My Interview by Violet in the Middle

Violet has this little bit of fun going on over at her Blogspot Place. She chose 5 questions that seemed to suit me to a tee.

> What is your one favorite thing about Chicago?

I love having such a fabulous art museum. The Art Institute of Chicago is one of my most favorite places. AIC is home to American Gothic, Sunday Afternoon…by Seurat and other awesome French Impressionist paintings, and so many other masterpieces I can’t possibly name them all. I used to frequent it weekly when I attended Columbia College downtown.

If I can have a second thing I like about Chicago it would be the accent. I was on a plane once when this someone overheard me talking to my travelling friend. They said, “You’re from Chicago, aren’t you? I can tell by your accent!” Here in Chicago, we have our own lingo…such as, “Where’s your gragekey”, which, translated means “Were’s your garage key?” Or, we say, “Yestaday instead of ‘yesterday.’ Chicagoans also use ‘de’s, da’s and doe’s in place of words…such as, “I’ll have a dozen of does.” Or, the famous line, “Da Bears!” Sometimes we say, “De’s are the best tasting saasages around.” Let’s not forget we call soda “pop.” And just yesterday, my son celebrated his 21st ‘bert-day.’ Chicagoans are Midwesterners, the most friendly Americans around.

> When did you first know you were an artist and how did it manifest itself?

I’ve known since I was a little kid. I loved to draw and draw and draw. I was attracted to artistic things from an early age and nothing sparked my interest more than art supplies and paintings. I also was very interested in the sewing machine. My godmother had one in her family room and every time I’d visit, I would gaze at that sewing machine and ask her to teach me to sew. I wanted to learn how to sew in the worst way…like I said, art was something inside me and I was just drawn to creative elements. The sewing machine was another thing that sparked my creative interest. Art was something inate, that seemed to be in my DNA. In high school I majored in art and I later went on to get a fine arts degree in college. I used my sewing skills (self taught after my dad bought me my first sewing machine from Sears in high school.) to start my cloth doll design business, Hootin Annies. Currently, I’ve taken some time off from doll designing to pursue mixed media art. Lately, dabbling in painting and collage has been a theraputic, artistic diversion.
>

You will be isolated in a very comfortable place for a year. You will have delicious food and many luxuries, but no television, movies, reading material, or electronics. You will be joined by one person you have ever met. Who would you like that person to be and why?

If this person could come with me unconditionally, I’d really have to say Jamie Lee Curtis. I almost said Chris Noth, but he would probably wear me out (lol…what a nice thought-actually, considering how nutty I am over him, it would probably be me wearing him out!). Anyway, I’m thinking that over the course of a year, I’d probably prefer the company of a gal pal, and in that time I’d hope to become a better, more worldly person, so I have to choose someone who could help me achieve that goal. I love how Jamie Lee has grown into her own and become such a wise, confident and strong person. She and I could spend alot of time together talking, developing strong, bonds in the art of being female. I’m hoping one of the luxuries provided to us would be a Pilates table and a yoga instructor. She could work with me to slim down by doing Pilates and yoga with me on a daily basis. And she would run my ass ragged….but that’s okay. She could stitch (I’ve read she likes to do needlepoint.) while I sew. I could teach her how to make dolls and how to create an art journal. She could teach me some acting techniques and let me in on some juicy Hollywood secrets. I’d fill her in how what it’s like to be just a normal person who can walk around out and about unnoticed. I hope we would spend hours laughing drinking coffee. One other luxury I would request is hot, sexy Latin men who visit on Wednesdays and Saturdays to give us Salsa lessons. We could document our year together though our art journals. She could listen to my problems and give me advise, ultimately empowering me with the strength to make some real changes in my life. I would talk her into setting me up on a fantasy date with Chris Noth and at the end of the year, I would emerge with a pixie hair cut and no one would recognize me because I’d be so thin. Through this year, I will have morphed into a classy, sassy chick who has the world by the balls.

> I went wayyyy back in your archives and found a post about Camp Nawakwa. (My family also spent one week every year at the same resort – in Northern WI, too – with the same families.) Tell us about those vacations.

These vacations started out with me tagging along at the young age of 16. I accompanied my then boyfriend on what was he and his mom’s yearly vacation. Besides myself, Larry would bring a guy friend or two and it would be a crazy fun week filled with teenage frivolities and badness. You get the picture-1979. A teenage boy and girl alone (at times) in the woods, and not even mosquitoes the size of birds could tear us apart.
My boyfriend and I went to ‘camp’ for 4 years, chaperoned by his mom. We eventually married, continued to go every year and now, 25 years and 5 kids later we haven’t missed a summer. It’s a tradition and my kids love it. Now they bring their friends with raging hormones and I get to be the mom who pays dearly for my sins of the past by having to go through the same crap my mother in law had to go through with my husband and I. There’s nothing like a little history to repeat itself and end up biting you in the ass.

> What non-political piece of advice would you like to give President Obama?

Change your middle name to Henry. In times like these, Hussein just sends out a waves of red flags-You’re scaring me, Barack.

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Now it’s your turn. If you would like me to interview you just leave a comment and I will email you the questions! Here are the directions:

1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”

2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. (I get to pick the questions).

3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.