have to wonder, in the end, did Mrs. Pat feel loved?  Or just used?  And after she was no longer needed, did her church even care?

come vacation with me

After our intense morning of sand sculpting for the Piccolo Spoleto Competition in Charleston on Saturday, Violet and I got in my car with full bellies and heavy eyelids and headed up highway 17 towards Garden City Beach.  With the shoveling and sculpting behind me, a week of vacation was ahead.

We arrived to meet the rest of the family at the condo just around time to eat again.  Perfect timing.  

The place we like to stay in Garden City has gorgeous back porch views of the inlet and the sunset.  For the last few years, we've made it a daily priority to try to catch the sunset over the marsh.  The weather forecast for our vacation week indicated that this might be a tough week for clear skies.  Still, we got a little color on that first evening.

Balcony coffee is better than porch coffee.  The beach makes all the difference.  I got up without an alarm and ran on the beach.  The wind was insane.  Steady 20 mph winds and gusts higher.  It didn't look like it was going to be a good beach day.

Instead of lounging in the sun all morning, we had a bundled up beach walk in the wind.

...and then we went to some of our favorite cheesy area stores.

This was sunset on Sunday.  Bummer.  But, I will admit that it was nice to have a day off from shoveling and sculpting after Saturday.  

Monday morning I got up and ran in steady rain powered by a strong wind.  It was kind of a miserable run, but it was a run on the beach and because of that, it was gorgeous.  I waited out the rain and as soon as it stopped, I went out on the beach to begin sculpting.  It was already afternoon at this point, but I was happy to be out in the sand and even happier that it stopped raining.  I hate rain.  

The family joined me on the beach and as soon as they arrived, the clouds and rain came back.  With the radar threatening heavy rain, they ditched me.  I needed to refine the skeleton arm if I was going to be proud of this one, so I just kept working as the light rain fell.  Within a few minutes, the rain stopped and the sun came out.  I was able to take my time and finish this one and I was happy with it.  

Of course, the clouds came back in time for sunset.  

The weather returned to a more normal beach pattern on Tuesday.  It got hot.  As I mentioned in the previous post, I'm not much of a planner when it comes to sand sculpture.  I just go out and do whatever seems right at the moment.  Monday's skull was still mostly there on Tuesday morning, so I just piled a bunch of sand on it and a pelican came out.  

I had a lot of beach friends come out on Monday when I finished the first sculpture.  Many were friends I made over the last few years and our beach weeks just happen to overlap each year.  Some stay in the same condo as us and some are just nearby neighbors.  Everyone was so kind all week.

  

Violet and I walked to the point after I finished the sculpture and had a nap.  This was the first day we could make it on dry sand.  

I think we just missed this one.  It was cloudy but I think we could have caught some glimpses of color but we were a few hours too late and we just couldn't skip ice cream.

Fun fact about the beach:  Everything is closed on Monday.  When it was raining on Monday morning, we tried to go to a lot of the places we like to wait out the rain.  At least three of them were closed.  One was the Tie Dyed Coffee Bean.  We wanted to support them, though, so we made time to go back on Wednesday.  Good coffee, cool vibes.  

Oh, and my brother's comic shop, Tangled Web is open in Surfside this summer.  They have a lot of cool stuff, even if you're not into comics.  They're open on Mondays.  Put it on your beach list.

Wednesday was the part of the week when we all forgot what day it was.  I decided to take it easy and work small.  The tide was eating every bit of sand I left overnight, so every day it was like starting over.  I opted to make a very small dog and in my mind it was going to be about 4 feet long, about the size of the head of the dog pictured above.  As you can see, that didn't work out and I just kept adding sand and kept adding dog.  It got huge.  This was the biggest one I made all week.  It was pretty good, though.  

I noticed people were destroying the sculptures before the tide got to them.  That's cool with me, but there was a little boy who found me the next day and reported to me that when they were out on Wednesday night as a family and saw that some little boys walked on parts of the dog.  He and his siblings rushed over and spent an hour fixing the parts that were damaged.  It was so sweet.  Of course, the next morning lots of people had jumped on it and completely leveled it, but that's part of the fun of ephemeral sculpture.  

My reward for finishing a sculpture is a cool drink and a beach nap.  This might have been the first day the whole family stayed out together for a long time.  

We did all of the regular touristy things at night.  Broadway has a new haunted book shop.  Edgar Allen Poe themed, I guess.  He was stationed at Fort Moultrie for a bit, so we claim him as our own down here.  Maybe this was Anabelle Lee?  I wasn't really paying attention.

I checked all the photo booths several times and this is the only orphaned photo I found all week. 

Cross country summer mileage began on June 1 and so did Violet's real return to running.  She's had a tough recovery from last August's hip surgery, but she's making her comeback now.  This meant I got a few extra miles during vacation week.

Violet and I got to kayak around the inlet on Thursday and during that adventure, we got a special treat.  Side story time!

There's a "pirate ship" in the inlet that takes kids and parents out on a pirate adventure.  We've never done it, but we have observed it from the water a few times on our own adventures.  They have pirate ladies who teach the kids cool pirate songs and teach them how to do pirate attacks.  They have water cannons on the sides of the ship and during the voyage, they get to attack the evil Pirate Pete.  Pirate Pete is sleeping in a small boat in the inlet (for reasons we do not know from a distance) and the pirate ship sails up and attacks Pirate Pete with water cannons.  Pirate Pete fights back with a Super Soaker but eventually lies down in his boat and "dies".

 

We were able to see Pirate Pete anchor his boat in the inlet not far from our kayak and then we saw the ship sailing in for the attack.  The pirate kids sang sea shanties and then manned the cannons for two drive by waterings.  When Pirate Pete lost, he laid down "dead" in the boat and the big ship sailed away victorious.  

As they sailed away, we watched Pirate Pete discretely remove his pirate coat.  Then he took off a rain suit.  Then we realized that Pirate Pete was not a dude.

Pirate Pete was actually a beautiful young lady in a bikini and when the pirate ship was far enough away, she pulled out her phone, relaxed and got some sun.  It was hilarious to us.  After a few minutes, Pirate Pete took a bucket and dumped the extra water out of his boat and then chugged back to port.  "He" grabbed some clothes out of a bin on the dock and by the time the big ship came back in, Pirate Pete had turned into one of the cool pirate lady hostesses and she welcomed the kids and parents back to shore.  I guess, let's just keep this between us.  I don't want Pirate Pete to get in any trouble or any kids to see behind the curtain.

We took pictures of things other than Pirate Pete.  This guy was getting fish tossed at him from a boat that returned from the ocean.

This guy was very photogenic but he didn't like us getting too close to him.

One of our traditions is that Violet and I get our favorite seafood after we kayak in the inlet.  Crab for her and the hot lobstah roll for me.  Oh my goodness it was sooo perfect.

We felt like we missed too much beach time with the early week weather, so Violet and I made plans to be back on the beach as soon as our seafood was devoured.  I decided the sand sculpture machine would be closed on Thursday.

It was very hot, but otherwise gorgeous all day.  We all got some afternoon beach time and relaxed.  

The sand though, it called to me.  I couldn't just leave it alone.  I took 5 minutes to make this little heart and it was so funny to hear how many people noticed it and loved it the next day.

We got to have dinner with my brother and his wife around sunset that night.  We finally got our sunset view.

The food was good but the view was better.

An update on the UFO house:  Blue and I have always wanted to trespass and see if we could see inside.  I've read about the interior and I really want to see it for myself.  For a few years it seemed abandoned behind a fence and locked gate.  Last year some people came in during our vacation week and stayed.  This year, the same thing happened.  Several cars appeared, they cut the grass and hung out.  No trespassing for us again this year.

Friday was our last beach day.  I took it sort of easy with this one and kept it simple.  Working fast gave me more beach chair time.

I think we've mastered the last day of vacation.  We were able to get in all the things we wanted to do and eat and still get home before midnight.

We're lucky to have a great dogsitter.  The dogs love her and this year they didn't get sick or act crazy.  We missed them, though, and it was nice to get to see them again.  

Because of the general timing of everything leading up to vacation and the schedule of events planned for the week after, I did have to break down and do some actual work on the computer.  There was some student advising issues to handle, a FedEx return label for a couple of sculptures and a few emails I had to send.  I was able to do those on a rainy morning so that was fine.  

I took a book to read, you know, with all my extra vacation time, and managed to make it through only one chapter.  I sketched a little, but mostly I made sand sculptures and rested on the beach between meals.  It was nice.  

I didn't get to surf and I'm bitter about it.  We had strong rip current and no swimming warnings for most of the week and then we had no waves.  Bummer.

At the moment, I don't have any other vacations planned for this summer.  If you'd like to take me to the beach, let me know.  I'll bring the surfboard.