Nellie’s playhouse

When I was a little girl I would lay down on the floor and get my pencil and draw. I would draw all different things and after I finished drawing I would go in the kitchen and steal some flour, make it up into dough, and stick the drawings up on the wall. My sister would say. “Mama, make Nellie quit putting those drawings up”, but Mama would let me go on doing it.” -Nellie Mae Rowe

Nellie Mae Rowe. I first became aware of her in a New Yorker blurb about an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. (Reading these things REALLY wants me to return in my second life living in NYC…probably with lots of money, don’t you think? But ah! the museums!). “The American artist Nellie Mae Rowe (1900-82) was in her sixties—twice widowed, and retired from decades of domestic service—when she began to transform her Atlanta home into what she called her “playhouse,” filling it, inside and out, with her found-object assemblages, enchanting soft sculptures, and colorful drawings (including “Nellie in Her Garden,” from 1978-82, above.)”

I love the bright colors, childlike images, and fill-the-space attitude. It’s as if any given artwork reflects the joy she counts in her life.

Here’s more of her art. And a summary of her life and work.

"I don't know what he put me here for, but he got me here for something 'cause I don't draw like nobody. You speak one way, but I come on and say it different. You can draw a mule, dog, cat, or a human person, I'm going to draw it different. 'Cause you always see things different."[4]

AND….I am slipping in

A short (very) reel on Instagram is a tease for the next calendar.