... let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. ... And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.
— Francie Nolan in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (1896–1972)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn opens on a summer Saturday in August 1912. Francie Nolan visits the library as she does every day in the summer, and studies the coveted little golden brown bowl on the librarian's desk — "a season indicator." The sprigs of foliage in the bowl change with the seasons, and on this day:
She moved her eyes slowly up the jug past the thin green stems and little round leaves and saw ... nasturtiums! Red, yellow, gold and ivory white. A head pain caught her between the eyes at the taking in of such a wonderful sight. It was something to be remembered all her life. "When I get big," she thought, "I will have such a brown bowl and in hot August there will be nasturtiums in it."
The colors and the layered five-petaled flowers on this temari were inspired by this scene.
Brown thread wrap; S10 division lines in metallic gold; embroidery in brown, light green, orange-yellow, yellow, ivory, and dark red. The quote by Betty Smith is in the bell box along with 5 brass rings. Circumference: 10.375 inches / 26.5 cm; diameter: 3.3 inches / 8.43 cm. Completed 11 November 2011 (no. 056).
Sold to benefit Kiva.org.
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