Clara

I am falling more and more in love with vintage cabinet cards and photos. Clara is one of the latest additions to my little "family." Once again, I can't help but wonder about her life. Was she happy? Did she marry, have children, grandchildren and grow old? Why is her photo being sold on eBay? What happened to her family? I will probably never know the answers to these questions, but, little Clara, you now have a home with me.

You may remember seeing Clara in Tree Hugger, and now I've just completed a collage sheet with her sweet, haunting face.

This week's theme for Gothic Arches is heritage. I chose an old family photo taken at a family reunion in 1936 as the basis for my arch.

My grandmother and grandfather are in the photo along with aunts and uncles. The handsome young boy on the right is my father at the age of 10. This is my heritage.

The quote is taken from Family and Politics by Letty Cottin Pegrebin, but it is well worth reading the entire quote.

If the family were a container, it would be a nest, an enduring nest, loosely woven, expansive, and open. If the family were a fruit, it would be an orange, a circle of sections, held together but separable—each segment distinct. If the family were a boat, it would be a canoe that makes no progress unless everyone paddles. If the family were a sport, it would be baseball: a long, slow, nonviolent game that is never over until the last out. If the family were a building, it would be an old but solid structure that contains human history, and appeals to those who see the carved moldings under all the plaster, the wide plank floors under the linoleum, the possibilities.