Fri. June 13, 2025: Let’s Turn This Luck Around!
image courtesy of Huda Nur via pixabay.comFriday, June 13, 2025
Waning Moon
Pluto Retrograde
Rainy and cool
I love Friday the 13th!
Yesterday was kind of all over the place.
The online meditation group was good, and Charlotte was delighted. Because the painters were right outside my office window, I took the laptop and did the session in Tessa’s room.
After breakfast, I got the power cord, so I could work in the living room. I got some admin done, but not enough. I managed to get a complicated play submission out, though, which is a good thing.
One of the things my friend helped me with while she was here was talking through some of the material around the Playland Painters, especially Iris Woolcock. I went down a research rabbit hole in the morning, and I’ve managed to trace her, through census records, etc. until her death in 1979. At one point, it looks like she was technically divorced from her writer husband, but living with him and his wife in Putney, VT. I also found an article stating that she worked on a commission painting the governor of VT at one point, so I want to track that down. I may try to go up to Putney in July or August and poke around there.
I also got some more information on Frank W. Darling, who ran Playland from opening until 1933, and whose assistant, Grace King Hutchins, put together the group of women artists. I think Grace might be from the UK originally. She was definitely his assistant at large exhibitions at Wembley and in Paris. Since I’m having trouble tracing her in the US, I may try to poke around UK records. Frank and Helen (his wife) were in a dispute with the IRS in the mid-30’s, which would explain why the Larchmont house was in her name. By the 1940 census, they lived on a farm in Virginia, and by the 1950 census, Helen’s two sons from her first marriage were living with them again (they had lived with them in the 1930’s in Larchmont, too).
I tried getting more information on Dorothy Dwin from the National Gallery (who has 18 of her sketches). From a newspaper article, it seems she worked the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933-34 as a sketch artist and that article stated she had worked for Playland for six years, which would have made her one of the original painters (as I suspected) as well as a sketch artist on the Boardwalk in the evenings.
It also means that LAUGHTER & TURPENTINE has to take place between 1928-1933, before Frank and Helen left Playland, and before Dorothy left for Chicago.
Information in a newspaper article from Atlanta on Anita Minter claims she’s from Texas (a society page piece, placing her in Saratoga and also in VT, visiting with classmates from FIT, one of whom died in an accident not far away from here). But birth records and census are showing her in Virginia (if it’s the same person). Somewhere, I have a newspaper clipping about her winning an advertising award in Atlanta.
There’s still not much more information on Dorothy Kraft, other than she and Dorothy Dwin were hired as sketch artists on their evenings off to work rich people’s parties in places like Scarsdale.
It was all very interesting, even if I couldn’t get all the information confirmed.
I thought Iris had made the trip across Alaska in the camper with her dog. Actually, it was with her cat! And there’s a bunch of information about her in the archives of the Anchorage Museum, which I need to talk to their curator about.
It made for an interesting morning, and then the day took a turn.
I got my notes back for the outline I’d turned in on May 23. They want a rewrite of the 6K. They loved the emotion and character arcs, but want to separate two of the central characters, which means restructuring the whole damn thing. I don’t mind the work; what I mind is that means a delay in invoicing.
On top of that, my mom got slammed with a state tax bill for over $900. There is NO WAY on Social Security and a pension from which they withhold every month, that she owes over $900, with accruing penalties. So next week, I have to deal with all that bullshit.
I mean, they already steal from her pension every month, and her pension is tiny. They’re supposed to give that back after taxes are filed. Not only are they not giving it back, they want an extra $900? How about making some rich people pay taxes, instead of the old and the sick?
Added stress.
I put on Real People clothes and headed to the library for the trustees meeting, only to discover it was cancelled, because they didn’t have a quorum. It was marked on the city calendar, but I hadn’t checked it. So that was a gift of a couple of hours I appreciated, and could enjoy a leisurely dinner.
At 8 PM, I had a virtual meeting with the library cohort, which does so every month. It was so good to see people again, and have great discussions. By the time I signed off, I felt better about everything, and very lucky to know these great people from all over the country.
In spite of all the crap going on, be it at personal and federal levels.
A friend of mine is in a play on the other side of the state this weekend. I wish I could see her, but I’m already booked. Tonight is the opening at the Clark. Tomorrow is tomorrow (if you know, you know), and I have a responsibility to show up. Sunday, I get to see the show that the friend who was here earlier in the week is stage managing down in Pittsfield (and I’m excited; I really want to see it).
Somewhere in there, I need to cut and start stitching the textile piece.
Today, I will focus on the ghostwriting revisions, and getting to the library and the grocery store. The painters have been doing their thing the last few days, moving ladders to different windows, going up and down, but I’m not seeing much progress. And I’ll be so disappointed if the final color is this white. It makes us, literally, a white elephant on the block.
Oh, well. Not up to me.
At least both the bank and PayPal confirmed they’ve dealt with the scam receipt for the gun I did not buy.
Have a great weekend, and we’ll catch up next week!
