You meet the most wonderful people online, one of the wonderful artists I have met is Lee Weber, from W. Virginia. She's a nurse in her day job, and an extremely talented artist by night... Lee invited me to join an altered book round robin project....
Each participating artist selects a song with lyrics they like, creates a front and back cover for the book, a couple of pages to get it started, and then ships the book off to the next artist to add a few more pages. After the book has made it's way from artist to artist it returns to you to drool over the other artist's pages. Fun, huh?
In my continuing healing process from loosing my Grandma Pearl a couple of years ago, I chose her favorite song from days gone by - "In The Hard Rock Candy Mountains". She thought it was a catchy tune and the lyrics made her laugh. It was a naughty song of it's day - written after the Great Depression, when there were lots of hobos traveling about the country.
A closer view of the cover of my book, in bright candy colors - strawberry, peach, tangerine, cherry, blueberry, etc. I typed the title of the song with my vintage typewriter using vintage paper. I soldered a mountain scene and a dragonfly for the front cover, added a metal honeybee aren't they attracted to sweet things - just like Me?
The back cover has another dragonfly, vintage crochet doily, another soldered charm honeybee and a sketched whipoorwill. NOTE: I have heard the song of the whipoorwill at the farm in the country, but I had never seen one until I pulled up an image online. The song is prettier than the bird, which is often the case.
A closer view of the whipoorwill sketch - "in the lemonade springs, where the whipoorwill sings".
The inside cover of the book has another tiny book for each artist to sign in and record their page in the book. I added a watercolor above the sign in book - my view of "The Hard Rock Candy Mountains" in cotton candy pink.
A closer view of the "hard rock candy" mountains watercolor and the lyrics for the page.
When the postcard flap is lifted, a vintage Kodachrome slide of some distant mountains is riveted in place.
The flip side of the page with the Kodachrome slide - a window cut for viewing from both sides.
A pressed flower card from Kathryn Glevanik with a vintage skeleton key held in place by vintage lace bit.
The inside of the card is embellished with feathers, vintage sheet music, a bluebird in a gumball tree and the next line of the song, "There's a land that's bright and fair". In The Hard Rock Candy Mountains
In the Hard Rock Candy Mountains there's a land that's bright and fair,
Where the donuts grow on bushes and there's cookies everywhere,
Where the boxcars are all empty and the sun shines every day,
On the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees,
Where the lemonade springs and the whipoorwill sings,
In the Hard Rock Candy Mountains.
In the Hard Rock Candy Mountains all the cops have wooden legs,
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft boiled eggs,
The farmer's trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay,
Oh, I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow,
Where the rain don't fall and the wind don't blow,
In the Hard Rock Candy Mountains.
In the Hard Rock Candy Mountains you never change your socks,
And the little streams of alcohol come a-trickling down the rocks,
The brakemen have to tip their hats and the railroad bulls are blind,
There's a lake of tew and of whisky too,
You can paddle all around in a big canoe,
In the Hard Rock Candy Mountains.
In the Hard Rock Candy Mountains the jails are made of tin,
And you can walk right out again as soon as you are in,
There ain't no short handled shovels, no axes saws or picks,
I'm a goin to stay where you sleep all day,
Where they hung the jerk that invented work,
1 comment:
Oooooooo girl, can't wait to get my hands on this!!! Love the colros, the meaning, the song!! Oh- and I'm from Pa... LOL!
hugs- Lee
PS- go post your pages on Flickr!
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