The traveling eye 3: Desert

A childhood in Reno meant a dose of desensitization. Slot machines in grocery stores and boobs on billboards were just landscape, like sagebrush and tumbleweed. Something the eye didn't see. One of my first jobs was cutting and sewing cigarette girl uniforms, then mending them when the heavy trays and shoulder straps the women wore all night snagged the pink crepe or ripped the gold lace or loosened the rhinestone trim. The uniforms arrived for repair in plastic bags, all cigarette smoke and rings of Secret antiperspirant. If you have ever been in a casino, you will notice there are no windows to the world outside. Or clocks. Or, maybe you won't notice this at all.

Thank you Diana Vreeland for the quote:  
"The eye has to travel ..."

... sometimes, back to the home of your childhood,
in order to acknowledge that not everything is beautiful.

But some things are.

In order to see yourself as you once were 
and to see yourself as you exist now.

In order to understand that color isn't something to be afraid of, 
in fact, 
it was something you once embraced. 

Great Reno Balloon Races, 2014.

"Mississippi Wheel of Fortune," 2006. Machine pieced and quilted. Private collection.

In order to see and walk and show and wonder and mostly remember where you came from.
In order to transition,
again.

"To Transition Again," detail, by Eileen Gay. Regional Transportation Commission RAPID Stations Public Art Component. Reno, Nevada.

"To Transition Again," detail, mosaic sculpture by Eileen Gay.