My wife Patti Digh is an artist, and though she has great musical and painterly talents the greatest expression of her creative sensibilities is through words. And so I think that it is extraordinary that her childhood pencils have somehow made it here, into their future. They are beautiful monuments to childhood creativity, their bite marks, gouges, scratches and just general wear and tear are testaments to Patti busily producing something from her mind, committing it to paper, back there in her deep past when she was only a couple of thousand days old.
A detail of Patti's crayons, which I have written about elsewhere on this blog:
Patti and I have saved virtually every bit of our daughters' artworks--the really interesting stuff has been collected in one place, and then there's the boxes of other artwork that they'll have to deal with in their future.
And yes a Patti pencil box has also survived.
Ah, I recognize many of those pencils, either by brand name or the distinctive design. I always wondered about the traditions of naming pencils with exotic titles like "Templar 777," "Empire," or "Navigator." It seems so important for such a mundane instrument. But what I liked best is the occasional point sharpened by a knife.
I must have a hundred or so mixed pencils like that too. I recently cleaned out my mom's house after she died, I acquired about a hundred more, and a huge bag of maybe a hundred colored pencils. I kept a few of the best, and donated the rest (with a lot of misc art supplies) to the local school district. Let the cycle of squirreled-away pencils begin anew!
Posted by: Charles | 20 May 2010 at 02:41 PM