Costume Party

The tall lady is in charge. Someone's holding it back, not letting it go. The boy in front is having such a good time. Looks like a sign says, "Art Gallery." I don't notice it, but I wonder if they are having a meeting. They might be planning on doing something with that piece of equipment on the left. They are walking to see something. It's a group of children in costumes having a parade down the middle of the street. They probably made their simple masks in the Art Gallery. If it is Halloween, then there will be many sections marked for coming and going. They will need to push all the cars out of the way so they can see the program. If they can't agree on things it will cause an argument. In general, they do not coordinate together in groups because they come from different schools where they are not all taught the same thing. They have different lessons; it's a free-for-all. Only two grown-ups are required to be there. There may be other grown-ups on the sidelines keeping the kids within the boundaries. It depends on how big of a town it is if they are going to an exercise program or a party. Curiosity gets the closer to what is going on. The party dwindles down to just a few. It's just one of those things. In a political parade, everyone has extra masks and appendages. There's someone on a loudspeaker running for office. Since it is as dim as it is, there are only children. No old people! It has to do with politics. They can look at children's art, have refreshments, and the politicians will meet and greet individually. Do you oversee, overseas? That's understandable. Costumes and pretenses, but children just have fun.

Gretchen, Jeanne, Mable, Alice, and Alice

Be My Friend

Brother and sister in the park holding hands, cute as they can be. I’m not sure who is saying goodbye to who, I don’t know much about youngsters these days, I just sit inside and listen to the others tell me about what is going on. Two children playing in a compound of some sort and one child has a bird that he is holding up, the other child is looking at it, and I expect that they are intrigued by this bird. It seems like it is a pet. Families have been given a place to live. The two children have come across a parrot; someone’s pet has gotten away. It is obviously quite tame. I don’t even know where the picture was made. That is all I can talk about. I can’t talk about it. They are playing ring around the rosy. This was here before. They are working full time. A place where they can play, a part that is educational and Christian-like where they are taught how to… I don’t really know what they are teaching. They are trained in a care-center. Each one has to put in his part. They are going to play. They are already playing. They are watching the parrot. I’m not used to them doing that. They are holding it. The parrot belongs to the boy with the blue shirt. There is a big floor like a gymnasium. Do any of you know of a place where they would like to have children my age? I am an unwanted child. Not necessarily. I would like to look for another home. These are two stranger or else they would be hugging. This might be a displaced person compound and the parrot is a displaced animal or bird. The children are being gentle with it. Something attached to its leg because it escaped from his home. They feel a kinsmanship with the bird, which is unusual for children this age. There is no way to know whether this bird has a vocabulary. She wants him to go somewhere he hasn’t planned to go. He may be the one doing the talking if that’s the case. They have ways to reach the destination. Is that in France? I remember when that picture came out. I’ve only killed myself. That’s all. I’ve never killed anyone else. Johnny and Kim, whatever that translates into their language. Johnny is showing Kim the bird, and they feel like they have come across a beautiful treasure. They are well-behaved, but if they go of by themselves maybe the won’t be. These are trained children. Their parent’s don’t know what they are doing. Neither one of them are crying. The parents are behind something. The parents are working in the fields. There is a caretaker of some sort watching over What one thing I could do to make them remember what I did so they won’t forget me? I wish I knew what it was. I smile. Hold hands. Don’t say anything bad. I hope they can see through me and see I want to be their friend. They are not fighting, and that is a good sign. Maybe if you went by the school and showed them those children do you suppose they might know? I don’t live here like you do; I just live here once in a while. Polly wants a cracker. If so, it is ironic, because these two children are hungry and they want a cracker, too. I bet if they had a cracker they would give it to the parrot, even though they are hungry. They look like very kind children. If the teachers are dead, it will be a good story as long as they are ready to go. If they are not ready to go and they die then it will not be too joyous. In their conversation they locate part of the things have been doing so they can do it again. And they will look for somebody, for one of the parents. Whatever they do, they will do it together. That’s the way it goes, that’s a good idea

Phil, Henry, Mabel, Gretchen, Jeanne, Ruth Ann

The Madding Crowd

A bunch of people together enjoying life, laughing and joking - it’s a carnival atmosphere on the street, with cubicles set up. It’s probably the Winter Park Spring Festival, an art show. The weather is nice and fairly warm. Maybe rain will come later.

This older guy in the front looks like he’s one of us, the way he’s dressed, the way he’s combed his hair. He must be happy for the trip, but he didn’t come from far away. He found a temporary home there in the neighborhood. He is the leader of the group. There are a lot of followers who are just as interesting.

The one with his back turned has seen something. She is a safety type of person, looking for something to prevent an accident, to prevent something from happening to the other people. I don’t know for sure where they are going. It depends on how good of friends they are, whether the others will trust her as a leader to show them where to go. That way they wouldn’t get in trouble.

This character with the blue shirt looks like a helper who tries to sell the paintings and the wares. He is only responsible for this one particular tent.

The girl with the sunglasses has her arms full of things that she has purchased already, some glassware from one of the vendors in the booth.

A sudden, heavy rainstorm, which they don’t seem to be prepared for, begins. And having participated in a hundred, a thousand outdoor art shows, they would hide in the tents, totally hiding in all the art there until the storm lessened. The artists would put plastic over their artwork. Total confusion. The crowd will thin by at least 50%. Plastic to put over paintings and sculpture, to keep their work dry, to protect the work - all outdoor artists come equipped with that stuff. If they come equipped with tents to put their work under, they are prepared.

The guy with the visor will take his hat down and run with the crowd. Even though he’s overweight, he won’t have any trouble running with the crowd.

The one with the glassware in between the others would get really scared, not only scared for herself, but concerned for other people as well. She might be concerned about her glassware breaking, scared about the jostling crowd more than she is concerned with the stampeding crowd.

If the crowd scattered they would have to get back together to go home. There would have to be someone to supervise the whole thing.

Henry, Gretchen, June, Maybel, Jeanne, Alice

Protector

There’s two. One is going. [June looks at the trees, whistles like a bird, and taps her feet on the ground as if she’s running.] Somebody is carrying a lady through the forest. The Georgia woods with average Georgia weather, warm and sunny. The forest is in the woods somewhere. She’s dead, like me. I’m going to die at 7:00 pm. [Ruth Ann starts crying.] Every day is a bad day. They won’t miss me. He’s going to get rid of her, put her in the ground in a garden.

[The other storytellers try to reassure Ruth Ann.] He is very gently carrying her, rescuing her, taking care of her. He would not walk off and leave her. He can protect her by putting her in the ground. To put someone in the ground for no reason is bad behavior. Even though he was the aggressor, he found her in a dangerous position. The people’s safety at heart. This is just one moment of kindness. She’s hurt. He’s carrying her at a distance, and her with her hands around his neck to help. Maybe she stepped on something. He is taking her home. Maybe she just likes to be carried. There’s a rock. Some people like to be carried. It must be nice to be carried. I want to be carried. I have Friday ninety.

He’s a Union soldier named Jonathan, who has found a woman lost in the woods. It’s around noon, because the light is hitting the top of the leaves on the trees, lighting their path to safety. This is a tribute to the Union troops, as much as they hated fighting with the South, he is using this occasion to represent the war between the States. The fact that it is as much or more about helping people than shooting and killing. This kind of tribute is a proof of that. Two lovers, friendly, because they are not fighting. She most likely is a person who is a victim of the fight between North and South.

I suspect it depicts Annabell Lee. George Washington is saving her. They could on the rock for safety reasons or to celebrate something. If they are there for safety, they better stay put. They are afraid of something. He has a gun on his shoulder, which signifies the battle between North and South. There are lots of rocky places in the area. It is a typical forested area, obviously a depiction of what went on. The base of it is the base of a statue. They are a statue commemorating that the northern soldiers had the safety of the southern soldiers in mind when they were fighting.

She could be scared because there are snakes in the grass. It would wrong for her health to be there, some kind of harm or danger or debris. Any kind of snake is vicious. Even grass fish are dangerous if you're not prepared to go through the weeds. They calmly move through the grass without making noise. You could step in it or on it without realizing it is there. The cowardice is in me. Someone must decide that it is safe enough to move through the grass.

This location is in a park area or something of that nature. It is a depiction of something that actually happened. Some kind of animal would hurt her. An example of being part of the Union with the same freedoms as the states in the North, freedom of speech, all of the freedoms. This is actually saying the North was not trying to hurt the South. This is a really good example of their intentions. It would be fun to see it in person and to know if this actually commemorates George Washington. I can only imagine her name is Annabelle Lee.

Mable, Ruth Ann, Alice, Jeanne, June, Patricia, Henry

Hunting for a Title

I don’t understand her. She needs to be warmer, I guess. Her name is Bo Peep. I can’t figure her out. All white except a black corset at the waste line. She’s holding a very large rifle in her hands. Look at the instrument she is carrying, it is an awful long thing. Could it be a fishing pole? The whole thing is very incongruous because she has such a fancy dress on in the forest. The lady in her furs. One leg short the other pretty good size. There’s not enough there to say what she is doing. What kind of things is she chasing? An animal? Is she capable of leaving the impression of being somebody? I just don’t know about this one.

Bo Peep travels with someone and takes lessons. She has her head turned to look at someone way back in the ancient days. She is carrying symbols of times gone past. She may be investigating the problem, that she is out of her era, her usual way of living. Bo Peep is an old timer. Whoever has taken this photograph has chosen to lose his way. There are three different colors. She has a tail hanging down there. Her hair is covering her face and making her look like an animal. She may just wander around through the woods to see what else she can find, not just wait around there until something else changes her mind about what she is doing. Bo Peep is a party girl who likes men a lot; she is looking for He-man. But she has made a bad choice of wearing apparel; she doesn’t look like a showgirl. Her hair is hanging down. I accept that now.

I am not convinced by this even though this might be a pretty good rifle. This could be for a play, a modeling pose. She couldn’t be dressed just like herself, with things to look dressed so we can’t know what kind of person she is. Holding a gun. It is very unusual. Does this have something to do with safety? Guns and people together, we haven’t learned how to put guns and people together. She could have left us a note to tell us where she was going, if she was hunting or if she is working for an advertisement. Everything you see with a gun is going to kill someone or something. You can have a lot of fun being destructive.

Long white hair, one arm half way showing, a very unusual costume, this is quite a deal. She’s posing for an ad in a magazine, and she is advertising the rifle. She seems to be in the woods, advertising a rifle for hunters to buy. You have to feel that she’s posing to advertise their wares. Anyone looking at the ad will look at her instead of the rifle. They have chosen the wrong way to advertise. The rifle looks too common; you need something to stand out in the program, to interpret what you are doing. Hunt or build fence? I don’t know.

She’s looking at the man that owns the rifle. She is uncomfortable, because she is unaccustomed to holding a rifle. To be in the woods holding a rifle is a strange situation. No man is looking at the rifle. Whoever is advertising the rifle is handling it the wrong way. He may not necessarily get fired, but he won’t accomplish his mission. He is not bad; he is just not that bright. If he is advertising a girl, that will not happen, because the person looking is torn between looking at the gun or looking at the pretty model. If he is advertising a woman, he has failed in that as well, because her clothing is incongruent. His boss will fuss a lot and give him a hard time. They need a time and place when the two of them agree on what they are going to do, instead of looking at what they’ve already done. Move on past the mistakes. The end is one shot from the gun; she is out on the run. She goes back to the office and collects her paycheck, and she leaves that problem up to whoever hired her. She did the job they asked her to do. It is now their problem.

Gretchen, Mabel, Jeanne, Patricia, Alice (artwork by Jeanne)

The Painted Lady

Each person is entitled to think and to make themselves beautiful and lovable. She is obviously a paper-mache person, a stand in for a real person. Her face is made of newspaper print, the story of her life is imprinted all over her face. Whatever she cares for in life, to make the best of it to help other people establish friendship. Be as good to each other as you can. They try to tell her something or help to improve her. Not with all the make-up. She doesn’t have to put a whole lot on. See the eyelids weighed down.

No one has seen a person who looks like that. Her name is June. It is a hideous picture. Oh so beautiful. Are we sewing? She is beautiful! Someone did an awful lot of work on this one. I’ve never seen a more beautiful one. Her smile, her eyes, that’s about all I know about her. I don’t know her that well. She is a beautiful woman all the way through, a friendly open person who tries to understand the position of those who speak to her. She is making some noise, “Bu-bu-bu-bu-bu.”

There’s not a natural thing there. Her eyes are overemphasized with black circles, her cheeks are outlined in the stupid red, a stupid picture someone made who does not know what a human being looks like. Anyone who would make her look like that should be sad. That is not beautiful. It is ugly to me the way they have her all outlined. They don’t have anything on hair or smiles. I wouldn’t give two cents for that. I’m sure it cost you more than that.

Whoever did the art work knows exactly what they are doing. Someone who reads her story will have the opinion that she hides her own identity in lots of stories about other people. She is a kind, thoughtful person who is very insecure about her own intelligence. That is one reason she has her story all over her face. I don’t like anything on a piece of paper. I don’t like it period. You keep putting in and putting in making it up so you can print it out and throw it all over everyone. It’s because you like it. I would throw a saucer at it. Crack a saucer over your head. [This storyteller stands up and leaves the workshop, very bothered about the way the story is turning out.]

We should avoid conflict to keep peace and be healthy and not continually disrupted. We don’t need fear in our lives, to be more and more afraid of things. We need to wait to be sure what people’s intentions are. They are curious to find out more about other people.

One cheek looks rounded and one looks straight and flat across. I don’t agree with all that. She has beautiful eyes. She has little lights in her eyes because a photographer with a flash that left light spots in her eyes has taken her photograph.

Which one do you like the best? It depends on the mood the person is in, what they are looking for, but I’m not an artist. You can’t tell from looking at it what she is thinking or what she is afraid of or what they are thinking. We’ll just let her be who she wants to be and we will live with it. She is looking at us, because we are looking at her. Nobody can get through the expression of self. She is interested in the person she is addressing. She is taking in all the information the person is giving her and doesn’t have a preset opinion of what that person is like. She takes as fact, whatever they say.

Bad people look differently at the eyes. We should help and accept help. I don’t know that you should consider them bad people. Consider them false, the people who project their opinion on her. She is not affected by their opinion because she doesn’t know them. She is being polite, nodding, listening, but the words of the bad ones are not sinking in.

The moral of the story is be good to others. This opinion is a loving and kind opinion. Not putting your bad opinions on top of people before you know them.

Patricia, Gretchen, Jeanne, June, Barbara, Ruth Ann, Mable, Alice

Lost

A dog named Tiger was chasing a tennis ball when the tennis ball slipped and fell into the water. The tennis ball floated on down the river. These others are just friends, and they own the dog.

He was always going, always going. That was in the early stages.

My husband was oversees. It was women mostly, but it was fun. It’s a sled sliding. I’ve been on that, had a good time on the ice. If I could see on the back, then I could tell you what they are doing. But there’s nothing on the back, so I don’t know. Fun. Fun.

Jennie and Pete are on the Mississippi River. They are just friends who go to school together. There is no romance there, just friends. I thought it was overseas, but it isn’t. I was mistaken.

I got in my car and went. Sometimes it’s cold. Other times it’s very warm. We traveled around the area there. It’s cold and snowing. However, it doesn’t look cold. The puppy dog is on the bottom, almost lost. They have to drag him back.

It’s fun in Europe. They are going down there in that dog. He got himself wet. The mother is way back trying to hang on to everything. The dog is getting pulled in. It was in Europe, I know.

They are dressed in short sleeves and shorts because they didn’t know that it was going to get cold. It looks like they have no blankets or jackets, but the campground is in the distance. It is not part of this picture. They have supplies. Wherever they go, they go and the dog goes with them. I’m not sure if this is the right one. The dog doesn’t like being wet and cold. They will pull him out the water, dry him off, wrap him in a blanket, and give him something to eat. Dry him off; it is snowing in a lot of places. Dry your dog off everywhere. Snowy, snowy.

I think those are skiers. I can’t remember if they did. The other dogs are here and there. It is hard to figure them out. Off and on. You hit that snow and golly darn, you slide. See that dog is freezing his buns off. They will go to their campsite, fix a hamburger, baked potato and salad. Then they will go to bed. They are experienced campers who know what happens when you leave the campground unguarded. They brought extra supplies in case raccoons and bears come and eat their food. The best thing about camping is being together, enjoying food and friends. You need to go. Just like me. Out in the open air, independent.

It’s hard to tell you, because they start out, and then they are somewhere other than they want to be. There’s so much to see and so much to do. So busy all the time. You don’t realize it until you are in the middle of it, and then you know you are there. It is beautiful. Everything tastes better like that.

The only problem was the dog falling in, but other than that, the trip was uneventful. They stayed the night, packed their things and went home to Selma, Alabama. They thought they were lost, but they had a great time anyway. The adventure made a wonderful tale for a young son to tell in his classroom the next day.

Patricia, Barbara, Gretchen, Jeanne, Alice