This gets a little bit confusing for me: family trees. All of the images up to this point were from my original family. One tree. Now, is this a branch on our tree? No. This is a distinct, different tree. So what happens when a member of one tree joins another tree in marriage? Seems like that's a branch, but on which tree? At any rate, I believe this is an embroidery by the Grandmother of the next tree.
Quite possibly done in the "old country". Ukraine. No, not possibly. Probably. Definitely. I'm sure She never made it to "the new world".



This next one is Her Daughter, the Mother of the Son who by marriage created this new branch.
All the women embroidered, on top of all the other things women do. This urge to make something more beautiful than it is. Clothes. Pillows. Curtains. Everything. I, as a young boy, having three sisters, all of whom embroidered, learned how to embroider the most basic stitch. It's hard work. A lot of concentration. Never got to the point where I could do something as complex as these examples.... This particular embroidery is, I believe, with a sad ending. The woman who was working on it, felt this was the end, and sticking the needle into the material so it wouldn't get lost, died. It's still like that. Nobody had the desire to change it.
It could be that I'm mistaken, and it was with the embroidery before this one that ended like this.




































This is work done by the Son of the new branch, the Father and Husband. A Ukrainian national instrument called a Bandura. Amazing! The man decided to make this, and went ahead and did it. I'm certain he'd had no experience making musical instruments. Thirty strings. Hollow body with a curved back, the wood for which had to be soaked and formed separately. A man who'd worked in coal mines in post-war Belgium. Was in Canada a farmer, contractor. Went to school and became an engineer. And decided to make a Bandura...











This is my oldest Sister. The tree jumper. Always worried that she had no artistic talent.....






















































































I don't know. Seems to me like some pretty wonderful work. She'd probably sewed the blouse first, and then proceeded to embroider it. Just a certain humbleness, a certain knowing that it ain't no big thing. It needed to be done and it was. I know there was a pride that went along with it also, but a humbleness... A carrying on of a tradition from who knows how far back? It's a River, this creativity thing, and you get your feet wet in it and it just goes from there. Connects you with things you'd never dreamed of. Some of it conscious. Some not. You see someone doing something, and you go "I can do that". And, of course, you can. Has nothing whatsoever to do with being able to draw a straight line. That's bullshit anyway. Anybody can draw a straight line. That's what straight-edges are for...












































































































Amazing...