Grandma, Rest In Peace

Lelia Mildred (Madge) Casey Stucker

BORN: June 7, 1916
DIED: September 22, 2011
LOCATION: Poplar Bluff, MO

Lelia Mildred "Midge" Stucker, 95, of Poplar Bluff died Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011 at Mark Twain Caring Center in Poplar Bluff.

Mrs. Stucker was born June 7, 1916 in Poplar Bluff. She was a member of New Oak Hill General Baptist Church where she served as church clerk and Sunday School teacher for many years, and was a homemaker. During her early years Mrs. Stucker worked at Holiday Inn, and later as a cook for the Poplar Bluff R-1 Schools. She enjoyed spending time with her family, helping and making others happy, gardening and cooking. Mrs. Stucker was well known for making homemade rolls and dumplings made from scratch.

On Jan 20, 1935, she married John Lee Stucker in Poplar Bluff. He preceded her in death on March 7, 1978.

Survivors include her children, Clifford Stucker and wife Linda and Glenda Talcott all of Poplar Bluff and Phillip (Gene) Stucker and wife Cindy of Granite City, Ill.; grandchildren, Ricky Talcott and wife Debby of Campbell, Mo., Johnny Talcott and wife Margie of Salt Lake City, Utah, Theresa Tolliver and husband Terry, Jane McNamee and husband Jerry all of Poplar Bluff, Lelia (Susie) Talcott of St. Louis, Mo., Teresa Finnell and Jerry Stucker and wife Lynn all of Poplar Bluff, Phillip Stucker, Guy Stucker and wife Amy all of Granite City, Ill., Billy Stucker and wife Dena of Kansas, Lisa Stucker, Cindy Aubuchon and Roberta Aubuchon all of Granite City, Ill., John Stucker and companion Heather and Curtis Stucker, all of Poplar Bluff and Leslie Pearson and husband Justin and Leigh Ann Willis all of North Carolina; 22 great-grandchildren; 9 great-great-grandchildren; and a host of nieces and nephews.

Mrs. Stucker was also preceded in death by her parents, Turner and Lottie (Stage) Casey, 2 sons, Larry Stucker and an infant, Jerry Lee Stucker, 3 great-great grandchildren, 4 sisters, and 4 brothers.

Visitation will be from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday at Cotrell Funeral Chapel. The funeral service will be at 1:30 p.m. Sunday at Cotrell Funeral Chapel with Rev. Gene Riddle officiating and Rev. Jim Schremp assisting. Burial will follow at New Oak Hill Cemetery in Butler County.

Spheres

From a spherical perspective, we recognize that everything influences everything else. -- Being Spherical by Phil Lawson and Robert L. Lindstrom

Wee watermelon

Get Out, Go Somewhere

Join me tonight for the opening reception of the Get Out, Go Somewhere Art Exhibition at the Mendenhall Student Center Art Gallery on the East Carolina University main campus. The show opens at 6pm and will run through September 29th. I have two pieces in the exhibit, which was juried by Samuel Yates – A multimedia artist based in Southern California. He has exhibited in America and Europe and his work has been written about in more than 40 U.S. and European publications. He has presented to gallery, museum, art school, university, private, and industry audiences. In addition to private art collections, his artwork is included in public collections such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Berkley Art Museum, di Rosa Preserve, and Ballett Frankfurt in Frankfurt, Germany. His work can be viewed at www.samuelyates.com.

The “Get Out. Go Somewhere” art exhibit is a juried exhibition organized by the East Carolina University Photography Guild. Artists were encouraged to submit work that they have created relating to travel, exploration, or discovery.



Images:

"MapQuest #1" by Leslie Pearson
10" x 10", mixed media sewn collage, 2011

"MapQuest #2" by Leslie Pearson
4" x 6", mixed media sewn collage, 2011

Moving on to bowls

I successfully made the 10 little cups that was due for class today. They were all weirdly shaped and will most likely be used to hold earrings or paperclips. Our next assignment is to make 50 bowls. The goal is to have 5 sets of 10, but for the life of me I can't even get two to look alike. The wheel is harder to master than I expected. I may never be perfect but at least I'll have 50 bowls, each with its own sense of humor. In the meantime, I'm enjoying the atmosphere of the class and discovering the poetic side of pottery. A bowl is so much more than a bowl.

“The creative spirit creates with whatever materials are present. With food, with children, with building blocks, with speech, with thoughts, with pigment, with an umbrella, or a wineglass, or a torch. We are not craftsmen only during studio hours. Any more than a man is wise only in his library. Or devout only in church. The material is not the sign of the creative feeling for life: of the warmth and sympathy and reverence which foster being; techniques are not the sign; "art" is not the sign. The sign is the light that dwells within the act, whatever its nature or its medium". -- MC Richards

Coming Full Circle

I'm in the process of my thesis work...the making and the writing. The work is about how individual and collective memory shapes identity. Using a narrative approach, I trace my own family history in an attempt to address universal concepts in a personal context.
The questions "Who am I" and "Who are we?" are central throughout our lives. According to Marita Sturken, in a paper on the Politics of Video Memory, "The search for identity represents a search for stability, community, and a home". Identity is constructed through the remembrance of certain historical moments, as well as through the forgetting and rescripting of certain events. Yet, history outside of personal memory is somewhat elusive and intangible.
Using digitally collaged photographic imagery printed on a series of large-scale fabric panels, I explore the stories of triumph and hardships experienced by a seemingly common Midwestern American family.
In my research, I came across these words from Deena Metzger's book, Writing for Your Life. It's a quote from members of a traveling Jewish theater:

"Stories move in circles. They don't go in straight lines. So it helps if you listen in circles. There are stories inside stories and stories between stories, and finding your way through them is as easy and as hard as finding your way home. And part of the finding is the getting lost. And when you're lost, you start to look around and to listen."

If only I could quite myself long enough to listen to the still, small voices of those who came before me. The ones who's lives paved the way for my own. The ones whose imprint is on my very DNA.