The Manson Comes to My Studio

Gail brought Winnie, Peggy, Jean, Robert and Barb to the farm this afternoon.  They all live at the Mansion where Jon does therapy work with Red.

First they got to see the “other” Red.  They know the affectionate Red, but today they got to see the astonishing intensity of Red when he’s herding.  They were all impressed.

Then we moved into my studio.  I had cleaned up the day before and moved my table to the middle of the room.  Cool and breezy it was the perfect fall day to be drawing leaves.

Which is what we did.

Each person got a piece of fabric.  There were leaf templates I cut out of heavy paper and my box of permanent markers.

We sat around the table drawing leaves that I’ll sew into a banner to hang at the mansion.

The conversation was non-stop.  Robert made two drawings, one to take to his wife Shirley who is in a nursing home, and one for the banner.

Barb talked about how she likes to watch the men working on the new building they’re constructing at the Mansion.

Jean said she wasn’t very good at drawing but would love to do some vacuuming.  Then she blushed and put her hands in front of her face when Jon asked her if she’d rather be ironing (Jean wrote a story in the Tales From The Mansion book about ironing).

When Peggy finished her drawing, she picked up Jackie Thorne’s book of poetry and read from it.  (Jackie is teaching a poetry class at the Mansion next Wednesday).

And Winnie, who is new to the Mansion was trying to keep up with the conversation about some of the other people at the Mansion.  She still doesn’t know them all yet.

Fate and Gus kept coming into the studio and visiting.  I kept telling Fate not to climb up on everyone’s lap, but they were all enjoying her so much I stopped when Barb invited her up for kisses.

I knew I’d enjoy them coming over, but I didn’t expect to have as much fun as I did.  I loved having everyone in my studio all of us creating together, reading poetry and telling stories.

I hope we can do it again.