Revised, somewhat
Since I've been "knee-high to a grasshopper," I have always been involved in some form of art. When I was three and four, I was encouraged to sing, and learned "Davy Crockett" and "Good Morning, Mr. Conductor (an old country song from 'way back)." I was taught what was called the "sight words" and could read them by the time I was three years old. I was very active, very imaginative - and kept my poor mother hopping, whether or not she wanted to. I remember being small enough to hide in a doghouse that Dad had made for his hunting dog Red John, and hiding from Mom. You can bet I got my bottom blistered for that trick! And if I wasn't getting into trouble, I was busy playing with my stuffed animals and dolls, just like any other little girl.
When I was about seven or eight, I remember visiting my father's parents in a rougher part of Walnut Hills, just out of Correyville, where I could not go out and play. We are talking the 1960s here, and not just the drunks and white hoodlums of the street. This was also the time of Civil Rights. When my grandparents moved to the apartments next door, on top of the Pony Keg, and whenever my sister and I wanted to play outside, we played on top of the Pony Keg. We had a big area that was railed in that we could jump rope and play - but we could not run. My grandmother pretty much expected us to sit still and not move, especially with my parents there watching us. We were watched like hawks, trust me, we were watched like hawks.
One day, I got to thinking what I could do to sit still, be quiet, and still do something, so I got it in my head that I could draw a bicycle. Little did I know that I was doing one of the first rules of drawing - draw what you love. So I began to bicycles and horses, girls in bikinis (I wanted a bikini) and from then on, other things. Although I loved singing and listening to music, drawing became a first love for me. I would quietly work as my imagination and - if I had them - colors - would come out on the page. And for the first time in years, I would be happy and content. I didn't care if my drawings looked "cartoon-y" or rough. I enjoyed making something that was in my head come to existence with my hands. A lot of love, care and persistence went into my art. It would have been logical for me to have went on to a vocational school and then to a college or university to hone my skills and talents, but that dream was not meant to be.
Although having that dream taken away was not the first and most traumatic thing that ever happened in my life, it was a sad and bitter thing that died a most terrible death. I didn't and still don't understand the parental objections to my wanting to go into art. Sure, I wasn't as good at my art as some of the kids my age, but I wanted to improve. I was driven to Cumberland College by my dad, to enroll in the Nursing program there. It was all I could do to keep from smiling and jumping up and down and doing cartwheels when the Director of the program told me that I didn't qualify for the nursing program, that I didn't have enough experience with the two months of nurse's aide/ cleaning and cooking that I did at the local nursing home. I don't know what my folks were expecting. So, I went to a local community college, and did the next best thing - took the Social Work Program and graduated with a 2.8 average with an Associates in Science. One local paper listed us having our ASS degrees. You can only write "Associate of Science" and "AS of S" degrees so many times.
I endured through working in a nursing home for five years, the worst job I ever had, and I still have nightmares about working there.. I supposedly had the job as an activity coordinator, but fed patients and washed dirty backsides. I worked as a home health aide, cleaning houses, running errands and chores and doing personal care. I got out of that field into doing factory work at a factory doing piece work. Since I didn't have any office experience or training, I worked at factory jobs, where I was on my feet all day, sometimes lifting some pretty heavy objects. I did that for another ten years, until my back and legs hurt so bad that I could hardly walk from my car to the front door when I came home. Later on, I found that I had osteoarthritis of the knees and spine, with bone spurs of the spine. The pain was so bad that it didn't take much for me to get into depression. Then my parents passed away - twenty-seven days apart from each other, from different cancers. That was the last straw. I took a three year break from work and during those three years off, my husband built me a computer made with old parts, and he taught me how to navigate my way around using the computer. Almost every day, if not at least twice a week, I sat at my homemade computer, trying to improve my typing, and trying to learn how to use PC Write, and I even had a bit of fun using an old clip art program making cards, posters and banners. But it wasn't really art.
That old creative urge just wouldn't die. I did a few favorite crafts that I would do to unwind, but I could not see me making money off them. I had thought about jewelry, even dabbled in beading some pretty beads together for relaxation. I knew of someone that tried that and didn't get too far with it, so I forgot about it. I was even going to throw away my seed beads, but figured of another way to use them for crafts. It was as if I should not throw them away - at least not yet, anyway.
That is, until 2002, at a family reunion, that I decided to take my beads along with me. When I go on trips, I like to bring along a book that I've been wanting to read, or a craft that I've been itching to do. My hubby doesn't mind, because he likes to bring along books or magazines or one of his whistles to play and show off. I had brought my beads and some memory wire, and began making a purple beaded memory wire bracelet for one of my aunts, just to give her a little pleasure. The bracelet turned out so well that I made and sold more of them, along with some inexpensive earrings and some cheap little friendship pins I had added to my "line of products." It was hard work, but I never had so much fun working hard - nor felt as content as I do while I am making my costume jewelry. It may not be sitting down and starting a drawing or painting, but making jewelry is good, and it makes me happy designing and making attractive inexpensive costume jewelry.
Eventually I hope to improve and expand my assortment of "wares" - things to sell. And eventually I hope to get back into drawing and painting. Lord willing, it will happen.
Anita Bingamon
January 30, 2003
Post Script, 2006
I admit, it has been almost three years since I have last written my story. It has been a hard thing to find out what I want to do with this site, as well as what to do in other areas in my life. I had changed my site before, but I seemed to have taken away something that had appeal to those who visited my site. So I am going to search for that elusive "whatever it was" that people seemed to like. I am also going to add a few more things different from my bath salts and soaps and critters, just some of my many interests that I hope others will share and like.
It has been hard trying to get my act together, but it is coming along. As the house is getting easier to straighten up, and it is getting easier to find things and do things, it is getting easier to get more productive in my little "studio" that I have "down the hill and across the river" from our house. Before, when I went months without setting foot in my little studio, now I spend at least four to five hours a week there, doing my projects. My latest project is cutting printed labels for my soaps and bath salts, gluing them together and laminating them for my bath salts. It helps that I have a cutting board with a sliding cutter, as sometimes, I have pages of labels to cut apart and paste and laminate. It makes for very steady work, with the TV in the background.
I have the main mix of my bath salts mixed together, so if a new fragrance is needed, all I have to do is to mix in the needed "extras," put it in a Mason jar and label, ready to go. I am surprised at how much I enjoy making the bath salts that actually smell good (at least to me). Yes, I do use my bath salts, and I do like them. Hey, may as well share a good thing....
I also make Melt and Pour soap, and yes, it is real glycerin soap. I have not reached the level of success with my melt and pour soaps as I have with my bath salts, but I still have fun with it. One of my latest experiments was putting a soap within a soap for a decorative foot soap. It didn't turn out the way I wanted it to, so I sliced the bars up into little samples, to give away for all of you to try out. I hope to improve on my soap and sell it. It is so fun to experiment - I almost feel like a mad scientist
I am still have my Cats, Ducks and Chickens. I will update you on how they are doing. Also, I am working on a Read-Only CD on raising pet poultry on a shoestring budget, something I am becoming more familiar with. But the one thing I want to tell you about my CD is that I have drawn all the illustrations as well as taken all the pictures that I am putting in the CD.
Speaking about drawing, I have a drawing of the "infamous Bo-Bo" that I did on thin cardboard before I started cutting making labels for my bath salts and soaps. It needs a few touch ups before I can get it on my scanner (if the scanner still works and is not too out-dated for this old computer). I also need to recondition a copy of a drawing I did some years ago, of my dad as a young man in the hills of Kentucky, playing a guitar outside. So, instead of forever crying and grieving for a big loss in my life, I am now occasionally drawing from my ever-fertile imagination the things, critters and people that I love. Hopefully, I will have a page where I can share my artwork with you.
I have been into genealogy for a long time, and it really picked up after I got my own computer, and especially with Internet being readily available. As a result of this, I became interested in my Native American/Indian ancestry. I am one-sixteenth Blackfoot and one-sixteenth Cherokee from my dad's side and as far as I know, one-thirty-second Cherokee on my mom's side of the family.. I have hit a brick wall in Mom's Moseley, Hall, Miller, McCabe, Maiden/Mahan and Newman surnames, so I don't know the total percentage of Native American ancestry in me.
So between that and trying to deal with the mess and repairs of a 100+ year old house with no closets, it has been a busy three years. The house isn't there yet, as my in-laws, husband and myself can tell you, but it is slowly but surely getting there. Where, I'm not totally sure of, but it's getting there.
We're getting there...........