Valentine's Day, Gerri and the Alcoa Building

Photo by Katy Buchanan
I don't have a photo of the Alcoa Building in my archives, but, in the spirit of Pittsburgh's mid-century renaissance, here's one of Gateway Plaza, with the Gateway 2 & 3 buildings in the background,

I took an acquaintance out for coffee on Valentine's Day.

She's 90 and has never driven. We met several years ago when I volunteered for Mt. Lebanon Village, part of a larger volunteer organization. We ran into each other at the grocery store a couple of weeks ago.

She's a nice lady, walks with a cane due to arthritis yet still gets out to do grocery shopping and lunch with other members of the group.

I remembered from our conversations of several years ago that she worked as an artist/designer for Gulf Oil and later Alcoa, back when Alcoa had just moved in to its digs in the-then new building bordering Mellon Square in Downtown Pittsburgh. (It's apartments now.)

She had such an interesting career, working for those companies designing brochures, creating messages.

She told me that when the Alcoa Building opened, one of the major innovations was that the windows opened from side to side (interiorly), not up and down, so that they could be cleaned without benefit of exterior window washers. And in some of the top-tier executive suites, the paneling was of Philippine mahogany.

It all sounded very "Mad Men." In the end, though, she was a woman who worked, cared for her son and lived the day-to-day.

And she still gets out and enjoys life.

That was a nice Valentine's Day get-together.

Cat who won't sit on my lap.

Photo by Katy Buchanan

Look at you,

you elegant cat

who won’t wear a collar

or sit on my lap.

I recall the day

that you came to stay

you were so very small, and so very tabby

Your name was Bob Jones and

who names a cat that?

(Seriously?)

Anyway, does it matter?

I think it does not.

Because, Jones, you know

you will

never,

ever

sit on my lap.

Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat! (Again? That trick never works!)

Photo by Carol Treat Morton
Artwork by Olle Eksell

Our story begins in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota. 

(Had to get that Rocky and Bullwinkle nod out of the way.) 

I’ve been driving up to Elyria every couple of weeks since about May 2019, helping Mom declutter her huge ranch to get it ready for sale. She’s in good health, but taking care of a big house and a large piece of property (with a pool) is way past getting to be way too much.

My parents bought the place in 1971, so there are decades worth of stuff to sort, save and clear out. It’s a cool home, and my well-traveled parents filled it with an eclectic collection of art and furniture, heavy on the MCM influence.

One recent Sunday, our plans to tackle the attic were stymied, so we went into the office, which we’ve been working on bit by bit, and pulled a bunch of file folders to go through.  Dad was a fanatic about keeping receipts for everything, (and keeping lots of other stuff, too) and I think this habit rubbed off on Mom.

We get to the last folder, pix of antiques, records of art purchased, jewelry appraisals, etc. As we’re tossing and saving, an envelope with a brochure and a business card slips out.

The brochure was tucked in the folded over envelope. It came from a shop in tiny Patagonia, AZ, which Mom visited on a birding trip in 2006. The shop had some weavings by Joe Montell, and she was instantly struck by one similar to the one below, which was pictured in the brochure. It looks like the artist’s name is woven in red.

It was a very large work, and the price was $3,000. Though she could afford it, she thought it was just too much money, but was tempted enough to have the shop send her along the artist’s brochure. She never bought the weaving.

Flash back to October 2019. Good friend Carol Morton hosted BFFs and me for the Detroit Free Press 13.1 marathon. In her new home. With a cool shower curtain (at the very top of this post) that we both really believed had to be by whoever drew the Rocky & Bullwinkle series. A quick Google search didn't retrieve any results except for a vague reference to the animation being outsourced to Mexico and, since we had a lot of talking, walking and beveraging to do, we let it drop.

Now back to November 2019 with Mom. The brochure cover art and the typography immediately caught my eye, just because I love so many MCM things. I opened it and started to read the “about the artist” blurb. Imagine my surprise when I came to this sentence:

So this guy, Joe Montell, did Rocky and Bullwinkle! In Mexico. And Mom could have bought one of his tapestries!

What a bit of serendipity! (And I'm sure the Rocky and Bullwinkle writers would appreciate this, too. But that's a post for another day.)

And the shower curtain design was by this artist, Olle Eksell. How his style and Joe Montell's were so similiar is another mystery.

Anyway.

Mr. Montell passed away in 2007 and he had a great career in art, as an animator and textile artist.

Links below are about him. I think it's just fascinating how our lives work out. Thank you, Joe. (And thank you Mom, and thank you Carol.)

https://yowpyowp.blogspot.com/2011/01/a-part-of-life-of-joe-montell.html

http://artofjayward.blogspot.com/

Harper Lee's "Furious Hours"

I’ve just finished “Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee,” by Casey Cep.

It’s part murder mystery, part journalism, part biography and very well-researched.

The title takes its name from a reference to the Battle at Horseshoe Bend, between the forces of Gen. Andrew Jackson and some members of the Creek Indian tribe in what was then Mississippi, but is now Alabama, in 1814. (Harper Lee mentioned this in a lecture about someone else who would be interesting to read about, 19th century Alabama historian Albert Pickett.)

The book is about Harper Lee’s attempts to complete a second book (not counting “Go Set a Watchman,” which was the base on which “To Kill A Mockingbird,” was built.)

She came upon the tale of the apparent serial killer Rev. Willie Maxwell by cocktail party chance, and spent an amazing amount of time (years and years) trying to bring his story, the story of his victims, of his lawyer and of his murderer to life, but in the end, could not. In good part because the lives of black Americans in the South were not documented. Unless they were lynched.

Casey Cep has done a great job of examining why writers write, how they write, and, how, sometimes, they cannot (lack of good and supportive editors being a one reason).

In the end, “Furious Hours” seems to me more apt in referring to the time spent honing “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Trying to bring the story of the Rev. Willie Maxwell, Tom Radney and Robert Burns, seemed more of a slow boil of frustration. I suppose in that sense, it was the last trial of Harper Lee, daughter of a small-town lawyer.

Good book, well written and, again, very well-researched. A Borzoi Book published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2019.

Doors open

Kate in Boston, 2015, visiting Heidi.
(Photo by Heidi Pervin Yamaguchi)

Lunch time in the cafeteria at a suburban Maryland Catholic elementary school (Holy Cross in Garrett Park) where I landed in in 7th grade. Another stop in the bouncing around life of an Army brat (I didn't know that was what I was called until much later) and second U.S. school after three years in France.

At this school, I remember being best friends with Patti Miller, and listening to Sister Mary Paul rant about the Congo. (So, yeah, late 60s.)

Back to lunch time. I'm sitting at a table when schoolmate Sally S., kid of a big Catholic family, squeezes her right hand around the back of my neck. Hard. I don't really remember being bullied, just this one incident. Maybe there was more going on, because I also remember being fed up, so I reached back with my right hand and dug my fingernails onto her grasping claw. That ended it. I was a small person then; I'm sure Sally was too. In memory, she is sallow, with a severe pageboy haircut and a nasty sneer. Perhaps I'm piling on.

I guess I went through a door that day. Not to being a  bravesuperwonderfulstrong  person for the rest of my life. But to being someone who, for a moment, had had enough.

Other doors have opened in my life, thankfully not by Sally's method.

Starting at a new school in France, par example, led me to another best friend, Evelyne Eon (I had a lot of one-year BFs). We called each other "petite" as we ran around the playground holding hands. I remember her fondly. Our little-girl friendship made the constant upheaval of Army life bearable, if only for a while.

At Ohio State, karate lessons opened the door to a lifelong friendship with Heidi Pervin Yamaguchi. You know how some memories are seared in your brain?  I remember a late spring night in Columbus, sitting on a curb along High Street in North Campus with Heidi, just talking. Nothing pressing, just the murmurs of two young women sharing time before we became grownups with responsibilities. Brain may have trimmed this memory over the years, but I love it nonetheless.

I am so lucky to have made good friends during my life. And some of them are not even flesh and blood.

I love the girls of this last group because they all went through doors, too. And more valiantly than me. They are, as my earliest through-the-door friend exclaimed, "Curiouser and curiouser!"

So, you might guess that my first valiant girlfriend is Alice. I do not recall the first time I read "Alice in Wonderland." It might even have been read to me by Mom or Grammio. Whatever the provenance of the story in my brain, I love that Alice embraced the absurdity that came her way. Falling down a rabbit hole? What a perfect time for a nap! Land in a heap of twigs in a long hall with many doors? Then eat cakes or drink beverages as instructed! Believe impossible things? Why not!

“There’s no use trying,” said Alice, “one can’t believe impossible things.” 

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. 

“When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day.
Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

My second valiant girlfriend is Lucy Pevensie, whose tumble through a wardrobe door during the Blitz starts her adventures in Narnia with Edmund, Peter and Susan. Lucy is special. Her siblings doubt her when she returns to Spare Oom. Edmund bullies and betrays her, yet she never gives up on her new friend, Mr. Tumnus, on her new adventure, or even on Edmund. Throughout the chronicles of Narnia, she is loyal, brave and forgiving. My dad's mother bought all seven of the books for us seven grandchildren and, at least at the beginning, read them to us. I was first, so I got "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe," in which Lucy's story begins.

My third valiant girlfriend is Coraline Jones. Neil Gaiman's heroine, knocking about in a creaky, high-ceilinged old house, discovers a door that leads to her "other" mother. All will be well. Except, when it isn't. Coraline realizes that buttons for eyes mean blinding yourself. For her, it turns out that distracted real Mom and real Dad, are, though imperfect, better than other.

I check in with these valiant girls often. But the door always swings back to reality and my true BFFs. You know who you are. Lots of love.

Pool

The Buchanan family pool.
(Photo by Katy Buchanan)

I have splashed through my last laps at home.

My family has inhabited this space for 48 years and it is past time to go. The pool won't be open next year.

So many good memories of parents, siblings, schoolmates, neighbors, nephews, in-laws and friends enjoying this space.

My dad used to swim laps in this pool. So did my mom.

I remember, after coming back home from college, skinny-dipping with friends early in the morning and sharing champagne and strawberries with sour cream and brown sugar.

The pool was part of the scenery and of the reception on my wedding day.

The service for my late brother Chris was held on the deck that he used to power wash.

My late brother Peter fearlessly bounced off the long-gone diving board. (I don't remember using the board, but I do remember doing racing dives off the deep end. Mom was a fanatic about all us kids knowing how to swim.)

There were noodles, inflatables, water guns and lots of hilarity. And so much time spent just sitting on the deck and talking into the evening, the underwater light keeping dusk away.

Originally, there was a wrought iron fence surrounding the pool. I remember spending a high school summer stripping the white paint off of it. A few years later, my parents had the fence taken down and the pool refurbished. It still has the pretty blue tiles from that remodel circling under the coping.

My nephews as recently as this summer came to visit and, in between gaming and practicing guitar, dove in with the casual exuberance of very young men.

The water was cold on Sunday, but the sun was shining. After about 45 minutes, I got out and, even though I had slathered on sunblock, was still a bit sunburned.

The best thing about swimming is that it really gets your heart rate up. You can feel its benefits throughout the day. And you'll sleep well, too.

Thanks for the memories, pool.

Art appreciation

"Era of Cool" show at the Westmoreland.  Art by John Van Hamersveld.
August 17, 2019. (Photo by Katy Buchanan)

I can't draw. I can doodle, and scribble and do good design. I've even thrown a few nice pots in my time. I'm fine with that.

And yet ... besides wishing that I could sing, I wish, I wish my brain was built for the super-driven creativity and exultation of purpose on display in "Era of Cool,"  now at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art.

I'm more of a dilettante. I love learning new things, that's my passion and my weird discipline, I guess. Still, when I see cool art like this, I feel on the outside looking in. Why doesn't my brain work this way? I want it to, but ...

Blah, blah. Anyway. This art speaks to me because it is referential, not realistic. That sense of representation is why I love the Impressionists. They took reality and beautifully reduced it to shape and color. This is not to say I don't love the work of painters like Caravaggio or Vermeer. Their art is stunning and sends you deep into pondering the stories of the people they painted. But the artists who can strip off detail and take reality down to its essentials, I don't know why, but their work really does it for me.

In the 1960s, John Van Hamersveld used a photo of surfers, reduced it to its bones and made a poster for the movie Endless Summer that is just as stunning today as it was then. The yellow sun at the center draws you in, and you can see how the surfers converge toward it, chasing the light and the wave.

I had some 90 minutes to see the exhibit on Saturday, which is about my max time for gallery wandering. Admission is free. Plus, I got to see a painting by one of my favorite American artists, Milton Avery.

Here is my Endless Summer image.
Taken at Dormont Pool in Pittsburgh, around 5 p.m.
August 19, 2019. (Photo by Katy Buchanan)