Grandma's Artistry

My husband's grandmother, Mollie (1900-1982), was a true artist.  While her main responsibilities in life were that of a Kansas farmer's wife, her modest home was filled with the efforts from her creative side.  Her daily routine of cooking, cleaning, laundry, gardening, raising chickens, caring for her 2 children, and helping Grandpa in the field would have been enough for any woman, yet she still found time to fill  their home with her creative endeavors.  She made the family quilts, made much of their clothing, crocheted beautiful table cloths, edgings for pillowcases, afghans, toilet paper holders, and pot holders, embroidered tea towels and curtains, painted on fabric, and made beautiful copper tooled pictures.

My favorite of all her creations is a copper tooled picture of our pioneers and their conestoga wagon.  This picture hung in her home until her passing, then was given to my husband. It has hung in our homes in Kansas and Nevada, always carefully packed whenever we moved.  It now is the centerpiece over my fireplace in my new home.
 
I spoke with my father-in-law, Bill, about how the picture came to be.  It seems that Mollie took classes from the County Extension in the early fifties and learned this technique.  A thin metal sheet of copper is the canvas.  The picture was drawn and then transferred to the back of the copper using carbon paper.  The copper sheet is then set on a soft surface (he thought it might have been soft blankets or possibly foam).  Today you can buy embossing tools, but he said they used what ever was on hand like spoons to push the design into the copper, creating a convex picture on the front. On the front, parts of the picture were painted black to highlight the copper forms.  Then a clear coat was used to seal the total picture.  Bill thought that a thin layer of plaster was used on the back to help the picture retain its shape and protect it from denting.  Then a thin sheet of ply wood was attached to complete the backing.

Grandma Mollie was an amazing woman, but the beauty and heritage shown in this picture is my favorite thing out of all the things she accomplished.