Feb 23, 04:50 pm
#8- MINE - THE VANISHING - my town
I never imagined that I would pay homage to my town because afterall, I despised growing up there. No, scratch that – I despised being a teenager there. It was small. the only restaurants were Sizzler – probably the first one in California, and an A&W which I worked at (and got fired for giving cute boys free food) as a teenager.
But the town was lovely – full of orange groves and houses with space between them. Ours had five acres and a zillion walnut trees and grass that grew up to our chests, which we would crawl through playing marco polo.
I was one of the few kids who grew up in a town with all of my aunts and uncles, my cousins and my grandparents, and though my childhood DID suck, I had a lot of fun being in the wide open land, with a mountain as my backyard. There were no fences between the houses and the Jarman’s next door wouldn’t flip out if we ran across their lawn to take a shortcut to the creek.
The town now looks like mini Orange County. Gone are the orange trees and the walnut trees on our land. In fact, there are now 5 houses on the 5 acres where our house was. Tract homes have taken over all of the open spaces.
There is a McDonald’s, a ROSS, and a Starbucks.
My Grandma and some aunts and cousins still live there, and when I go to visit, it doesn’t feel like going home.
It downright ticks me off. LOL.
So this is me in a tree on our prroperty when I was about 5. And I think I am discovering a collage style that feels like “me” finally! I have only been doing collage for a few months, exploring techniques… The title is from an actual paper I wrote in 2nd grade called “the vanishing teacher” LOL – and a vintage map of California and some other old schoolwork of mine and Daisy D’s PP.
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