Trying to get a grip

Celebrating two years in The Yellow House, we're determined to get a grip on all these unpacked book boxes that still surround us. First step: Assemble an el-cheapo bookcase that has also been living in a box. It's the kind of task that would have taken JT about fifteen minutes in the old days when his hands were predictable. But now, for such a task, he needs an apprentice to carry out instructions -- ideally, one who's handy with tools, but you just can't get good help these days.

Yes, I'm the apprentice who is...let's not say klutzy; let's just say inexperienced. My apprentice sessions in the six years since JT came home from the hospital have taught me, among other things: (1) Pounding a nail with a hammer is not as easy as it looks. (2) Holding a pair of pliers requires more than a pair of hands. (3) At first, it's intimidating to use what's called a vise grip -- pictured above -- but with courage and fortitude, you can learn it's the nifty tool it was designed to be.

Using the vise grip again in the past week took me back to some old sketchbooks.

In my first day in Vise Grip 101 in 2009, the little gizmo snapped unpredictably, pinched my fingers, and wouldn't let go of things when I wanted it to. It was almost scary and afterwards, I had to unwind by making a therapeutic drawing:--

Even more therapeutic were the following day's sketchy "morph drawings". I'd read about this fun project in a drawing book--: Draw something "real." Then morph its shape into something else. Here's the vise grip in three quick reincarnations as a crow, a circus performer, and a dog sled:

I was cheating a bit...being so stressed and all...because you're supposed to morph the original drawing in stages, as I'd done some years before, starting with my sewing scissors:

....which, in a few steps, morphed into a hummingbird:

A year or so later, I happened to re-read the instructions and saw I'd also cheated a bit with "Scissors into Hummingbird". You're supposed to draw the changes step-by-step to show specifically how the shapes would have to change -- as if you were engineering the project in some kind of alternate universe.

Okay. So my third attempt was to morph our pepper mill into a pair of glasses. Here's the starting point:

Then, Steps 1-3, as shown below: Move the centre screw to the edge; flatten the screw and the handle grip and reorient the turning mechanism to face down; collapse the bottom of the mill into flat discs.

Next, in Steps 4-6, collapse the discs further into three sections, shrink the middle disc, and open the three discs in a flat plane as shown here:

Then, in Steps 7-9, push the left disc open and pull up the inner circle of the right disc; elongate the lifted "circle" to match the left side; and finally...ta tum!...add prescription lenses.

Why, it's a Lens Grinder!

Did you find this stress-relieving or stress-inducing?  Maybe you wondered if "vise" was spelled correctly?  www.askoxford.com confirmed my choice for "S" -- at least for my 'murican readers.  Or maybe it was stressful to contemplate the point of this whole morph exercise.  I think it has to do with (1) Visualizing shapes and their interaction; and (2) Having fun doodling with a pencil.

In any case, for an ultimate stress reliever, let's see what this handy implement might morph into:--

I've been framed

Among the possessions I have from my mother is a lovely wall mirror with carved wooden frame. It seemed always to have been part of our home, and it wasn't until I was a teenager that I thought to ask about its origins. My mother had bought it at an antique sale when we'd lived in northern New York state in the early 1950s. "I bought it for the frame," she explained. "It had some non-descript painting that I threw out, and then I had a mirror cut to fit it."

Non-descript painting? Oh, how I wished I'd seen it! "Oh, it was just a dreary countryside," she said. Recently I've read that even our obscure part of New York state attracted a share of aristocrats fleeing the French Revolution -- until they learned just how cold the winters could be and high-tailed it elsewhere! Might one of them have brought along and then left behind............?

Oh, seriously. Let's forget the possibilities of lost Rembrandts and Old-Masters-Found-in-a-Barn and just enjoy the frame, as my mother did:

After all, it isn't the first time a frame has been worth more than its contents. The very same thing has happened to me.

Just a year ago, I wrote about the fun I had creating an iridescent bubble-themed card for a work-buddy who was then following me into retirement. My card honoured the special place she has in my workplace memories for the time she cheerfully set things aright when I'd created a veritable flood of bubbles by using the wrong detergent in the dishwasher.

Some time in the year we shared an office, she'd mentioned that her Significant Other was a bit of a packrat (placing him high in my estimation) and, among other things, had a basement full of picture frames of every possible description. So it was not entirely incomprehensible to open her recent email attachment and find my modest 4"x12" card now flawlessly installed in its own glossy wooden frame:

Pretty cool, eh? -- even if friend and her S.O. can't quite agree where to hang it. (I'm with her -- definitely belongs right over her dishwasher!)

Next to my mother's mirror, my own best frame is the one I covered with elegant wasp paper, in all its grey-gold-silver marbled glory. From time to time, I consider what I might paint that could possibly be good enough to be placed in this beautiful frame.