Adventures in Carpentry

Here we go---yet another shot at understanding the wonderful world of textiles. You probably have all figured out by now that I don't know very much about this sort of thing. There was a lot of quilting going on in my family when I was a little guy, and all the womenfolk in the family sewed, but that's the norm if you're from rural North Georgia. Add that to the fact that I possess a certain seniority on life, and have actually watched several of my aunts sewing on leftover 19th century treadle machines to make utilitarian garments intended to be worn by assorted nieces and nephews, and you can figure that I know a little, but only a little, about the kind of stuff that Jenny does. With that said, I won't go so far as to say that I'm baffled by any of the hobby, but I must admit to the occasional bout of confusion.

That brings us to the subject of this little tome; A New Experience in Fabric Painting. Jenny paints fabric for a hobby, and sometimes for sale. She's good at it, and she does some neat stuff. People sometimes pay her for her work. I painted some fabric once, when I was in second, or maybe third, grade. I was not paid for the results of that particular escapade, but I digress. We aren't talking about me---we're talking about Jenny or, more specifically, about painting fabric.

My somewhat curtailed career as a fabric painter involved the creation of an artistic work while the material was resident on the person of one of my friends. It was not, even then, an effective way to get the job done. Jenny took a somewhat more rational approach to the topic and asked for the creation of a couple of painting tables. Painting tables, huh? No big deal, right? I've had artsy friends most of my life, and a lot of them were painters. Some of those easels are pretty big, so this must be the same sort of thing. Well, maybe not. It turns out there are a couple of different kinds of painting tables; open and closed (or at least that's what I'm calling them---I'll bet they have real names but I don't know what they are). I was told that a couple of tables were needed, and the back yard would be a fine place for them to live. OK, sounds fine to me. I'll call my son, the carpenter, and he'll make a couple of all-weather fabric painting tables. No sweat, GI! 

Patrick came over. Jenny and Patrick designed the tables, and Patrick built them. They are well crafted, and substantial, and BIG. The one that I'm going to call the covered table is four feet wide and sixteen feet long. The open one is much smaller, only four by nine feet, but there are two of that one. They don't crowd the back yard much, because the back yard is really big, but they're large enough to be a hazard to navigation during lawn-cutting season. They do seem to be multifunctional---the labs have taken to using them for shelter on warm days. (This is Texas. We have warm days in March. And February. And every other month of the year. Don't tell the Global Warming folks.) Birds seem to like them. Airplanes and helicopters flying over Texas hill country are using them as map references. There's all that, plus a lot of people have taken to staring at them as they drive down our street. We haven't had any painting table-inspired wrecks yet but I figure it's only a matter of time before we do, what with all that rubbernecking going on. Nobody's asked what they're for, but it's bound to happen sooner or later. When it does, I'm going to tell 'em we're trying to contact space aliens with it and just wait til they see the antennas we're going to put up! Or maybe I'll tell 'em we're doing it to combat global warming, or maybe to forestall the dawn of the new ice age that's just around the corner, or maybe I'll just tell 'em we're trying to counter the ongoing threat of wooly bear caterpillers to mankind and therefore to civilization as we know it. I'll tell you how it all turns out. 

Oh, and Jenny still hasn't painted anything on the tables, though I'm sure she will some day. Ain't life grand?

   hasta bye bye,

      phil