Carol Larson - textile artist

So it seemed only fitting for me when cleaning out my father’s home to bring his collection of CDs home. I love to listen to music when I work in the studio so I brought mostly classical.  In recent years I have been listening primarily to Latin, Bocelli and New Age.

How quickly it has hit me that my father’s and my taste in music is still diverse!  Mom loved Pat Boone in the ’50s so when Elvis hit the scene I was thrilled for a break from mr. white bucks. When Elvis sneered at my mother on the beach in Hawaii, which my Dad captured on film for posterity, I lost interest. Only decades later did I figure out Elvis sneered at everyone!   I loved the Beatles though while my father was shouting turn that racket down while simultaneously blasting the college fight songs throughout the house.

Last week while designing new work I started listening to Bach Toccata and Fugue Great Organ Works and immediately felt like I was in church which does not inspire me at all. So I switched to Masters of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar and did not even make it through the first number. On came Nana Mouskouri who was okay but lackluster. And now there is Mendelssohn Symphony No 4 which included the wedding march which brought my husband into the studio to see what was happening!

Whenever I take Dad out in the car I put on the Oak Ridge Boys. We both know all the words and it is a little bit like vehicular karaoke. And it is delightful to me that a man who remembers nothing of his life remembers lyrics to music.  The other day I was in the car alone and She Played Tambourine started up.  I just lost it. Thanks to my Dad for gifting me this love of music, but for now all we agree on is She Must Have Known the Words to a Million Tunes…

I doubt anyone decides to become an eccentric old woman. I imagine it starts in adolescence when one marches to their own drummer, and on into motherhood, then middle-age and then on into crone-dom. Since ‘own drummers’ were not allowed in my childhood home, I started small.

I was the one who wore the necklace of surgical tubing with the rubber fish hanging off of it..and the chicken neck bone piece for Halloween as a cave woman, one year. I wore purple and fuchsia long before it was cool. I put red and purple together before the Red Hat Society ruined a fantastic color combo.  I painted my coats and purses, but never my shoes as they were too expensive and too few. I had my hair cut in a ‘fro’ when only black folk had afros when Angela Davis was a newsmaker. When the grandmas started sporting them, I moved on.

While trying to not wish my life away, I will be so happy when August dawns and these challenges are behind me.  Surprisingly though I am making some art, and it is new and exciting to boot. Life is certainly curious…