Sentimental Supplies

Subtitle: The Joy of Letting Go!

Look what I found on my foxtail fern today!

I am enjoying the email conversations I'm having with those who have reached out for Art Hearts and painted papers and supplies. Some of you are even want more snippets!  Connecting with others and inspiring creativity is a huge source joy for me. My heart is full. 💗

Speaking of a full heart....I have a story to tell.  If you know me...you know that I like a good story.... and I usually need to tell the whole story.  This one has several parts....so settle in if you're interested. And don't feel obligated if you don't have time or have better things to do....I'm good with that.

My dear friend Marita is an English teacher at Yarmouth High School.  I've known her for at least 30 years....and just recently we have reconnected and are trying to get together once a month. She teaches a poetry class and Friday's activity was to decorate their poetry notebooks...and she needed some supplies.  She knows me well....but I only had a day or two to figure it out.

I thought long and hard on what I could share with her.  These were high school students.....so the stuff had to be somewhat cool.  And it was also a poetry class...so  I thought words were important.  

I was a high school special education teacher for 23 years.  For a few of those years I had my dream job working girls who were in transition. We had six girls at a time and they came and went quickly. Some of them were in crisis, others were coming out of correctional facilities...and some were between foster families. With the help of a couple of amazing assistants we created a caring and nurturing classroom environment with the perfect balance of academics, daily life skills, and arts and crafts.  We worked on jigsaw puzzles together and every girl sewed a homemade book bag.  I loved that job.

During that time I acquired a pile of  Stock Image books from an advertising agency.  The books were filled with beautiful photographs of people and nature...and  colorful and bold graphic designs.  They were amazing....and the girls in the program used them for all kinds of art and collage.  The books were well used...but still had a lot of life left in them.

I had cut a few things here and there over the years since...but mostly I've been storing them and moving them from house to house. I just couldn't let them go.  But now I had the opportunity to return these sentimtal supplies back to a classroom where they belonged. They were perfect for Marita's class project.

Now I needed words....and I had those too. I've talked about my sister Angie over and over here on the blog.  Angie loved words and phrases and spent a good chunk of time cutting them out of magazines.  I wrote a post about her word snippets when I was helping when she first entered Hospice Care back in 2020: https://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2020/10/words-and-phrases.html

I've been hanging onto a bag of Angie's words since then....and I was given the opportunity to share another sentimental supply with a poetry class.  Angie would have been pleased that I gave Marita the whole bag.

Lastly I pulled some not so sentimental colorful papers from my stash 

to add to the mix and Marita was ready for her class.

To start....Marita had the students randomly pick two of Angie's word snippets.  

The prompt was to write a poem using some or all of the words and include a color and an emotion.  They got a start on Friday...and their assignment was to work on their poem over the weekend.  She is going to share the finished poems with me next week.....and I can't wait to read them! 

My heart is full.

Then it was time to decorate the notebook covers.

Marita sent me about 30 photos from the class...and it was hard to pick and choose.  But here are a few of the finished poetry book covers.  My heart is full.

 

  

One student crossed out the word "Kentucky" on a phrase and added the word "poetry"...and it worked beautifully.  

"In poetry you can set your own pace. 

But you may still find yourself breathless."  

 

Marita said this was one of the loveliest clases she's had in a long time....and I can't think of a better way to to use some of my sentimental supplies.  Just like my painted papers....there is joy in letting things go. 

Marita is actually a poet herself....and you can read about her in this post called Beyond Words: 

https://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2022/10/beyond-words.html