Ayin Es Blog

I Miss You!

August 14, 2013August 14, 2013Ayin Es7 Comments

It’s been far too long! Like a month, ya? Almost. My God! What have you been doing while I was away? Whose blog have you been reading? I am so jealous. I sure hope it was worth it.

Well, I have been busy. Aren’t I always? But this time, extra, extra busy. I pretty much finished Houses. Just putting on the last touches, like the last bits of embroidery, making the slipcases (YES, slipcases I said), and I built this page so you can start ordering them if you feel so inclined, or, can afford the price of these babies.

And did I mention that the Neil Farber | Carol Es book is now officially on sale!? Talk about price – these astonishingly rare book-works of art are at a hair-raising steal of just $125 a book! Yup. Not a joke in any way, shape or form. Chance Press is just cool like that. Oh, but you better get a move on because I hear that there are only like nine books left! And that was about three days ago – so GET ON IT!

This is the collaborative piece I created with Neil. It’s crazy cool!

Speaking of books, and confessions. What? Okay, maybe I haven’t been moving on binding up the Houses books as quickly as I should have been because I have been preoccupied with other things – and maybe just one of those things is the preparation of my next Artist’s book. I know, I know: I shouldn’t start a new project before I’ve completed the last, but I am just so fucking excited! I feel like if I don’t work on it just a little bit, I will pee all over the floor!

It’s pretty ironic though, don’t you think? I haven’t made a book out of Careless Press in over five years, and then suddenly, here comes two. Well, I’m telling you now that this next one will not get released until the beginning of 2014, and it is going to retail for way under $100. Not only that, it’s going to have more pages than any other book I have made so far! That’s mostly because it’s going to be offset printed. I would never be able to make a 120 original page book – at least not in five months. Ha!

So as you can tell, I already know a lot about this book. Do you want to know more? As much as I know?

Nah… Why would you want to know such silly things?

Well, I think I’m going to tell you anyway, whether you are here reading this or not. It’s my diary. Not yours.

I titled this book in French because it sounded way more fancy. It’s titled, Carol Es une Monographie de Lignes (a Monograph in Lines). What that is, is like a mini autobiography done only in black pen sketches. Only one page will have an original, colored page in colored pencil and ink. It will have somewhere between 45 and 75 drawings in it, eight chapters, and a letterpressed, hardbound cover.

And that’s a lot of information. The only thing I’m not giving you are the names of the chapters and the visuals. Hmmm wait. I know. There is a chapter called, Preliminaries. Here is the preliminary for Wrong Mom, 2001.

Okay, enough of that. I told you I was busy this last month, right? Well I had meetings. Meetings all over the place. Some were at my synagogue where I finally learned to read Hebrew! I bet you thought I already knew how, didn’t you? Well NO, I didn’t. Otherwise, I wouldn’t of had to pull Arctic Memory apart and repaint it, now would I? I was busy doing that too. I finished it. See?

That’s what it looks like now. Now the Hebrew is correct. Now I KNOW the Hebrew is correct. 😉

The Hebrew classes were not only informative, but fun. I thought it was going to be so incredibly hard to read a new language that had a completely different alphabet in different looking characters, and I mean, it’s not like it was a breeze, but it wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be. It is a fairly simple language, much simpler than English, as far as the sounds of the consonants and vowels and those rules go. It was a short class so I didn’t get deep into grammar yet, but I loved the whole experience enough to want to continue and even become an official member of the temple.

Sales have been up, so I just had to purchase this nifty case for my studio to hold all my very important brushes and other tools of the trade. My studio, Rubber Soul, as I have called it, gets dusty easily since it is just a converted garage, and I H-A-T-E that my beautiful brushes get dirty before I use them! There isn’t a sink in there. I have dreamed of having such a case for years! I have owned most of my brushes for some 25 years. I take damn good care of them and now I can take even better care of them, and the new ones I add to them.

I also like some of the synthetic brushes, and while those don’t last too long, I think I can make them last a lot longer than possible, and with the case keeping them clean and pristine, it will make that even easier. And of course, all my sable brushes thank me for having a proper home, even in their old age. I just love this thing. It’s perfect for an anal retentive, meticulous control freak like me.

Finally, I had other meetings. The curator for the show I wound up in at USC Hillel, for instance (see my news page), and a local gallery I have been talking/negotiating/courting for a few months now. And, after this last meeting we both decided to work together, so… Expect an official announcement real soon.

Tail End of Houses

July 26, 2013July 26, 2013Ayin EsLeave a comment

It’s getting there. I haven’t been working on it every day like I would want to. I’ve had other things coming onto the front burners now.

I’ve been rearranging the way I’ve been working on my literary book and am almost writing in it again with some enthusiasm, now that the last of the traumatic incidents have been recorded. I’m all about discussing the reorganization and how I’m laying out the first draft, not so much the content, but I am very excited about how I am putting it together.

Secondly, I finally pulled Arctic Memory out and have been making the changes on it I want in a hurry now for a couple of studio visit reasons: I have people coming on August 1st and on August 6th. I will be participating in a group show at USC Hillel that will be curated by Sara Cannon (Director of the Museum Education and Tours Program at the Municipal Art Gallery and Hollyhock House). The other visit is a gallery I’ve been talking to for the last several months.

As for Houses, I finally found those see-through plastic envelopes with the string-tie closure that will actually fit a 6 x 9 inch document – I just don’t know how well it’s going to fit until I bind one and slip it in there. If it’s perfect, this can keep the price down. I had all kinds of ideas about having a custom-made box created for these, which would cost me no less than $45 each plus shipping. Plus, they wouldn’t have hinges. They would be a box you would lay down on a coffee table or something like that. I wouldn’t want you to shelve it, now would I? But we’ll see how it turns out.

I have three pages of eight left to do, and some are already done. Here is the checklist. Some pages have a few steps to them.

Dishes Page:

Draw: 1-8 Done

Holes: 1-8 Done

Linen/Fixatives: 1-8 Done

Sew 1: 1-3 Done

Sew 2: 1-3 Done

First Watercolor Page:

Draw 1-8: Done

Painted: 1-2 Done

Inked: 1 Done

Gouache Page:

Drawn: 1-8 Done

Painted: 1-2 Done

What does all this mean? It means I have 18 pages to do before I start to bind them all together. Time wise, (for the pages), that’s about 106 hours of work left to go. I still plan to release it at the beginning of the fall.

As I have endorsed and promoted before, I have been using Scrivener to organize and write my book in. I can not recommend it with more of my being if you are about to embark on writing anything long. It will make your life so much easier and you will thank me. And no, I don’t work for them.

I am still using the program, but because of the many subjects I was writing about, I was starting to get really bummed out and all but ceased to work on it. I knew I had to write about the troubled stuff in my life, and because I was writing in chronological order, I would begin to dread some of the things that were coming up. I would sometimes pick other areas, since the folders were already laid out before and after, but truly, that wasn’t working for me since my mindset during those times just after was changed substantially.

I began to think about this, and the thoughts I have about myself – just in the last couple of years. I don’t see myself as a victim. I never did, especially the more I grew and the more I became self-aware. Bad things that have happened to me, to us, do not define us as people. And so this chronological list of folders with sub-folders (much like the way your computer files work) seemed so one-dimensional to me. And Scrivener is capable of so much more – like Photoshop!

I have said, as many other people have too, Photoshop is like an onion. You can keep digging and digging into that program and find so many more things that it is capable of doing. If Photoshop can have all those layers, what about a person’s life? And how would you record and organize those layers into a program? It’s quite like a database, which is essentially what Scrivener is: a database program! So I got this idea to assign layers to my life, with the “ID#” or the main layer being Carol the person. That is the constant. What I think. That’s the main layer. Then all the other layers can be built around it and I can move them in and out, and all around the timeline as much as I feel like it.

In essence, this will not so much be a first pass, but more like a true first draft, but I am much further away from being done with it. So that’s the trade off.

What Are the Updates, You Ask?

July 13, 2013July 14, 2013Ayin Es1 Comment

No you di-int. You didn’t ask me shit. You don’t care. I often wonder who I am talking to, but it’s not like I mind if it’s anybody at all, or rather, nobody at all. I don’t mind one iota. I just like to type. I just like to hear myself talk. Type talk. Whatever it is I am doing here. Thinking out loud through my finger tips. Yeah, that’s what I’m doing. See, if you were here, you might think that was kind of cool and fancy free. Sort of inventive, or somewhat clever. At least clever for a moron.

Anyway, I’ve been working all day today. mjp has been, well he’s been up and about, but he’s supposed to be resting his fucked up hip. Instead, he’s been helping the guys from Milk get their website back up and running. Why? Because he’s a lot like me. He’s a lot like a lot of people. He can’t say “No.”

Speaking of websites, I have been dipping my brain back into picklebird.com again. I think I’m going to buy a better WordPress template and just tinker with it from there. I really don’t want to code a whole new site from scratch, and there is actually a database running on it that all ready to go. All I need to do is snap pictures of everything I own and enter the data. Oh that won’t take any time. Buuuuut, once I get it set up, I sure would like to start selling some work. Some art and some books. At least see if I can.

Today and yesterday, it’s been all about Houses. I embroidered another one of the “Dishes” pages. I finished all the cut-outs on the covers, and today I made the blue pouches for the little Giclée prints. I also printed the Giclée prints. That wound up taking forever and you know why? Do you? Because I realized that the file I started off with on my computer sucked ass!

SO, I went into the back of my garage, right next to the dead rat that’s been rotting there for months, and I pulled out the painting that is kept in back storage, Home is Near the Sea, 2001.

I brunged it out so I could re-shoot it, which I did. I mean, I had to unwrap it first. I was quite impressed with how well it was wrapped, I must say.

Then I pulled it into Photoshop and did a couple of tests before I was able to print up eight little 5″ Giclées. Nothin to it! I hardly wasted any paper at all. Not like before when I had a crap file to begin with. I wasted a LOT of VERY nice paper.

Let’s see what the hell else did I do? Oh, I got the gold paper from Nepal and was able to slice those up into book sheets, so those are now ready to be printed on with my crappy block prints. I’d like to try those tomorrow with mjp if he’s not too sore. I need him to assist me because he’s a block print wiz. I bet you didn’t know that about him, did you? Well, there you have it. He’s really good at it. Remember his first three chapbooks? Well those covers were all linoleum block prints that were pretty pristine – and he made 50 each – so he got pretty good at it. Plus, he had been making block prints well before that. He’s my Block Master Printer, I guess you can say.

I bet you’re wondering how I’m doing on my smoking plans, right? Well, it’s not going as planned, but better than it could be I guess.

I used to smoke 1/2 to 3/4 of a pack a day and it’s been eight days since I “quit” and I have since smoked about a half a pack in total. …I’ll get there. My goal is to be fully and utterly a non-smoker by July 20th, which is my 45th birthday.

If you feel the need to get me something for my birthday, I mean, please don’t, but if you’re one of those people that treat adults like they are still children and celebrate their birthdays with “Happy Birthday!”s and presents and cards and balloons and shit, then you can waste a total of $1.61 on a #72 Chinese White pencil for me at Dick Blick. Or, if you’re not racist, you can get me this #2200 Ink Black Inktense pencil for $1.79.

I was also hoping to lose more weight before I was 45 years old. I got up to 177. There, I said it. Some of you have known me to be a mere 100 pounds most of my life, so that might be very shocking to read. But that’s what had happened to me over a long period of time. It happened for many reasons. Being with mjp for a long time (we like to watch movies and eat ice cream), laziness, bad diet, eating late, not exercising, medications, getting older, and genetics.

Since January I have lost 27 pounds. I changed my diet and my meds, and I started walking a little bit. I have 15 more pounds to go to get to my goal and the rest is just bonus because I was always dangerously underweight when you knew me before. My range is supposed to be 128-148, so I picked 135 because it was in the middle and most realistic.

Anywho. I’m tired now, so I’m gonna go. Bye.

Oh wait…

Recently on Wet Canvas, there was a thread where someone asked one of those desert island questions about which 12 books would you bring… but then it got expanded to films, music and art picture books as well (because this particular island had a dvd and cd player that worked in some magical way…) And if you felt like it, you were to talk about WHY you made your particular choices.

So here were my lists of 12:

My reads:

1. The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems 1946-1966, Charles Bukowski, 2002
2. Ham on Rye, Charles Bukowski (Novel), 1982
3. Hollywood, Charles Bukowski (Novel), 1989 (Funniest book I’ve ever read!)
4. Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness, Charles Bukowski (Two Volumes of Short Stories in One), 1983
5. Wait Until Spring Bandini, John Fante, 1938
6. Full of Life, John Fante, 1952
7. The Big Hunger, John Fante, Stories from 1932-1959
8. Riding Out the Dumb Silence, Michael Phillips, (Poems/Stories) 2006
9. No One Belongs Here More Than You, Miranda July, (Stories), 2008 (UNBELIEVABLY great writing!)
10. Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, David Bayles, Ted Orland, 2001 (Changed my life!)
11. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway, 1926
12. The Grapes of Wrath, John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr., 1939

Pretty Pictures

1. Friedensreich Hundertwasser: the Complete Graphic Work 1951-1986
2. Amy Sillman: Works on Paper by Wayne Koestenbaum and Amy Sillman (2006)
3. Amy Sillman: Suitors & Strangers by Claudia Schmuckli (2007)
4. Dana Schutz: If the Face Had Wheels by Cary Levine and Dana Schutz
5. Charlotte Salomon, Life? or Theatre? by Charlotte Salomon and Judith C. E. Belinfante (1999)
6. The Diary of Frida Kahlo
7. Vitamin D: New Perspectives in Drawing by Emma Dexter
8. Peanuts: A Golden Celebration: The Art and the Story of the World’s Best-Loved Comic Strip by Charles M. Schulz
9. The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918
10. Paul Klee (Temporis)
11. Russian Jewish Artists in a Century of Change: 1890-1990
12. Mary Ellen Mark: 25 Years by Marianne Fulton

MUSIC

The biggest collections and/or box sets available for:

1. The Beatles in Mono
2. Bob Marley: Songs of Freedom
3. Miles Davis (during the period he was actually playing concievable jazz)
4. Stevie Wonder
5. Elvis Costello
6. Mozart
7. Chopin
8. Neil Young
9. Aimee Mann
10. Steely Dan
11. Van Morrison
12. PJ Harvey
…And perhaps I could trade in a Chopin compilation in for some Sly and Robbie productions?

FILM!

1. Citizen Kane, Orson Welles, 1941 – The FIRST, the ORIGINAL and the best. The film which all other films are based on, copied from and want to be.

2. Rope, Alfred Hitchcock, 1948 – A Masterpiece of stage acting and directing. Only one camera used, but the film is so good, you would never notice this. While modern-day movies wouldn’t dream of doing this (keeping one shot going for more than mere seconds), Hitchcock sticks with the same camera the entire time and only breaks to change rolls.

3. Rear Window, Alfred Hitchcock, 1954 – Classic Hitchcock with (I think) the best of his two opposite actors with the best chemistry for tension and romantic banter.

4. The Apartment, Billy Wilder, 1960 – STILL funny! Timeless. Jack Lemon will always seem this way to me.

5. A Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick, 1971 – The classic Kubrick. It had a great impact on me as a child. I saw it when I was way too young, just a few years after it premiered. I was eight! Of course again later, many times. It’s a thinking film about what is more surreal: the violence or the blantent surrealism, and it continues to pose the same questions. It’s just as difficult to watch now as it was when I was eight.

6. Barfly, Barbet Schroeder, 1987 – For observational sake, yet it has a vibe all its own. While it wasn’t exactly what Bukowski had envisioned, it did capture some of the grit and a little of the secondary world of the mind of the writer – and how the world around him, whether rich or poor seemed like a dream. Perhaps because these are all semi-fictonal stories about stints of his drinking life (he did not write much about the many years in between when he did not drink). Rourke played an “idea” of Hank, but not a good job in any sense. Hank was very displeased. Schroeder was more concerned about getting the shots done and the movie fully funded. All in all, I found Dunaway riveting.

7. Swoon, Tom Kalin, 1992 – After “Rope,” I became Leopold and Loeb obsessed, so I sought out this film and was quite surprised at how creative it was. I can watch it again and again, and even love the obvious plants of modern day gagets (new director-itus): it didn’t bother me because it’s excellent film making.

8. Pi, Darren Aronofsky, 1998 – Not only was this just a GREAT movie, when I heard about the budget, I nearly fell over. AMAZINGLY talented young man. This film had an intense impact on me, although I could have done without the ending. It had everything to do with bringing me back to my interest in Hebrew Mystisism.

9. Happiness, Todd Solondz, 1998 – One of the most hilarious films I have ever seen.

10. Tarnation, Jonathan Caouette, 2003 – Inspiring. I even bought my own DV cam and started to film my family, but realized that it was not as easy as he made it seem.

11. The Squid and the Whale, Noah Baumbach, 2005 – I wish every movie in the world was a LOT like this one. This is my kind of movie and I am always looking for this sort of dialog writing/dysfunctional, complex relationship/characters in film.

12. Science of Sleep, Michel Gondry, 2006 – Some people love Eternal Sunshine (I do too) but I liked the “handmade” quality of this one (which he started before Eternal Sunshine). There are a lot of quirky “behind the scenes” special effects that are like film school style that I like, that mix with what he brought back from doing Eternal Sunshine to then finish this film.

Now, bye!

This 4th of July Weekend

July 7, 2013July 7, 2013Ayin EsLeave a comment

I’ve been working on my artist’s book Houses, pretty much non-stop. I did, however, take a break to go to the Hollywood Bowl last night to see Bugs Bunny at the Symphony II, which was fabulous! I have lived my whole life in Los Angeles and I have NEVER been to the Hollywood Bowl! Isn’t that something? Aint I a stinker?

This was an early birthday present from my amazing boyfriend, who got us perfect seats, right smack! in the middle, just above the sound board. I also quit smoking (again) on Friday night, so yesterday was my first day without a cigarette, and it wasn’t so bad. Keeping busy really helps. And the patch. And live music. And Bugs Bunny.

I know I have probably said I have quit smoking 100 times on this blog, but you have to understand that I have been successful at this before. Many times in fact, so don’t think just because I keep falling off the wagon that it means there is no hope for me. There is!

First of all, I’ve smoked since I was 12 years old. I quit the first time for six months when I was 19. The second time for two years when I was 28, and 11 years again when I was 31. I smoked six months in between that last time.

Then, when my dad was dying, I smoked for a couple of months. Not even in fact. Picked it up again three months later when my mom got dementia, and then it was on and off until last February. That’s when I quit for a good six months after I wound up in the hospital with pneumonia. Why I started again after that has been the biggest mistake of my life.

Now, I have my excuses, like almost going crazy and stuff like that, but I haven’t really tried quitting again. It’s easy when you’re sick in the hospital and can’t breathe NOT to want to smoke, but once you can breathe again and feel healthy and WANT to smoke, how do you quit?

One thing is for sure. You can’t wait until you don’t want to smoke anymore. That’s not going to happen. I started again by bumming ONE smoke off someone during an art opening and I thought I could just have one – once and a while. HA!

I’m a smoker. Always have been, always will be. I love smoking, but I’m not going to sit here and type all the reasons why – let me count the ways – when I’m trying to quit now.

Today is day two, so give me a fucking break.

Okay, so back to the book…

The colophon has been printed. There is no turning back now, however, it looks like the Giclee print is not liking the Arches – not the kind I have in my arsenal anyway. Tomorrow I have to go find a brighter, whiter Arches that’s less absorbent.

I also have to get some spray mount too. I ran up against a wall this morning when I was working on the embroidery page. I need to spray mount that piece of linen on top of it before I sew into it. This is the page that is going to take me the longest. It is pencil, ink and collage. Plus I have to poke holes into it so I can see where I am going to embroider into it from the back of the paper, but the fabric has to be kinda stuck on there a bit before I do that. You get where I’m coming from without me having to show you pictures? Because I’m not showing you any yet. If it all goes as planned, this will be my favorite page in the book. Trust me, it will look cool. The piece of linen is a kind of pocket shape a covers some of the “scene” in a way.

…Maybe because it was all so shameful and private? Just thinking about that now. Weird.

Oh! I know what I will show you, the text from the poem that is letterpressed on the opposite side of the page I am speak about above, and how it is broken up:

Homes where sounds / of broken dishes lay / Murdered paintings admired / left in her past /she killed / HOUSES

And, the colophon reads like this now:

Houses is based on a poem written by Carol Es, copyright and published by Careless Press, ©2013. Special thanks to Bill Roberts, Stephanie Mercado, and Poli Marichal. This handmade book is limited to a signed edition of eight copies, all slightly varied because of the original touches throughout.

Four of the inside pages, plus the front and back covers were letterpressed by Bill Roberts of Bottle of Smoke Press, Dover, DE. The two etchings were printed at Paper Doll Press in Highland Park, Los Angeles, CA (thanks Stephanie) with Master Printer Poli Marichal.

Papers used throughout are Artistico Fabriano, Rives BFK, Strathmore Artagain, Mohawk Superfine text, Moab Kayenta 205 gsm., Daler-Rowney Canford 150 gsm, various cereal boxes, and imported flower-pressed and gold, imported handmade papers from Nepal.

Each 20-page book contains an original drawing on black paper, a hand die-cut cover, two original watercolor paintings, four digital pages in Epson Ultrachrome K3 inks, two etchings, a block print and a Sumi ink painting on gold paper, and one original pencil, ink and collage drawing with sloppy hand embroidery over a bit of linen fabric. Each book also includes a 5 x 5 inch, full color Giclée print of the painting, “Home is Near the Sea” on hot pressed Aqvarelle Arches watercolor paper. Originally 30 x 30 inches, this painting was created in 2001 in oil and paper collage on canvas. The print slips out from an acid-free, laid paper pocket adhered to the page.

Pages of this book are French folds, with the exception of the end papers. The binding was Japanese stab bound by Carol Es with waxed linen thread from Ireland.

How’s that?

The second most complicated page there is to do is actually the first page. It’s a kind of detailed watercolor and I’ve only done one! Seven more to go.

As much work as I have to go on this book, I hope to have it completely done by the end of the summer, if not sooner. But I say that now. It really is a lot of sewing (not the binding, but that embroidered page)!

Still thinking about price. This will be the smallest edition I have ever done. Not only that, most of the pages are original. It has to be more than 1-SELF, but less than All Done But None because it is not hardbound. I ordered some simple lime, vinyl envelopes that I pray they will fit into as dust jackets. We’ll see.

The Cups

July 5, 2013July 5, 2013Ayin EsLeave a comment

So I am finally getting around to telling you – YOU – everyone, anyone that will listen/read about the day of the cups.

This is a big deal, so pay attention.

I only have one sibling. My brother Mike. Many of you that know me, and that know him, know that we have a very complicated relationship. We have gone years without speaking to each other. We’ve gone through that fiasco many a time, for a couple of different reasons. And we have come back together many a time too, and so on. Sometimes by force. Sometimes because we wanted to try again, and try to heal, and let bygones be bygones. What the fuck is a bygone? Oh. I just looked it up. Yeah, that’s a difficult thing for me to do, or it has been for me.

It means disagreements. Let disagreements be disagreements? That’s funny. I mean, if you know me on a super intimate level. I have had a real hard time with that one. It’s only made life harder for me. Not anyone else. I think about that now and I see that I am much better at that than I used to be. MUCH better. But I’ve always been one to nag at the other person in my relationships to “fix” these disagreements, when “fixing” them meant making them agreeable. LOL!

Anyway, I digress. A little. Mike and I have had our ups and downs. A lot of downs. Or should I say, a lot of rocky road in trying to reconcile enough of our current relationship so that we can just manage to love each other without it getting too complicated so that we’re not fighting all the time. That’s why playing music together is such a great idea for us. There’s just no bullshit there. It’s easy, and we connect and get along great. Nothing to it.

Well, recently, as you might know, I was part of this wonderful exhibition, Intersecting Paths: Art & Healing at Hebrew Union College at USC, curated by Georgia Freedman-Harvey. What’s great about that show is that, even though it’s over, there is still an online archive of the exhibition here.

And one of the artists in the show was Ehren Tool. He makes these ceramic cups for the children of soldiers that have seen action, or have fallen in battle. At first, I thought he made these cups for Jewish soldiers, so I didn’t bother to give out my name when Georgia the curator was asking the artists in the show if they had fathers or grandfathers that served in war. But then, at the end of the exhibition, just a couple of weeks ago, there was going to be a ceremony where Ehren’s cups were going to be presented to the artists and their families, among others, and it was going to coincide with a partial exhibit across the street at USC Hillel, where there would be small portraits of fallen soldiers.

Anyway, at this point, Georgia asked me again if my father was a vet and I told her he was in fact a WWII vet, but he wasn’t a Jew. She told me that it did not matter. He married a Jew, he had Jewish children, and he helped in the war effort to free the Jewish people in Europe. It was like a giant light bulb in my head was short circuiting or something. Duh!

Then I had an idea to bring Mike into the ceremony, as he was my family, in fact, my only family and we were addressing our father. Why wouldn’t we both get cups?

I sent Ehren a picture of my father at 19 years old, sitting on top of an Army tank in northern Italy (Treviso) in the winter. He was a radio operator sent in the very last (88th) tank brigade. I also sent him a picture of my father with my brother when he was a baby. His first and only son. He looked happy, and proud. And my favorite pic of me and my dad when I was little sitting on my brother’s bike, wearing practically identically the same material (my dress and his pants).

I did not tell Mike that his cup would have a special picture of himself with Dad on it, so he was quite surprised at the end of the event when we went up to the front to get our cups.

Very early into the event, when the speakers began reading off the names of the vets that were being honored on the cups, one of the women’s voice began to shake as she read the name of a man whose family she knew very well. She was not expecting to read the name and she began to cry. Sitting in the audience and watching her trying to hold herself together, I suddenly lost control of my emotions. Not just for her, but for the fact that they shortly thereafter read my dad’s name, Private First Class Calvin J. Snyder, United States Army. And for the fact that I was sitting there beside Mike and we were there together as sister and brother, willingly there, together, happily – and this would have made our parents happy too. And more importantly, it made ME happy. And I just could not stop crying my eyes out.

Then, Mike started crying too. He got up to get us some tissues, or napkins rather. That was nice of him, but it did no good. I went through those pretty fast. I was a snotty mess the entire time until we got our cups and finally got the hell out of there.

We sat in his fancy car (he has a Porsche that I’ve often made fun of) and stared at our cups for a real long while, playfully fighting about whose was better. Mine was better, of course. But you can see Mike’s on his Facebook page.

Ehren Tool has made and given away over 14,100 cups. He is a modest, humble, amazing, beautiful person and artist to have this purpose. I really wonder if he knows the effect he has on the families he touches and how an item such as this can be a means to speak about war and feelings and memories and bring loved ones closer together than therapy. Maybe he has an idea, but maybe he’d be too overwhelmed if he could take in all the appreciation we all feel.