If Walls could Talk

(Jan at The Prytz Family is the host for this week's Fun Monday. The subject is walls. What color are they painted? What do we have on our walls? What is special about what we choose to display?)

I've lived in two different houses since 1983. The walls are always painted Queen Anne's Lace by Porter Paints. This color provides a nice soft white canvas for whatever I"m currently interested in seeing on the walls. Over the years I've hung my own crewelwork, counted cross stitch, Kentucky watercolors, and dried flower wreaths that I made fresh for each season change.

For many years, however, I've been in a minimalist frame of mind. I don't have many things at all on the walls. When I look over my computer I can see a huge map of the world with pins in the countries I've visited. Only about a dozen--wish there were more. Over to the left of my desk I have a rather large corkboard with a month of pen and ink drawings and watercolors. I spent ten minutes on each painting and did this daily throughout the month. (Note: when I look at this monthly progression, I can say that practice does not make perfect, but it does make better!)

In the living room I have three paintings of dogs that I'm very fond of. The first is called "After the Chase" by Andrew Wyeth. I love Wyeth's paintings of dogs and this one reminds me of a great visit with a friend and the time we spent in the Brandywine Valley, touring gardens and museums. I bought this print at Wyeth's gallery as a memento of the trip.

The second painting is called "The Girl with the Dog" by Theodore Robinson. Robinson was a mid-1800s Impressionist painter. I've had this painting for years and, unlike some others, it never gets banished to the basement. I look at this painting and see the devotion shared between people and dogs. It is a feeling that I experience daily.

This is the painting that I want to look at every day. It's called "The Veteran" and was painted by Jeanne Filler Scott in 1987. I haven't been able to find out anything about this artist. My friend Kittyhawk was helping with an auction for an animal rescue group and she emailed me the photo of it saying that she thought I might be interested in bidding on it. Was I!

I had just been reading "The Places in Between". This book is an account of the young Scotsman Rory Stewart's walk across Afghanistan in January 2002 just after the fall of the Taliban. Armed only with his ability to speak Persian and his knowledge and respect for Muslim customs, he crossed the snow covered mountains, despite being told that he would surely die before the walk was done. He walked from Herat on the Iranian border east to Kabul on the Pakistan border. He claimed hospitality from poor villagers, a requirement of the Muslim religion. He slept on the floor, shared their meager food, and talked with the tribesmen.

I wanted "The Veteran" because he reminded me so much of Babur, the mastiff fighting dog that Stewart accepted from some villagers as a traveling companion. Babur, which means tiger, had never known kindness from any human. His teeth had been knocked out, his tail and ears cut off. Muslims consider dogs to be unclean animals and were kept to fight off wolves from the sheep or sport fighting with other dogs.. He was regularly stoned by village children. Babur and Stewart supported each other in dangerous, near death experiences as they crossed the mountains. The first day together, Stewart decided that he would take Babur back to Scotland.

Well, this is a bit of what my walls say about me. As soon as you can, check out other the other Fun Monday walls. I'm curious about what we'll find.

(Sorry I couldn't take photos of my walls. My camera was giving me red splashes. The photo of Stewart and Babur was taken from The Places in Between.)