they make your bathroom more fun March 26, 2006
Cathy and Becky Deano and some other Northshore folks are putting on a benefit art auction for Ann O’Brien and John Preble on Saturday night, April 1, at the St. Tammany Art Association in Covington. Ann has pancreatic/liver cancer and they have not gotten any encouraging news from the doctors. She and John, her husband, created the UCM Museum in Abita Springs. Ann has been a jeweller for many years, always crafting it from sterling silver. She has two sons, Andrew and William, and William is still in high school. Before the cancer diagnosis, they had a tree smash through the roof of their beautiful old house in Abita during the hurricane. I’m sure Ann and John were among those of us saying, “well, it can’t get any worse, right?”
Ann and John were very encouraging to me when I first started making the beaded boxes and shoes about eight years ago. Ann put a pair of my Mardi Gras beaded cowboy boots in the UCM. She always liked the kookiness of the beads and I think the idea of recycling Mardi Gras appealed to her. She’s kind of a low-tech person.
Cathy asked me if I would donate something to the art auction, and I said “yes” without knowing what it would be. Then, when Steve and I were making those crazy plungers for the Krewe of Tucks parade, I realized that those were not going to be my last plungers. I couldn’t stop coming up for ideas for bigger and sillier plungers. There is something about this piece of wood that costs less that $3.00 and comes with its own stand that I just can’t resist. They are begging to become little totem poles. They are blank totem poles. And they come in two sizes! They can look like good-luck charms or fetish objects. I think if Ann sees these ridiculous plungers that have been made useless for their intended purpose by decoration, it will make her laugh. I hope they make everyone laugh, and I hope they get a hell of a lot more than $3.00 each for them. I’m looking for at least $100 for the large ones.
I had a little trouble finding wooden handled plungers to work with. There seems to be a fashion now for molded plastic plungers a la Martha Stewart. This is a mistake. They are cheesy and flimsy and they cost much more than the sturdy old wooden ones, so don’t buy them! I had to go to a plumbing supply place for the large ones and they were very curious about why I wanted all these plungers. When I told them I wanted to make art out of them, they were super-accomodating and enthusiastic. I have always found this to be so whenever I have tried to secure some industrial item for use in a piece of art or a play. It must be nice for them to have a customer who is not a hurried contractor or a cranky plumber. They didn’t have any small kitchen sink plungers, but I finally found them at . . . um . . . a secure, undisclosed location.
I’ve made 10 plungers since Mardi Gras. Here is a slideshow of them. They are posted on Yahoo, but I can’t seem to get my Yahoo photos to post to the blog. Please take a look and let me know what you think. If any blog readers are interested in bidding, or interested in a custom-designed plunger-totem, e-mail me. They’re fun. I like making them. They are not complicated and they are anything but serious.
- Posted in : images, main, new orleans
- Author : dangerblond
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