Let's be perfectly clear about the obvious first; I have not (to date) been a crafty person in my adult life. In fact, I have been quite critical of those who have the need to own a glue gun and gleefully use it. Today, I'm surrendering to the power of the Internet and sites that encourage such madness. I am offering up my apologies to my friend Leigh Anne because I've called her a "closet crafter" for years. I have become crafty and committed to only one form of design, but I believe I'm genetically inclined to be that way.
Considering we lived no where near Georgia, I still find myself amazed what my papaw Steve could do with a pocket knife and a peach seed. For the moment, focus on the knife and not so much the seed.
It is from his hard working hands that I think I've developed my enjoyment of cobbling out a bronze nest of turquoise eggs. Did you know my papaw Steve? Well, kick back and let me just tell you about the plum peculiar hobby of my favorite person to ever buy me a Clancy's cheeseburger. Look at our photograph. See my face? That's what pure joy looks like.
My mom's dad, Steve Turner, was a whittler by nature. He could carve fishing bait, clothes pins, and walking canes out of a stout yet cooperative piece of cedar. It is important to note he was not a public whittler, nor did he socialize and whittle. He once told me that when men whittled in a group, politics or God were bound to come up in conversation, and someone might get stuck. You need to note that "stuck" meant "stabbed." He said it just made more sense to whittle in the privacy of his own back yard, and if he got to thinkin' about politics or God, he'd just talk to the dog....or God himself. He'd start out the day whittling into the dew covered grass at his back patio swing, and by supper time, Spiffy (collie) would be lying in a fresh bed of cedar shavings right at my papaw's feet. That patio, my papaw, and the dog smelled like they had wollered in Pine Sol every night, and every morning during pretty weather, they'd go through the same process again but not on Sundays.
Papaw Steve taught me everything a girl needed to know about tools whether they be sharp or not. He taught me early that if I opened a pocket knife, I had to be the one to close it or bad luck would come. If I handed someone an open knife, I had to hold the blade and hand them the handle. Doing so prevented me from handing my knife to someone I didn't trust because they'd "stick me" and run off with my good knife. I know all the Case brand codes at the base of the blades and how to read the dots and X's. I know to clean a knife blade with oil and never water. I know that knives to be used with fishin' are supposed to be inexpensive because even the expensive ones don't float and they will end up wet one way or another. Water and knife blades don't mix well. Trust me; I know my knives.
When I got old enough to notice he had quit whittlin' on just cedar, I realized he was carving peach seeds. I never even remembered him being a big fan of eating peaches. Best I can figure, my WoWo must have made a lot of cobbler because my papaw carved every drop of the Georgia out of hundreds of peach seeds in my lifetime. His design was not the same as J. Fred Muggs from the Today Show. J. Fred Muggs was a monkey that looked a little like Curious George. My papaw's monkeys didn't look like J. Fred or Curious George. In fact, I never really thought they looked much like monkeys at all. I don't know if he ate all those peaches either. I just can't imagine him being patient enough to eat all those peaches, and I know he sure wouldn't have wasted them. My poor WoWo must have canned enough peaches to feed all of the the junction once he started this monkey business.
His intention was for folks to look at the monkey from the side. When you gazed upon the clear coated, freshly carved peach seed, you were supposed to see the profile of a humped up monkey. Its head was facing straight ahead, and its tail was wrapped under its hind quarters. Its arms were bent to the sides, and sometimes its facial features were emotional expressions. Some monkeys smiled. Some didn't. I stared at those monkeys for years, and I never saw the monkey. I saw a delicately carved peach seed, but I just never saw the monkey.
As his passion for monkey carving became more time consuming, my papaw started getting quite a barrel of little monkeys. He'd have piles of them, and after a while, the monkeys started making the trips "to town." [Do kids go "to town" anymore? Just wondering.] Papaw would load up his pockets with the usual contents: watch, knife, change purse, wallet, and a hand full of monkeys. He'd go to town to pay the light bill, pay taxes, or see Dr. Moore. At every stop, someone employed by the designated business was given a monkey, and one person even dipped her monkey in gold. Really. 14 karat gold!
Before too long, those monkeys started showing up all over Middlesboro. Dr. Moore had several. Trent Walters had a couple. Sheila Silcox from Engle's Market had one. Mamaw Gulley had a few. The list went on and on. The list of those who were given a monkey spoke volumes about my papaw's appreciation for not just character but being a character, too. He gave me several...some were even glued to cedar blocks to make them pieces of art that were free standing. There's a monkey on a log that sits right above my mom's piano right now. For the life of me, I can't tell it's a monkey.
And, now, I've reached the age where I have found my own form of whittlin', and I'm afraid folks can't tell what I'm making either.
My WoWo (Mom's mom) loved blue birds. She had several little trinkets around the house that portrayed blue birds as plump, innocent creatures of nature. You and I both know that true blue birds, or blue jays, are mean as dang it and have no mercy on any of God's creatures. There was one framed picture displayed in her kitchen that summarized her love of all blue birds. She had a photo of three little blue birds all on a branch and claimed that each blue bird represented my cousins and me...together we make three. Thank God that's still present tense.
My mother is, as a result of my WoWo's adoration for blue birds, very sentimental about blue birds. Mom is in denial that the blue jays are wicked, mean, and nasty, too. For Christmas, I tried to find Mom some sort of blue bird gift, and I didn't find a blue bird, but I found blue eggs in a bird nest. The necklace cost a fortune, and the more I looked at it, the more I thought, "I could do that cheaper." I'm one of these dangerous people who knows a little bit about a lot of stuff. I had spent enough time in a barn and in a pawn shop to know how to cobble up that nest of blue eggs on a string for Mom. I began digging through the Internet to find materials, and it didn't take me too long to find what I determined to be - maybe - appropriate.
After my dear friend, Mr. UPS, stopped by for a visit, I dug through what's left of my little tool box my dad gave me after I moved to Tazewell, and I found pliers and clippers and other necessary items for jewelry making. I nearly used up the entire spool of bronze, but after several hours of "whittlin'" I finally made one wad of wire that looked a little bit like a nest and in the center I had wrestled in one egg. I was exhausted. 'Tis pathetic yet true...worn smooth out. Every time I wiggled a wire, a darn cat would jump at it like being burst from a rocket. I had to lock myself in the bedroom to finish the work, and now the nests are made but the stupid cats have almost dug up what's left of this pitiful carpet trying to get to that wiggling wire. To create art requires sacrifice; I suppose! Now, that's funny; I don't care who you are.
Easter has come and gone and Mother's Day is approaching, and folks have decided that the little wads of wire I'm making do look like Momma Bird Nests, so they're placing orders, and I'm filling them as fast as my hands can spin bronze into the wee hours of the morning. As I sit on the corner of my bed and bite my tongue while I twist and spin that wire over, under, and through each passage, I think about my papaw and his peach seeds. I now understand that it doesn't matter if what he made looks like a "dough-ed monkey" (substitution for "d" word) or not. He liked it; other people loved it, and that combination made him happy.
I could use some big word like "cathartic" to explain why I like making bird nests, but that's way too fancy for me. I think I like the nests simply because I've finally stopped running and stopped to breathe for the first time in a long time. Time falls off the clock like water off a duck's back when I'm making nests. When I work through one nest and on to another one, I have no worries, no anxiety, and no sense of negative. I just have a little nest in my hands, and I'm making it for a Momma Bird I know and care about. Sometimes I'm making it as a gift from me or someone else, and that's even more fun because of the element of surprise.
There is no fear of me ever giving Tiffany & Co. a run for the blue boxes in jewelry design. I don't even really like to use the word jewelry to describe what I'm making. I just take 30 minutes and twist and turn metal and beads while I watch a little nest of happy form in the palms of my hands. To me, the final product looks like a bird nest.
Maybe I need to take another look at those monkeys above Mom's piano.
