Traverse City Record-Eagle

Terry Wooten: Elders Project

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March 28, 2011

Lifelines: Celebrate a lifetime of art

By TERRY WOOTEN Bard

There was a lot of laughter coming from the room off the library. Betty Pearl Beeby was being interviewed by two students, Gabrielle Gualtiere and Ashlee Marshall. They seemed to be having too much fun.

Eight interviews were going on. I kept moving from place to place making sure each was going smoothly. Every time I visited Betty's group, all three faces were smiling. Betty has this kind of effect on people.

Transcribing two 45-minute interviews of eight elders is a lot of work. I figured I'd be burned out by the final tapes, so I saved Betty for last.

It was a good move. Her interview was like an artistic roller-coaster ride through a brilliant landscape.

I was impressed. I proposed to Betty that I do more interviews and write her life story in poetry, and that she illustrate the poems. She accepted.

I underestimated Betty's artistic intensity by giving her control of the layout of the poems.

After numerous revisions, countless stanza rearranging and several near emotional breakdowns on my part, I realized she was right on.

Betty is an important artist and an exceptional human being. March 26 she turned 88 and is still going strong. In 2008 she was honored with the Distinguished Volunteer Service Award from the Historical Society of Michigan.

Betty has won more awards for her art than I have room to list. They decorate her life like her art covers the walls of her home. One of her masterpieces is a 10-by-50-foot mural of the straits at the orientation center at Fort Michilimackinac.

Gabrielle and Ashlee have two poems each in a "Book of Hours."

At the Baumbach farm up the road

they let us ride the cows.

The Baumbach girls were really tough.

They had muscles.

 

The Baumbach's had all girls.

They milked the cows

and did all the chores.

We loved being there.

 

We'd walk from their farm

to Lake Michigan,

take off all our clothes

and go for a swim.

One day we were out swimming

and bouncing in the waves.

All our clothes were on shore.

The boys came down

and took our clothes.

 

Beattie, the oldest Baumbach girl,

came running out of that water

swearing all the way

after those boys.

She didn't have a stitch on

when she was chasing them.

 

I never saw boys so scared.

They dropped those clothes

and took off in a hurry!

Those Baumbach girls were tough.

-- By Gabrielle Gualtiere

 

My kids tease me

about my cooking,

now that they're older.

My mother was a good cook.

 

For one of my first big company dinners

I made pear salads

that were faces of the people

going to sit at the table.

 

I had carrots for the red-headed gal,

and spent a lot of time on that.

They may not have gotten any meat.

I didn't know you could over bake potatoes.

 

They were in the oven four hours,

and were all hollow.

I keep telling people I was

ahead of my time.

Now people are buying potato skins.

 

For company I'd take Spam out of a can

and cover it beautifully

with mashed potatoes.

My kids called it Spam Alaska.

 

I've always been fascinated

by motion.

Galileo said, "To be ignorant of motion

is to be ignorant of nature.

 

Every time I do a painting of cornstalks

it sells for some reason.

Cornstalks are elegant

like dancers.

 

There's this energy.

Why aren't we harnessing that energy,

that motion?

 

I've been doing a painting of water

for two years.

I put in some electrical symbols.

Now I have to take them out.

They didn't look right.

 

I'd say to the water,

"Stand still so I can sketch you."

Water is

the hardest motion to catch.

Dancing is much easier.

 

I have a bank of sweet peas

climbing on bedsprings out back.

When the pods turn dark-brown and crisp,

and the sun comes out,

if you stand and watch…they get just warm enough

and go into a spiral

and shoot peas far and wide.

It's incredible.

 

If you hold a sweet pea pod

in your hand till it warms up,

it'll go pop, pop, pop, pop!

 

-- Terry Wooten

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