Watching Over Me

I came across the word atelier while looking for another word in the dictionary. I liked atelier so much that I have been repeating it to myself all morning -- at'l - ya. The ya is a long a sound, and it is stressed, so it comes out like yeah! At'l - yeah! At'l - yeah!

It means an artist's workshop or any kind of studio that is meant for design or artistry. My kitchen is my atelier. I sit here at the kitchen table where breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner are cycled endlessly; where bills are paid; where much bread has been let to rise; where arguments have never been resolved. But in its off-hours, this kitchen nook becomes my atelier. I think of one of my favorite children's books, In the Night Kitchen, by Maurice Sendak. Everything becomes wonderfully animated and alive in the night kitchen (as long as we think no one is watching).

I sit on a sturdy chair made by Gustave and Leopold Stickley in 1910. It was bought at an estate sale belonging to the former curator of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. It had the aroma of pipe smoke when it arrived here. The wood of the wide arms is worn many shades lighter than the rest of the chair, especially the left arm -- as though this curator had placed one great hand to rest on the left side while his right hand went about the business of alternately smoking and resting (or maybe writing and resting). I believe he had great thoughts about art while sitting at home in this chair -- what to procure, what not to procure . . .

The table where I write was bought at a flea market when my children were all babies and it was finally decided that we needed someplace to set them all down for a family meal. I was told it was made from the siding of an old barn in North Carolina. It is put together with the original square nails and wooden pegs. I can only imagine what these old planks saw and heard before they became a docile kitchen table.

I look up to see my mother's unfinished oil painting of a pumpkin and apples and Indian corn from the fruit cellar of my childhood home. I had followed my mother down to the basement that day when I was a few years old. She retrieved a few things from the fruit cellar and the freezer -- her plans for dinner, most likely -- and placed them on the steps. She turned and saw a few things in the corner on the cold basement floor. She arranged them and rearranged them, tipping her head, standing back, that sort of thing. Then she got out her easel and paints and went to work. I remember being very cold. She never put her name to it because it was never finished -- or maybe she didn't like it. She gave it to me one day many years later when I was walking around the house procuring items for my first apartment. I've always wondered whether I was the reason she never finished it.

A generation hence, I've brought this painting down from the attic to grace my atelier. I'll use it as my reminder to drop everything when the vision takes me -- to capture it -- even if I never put my name to it (for whatever reason).