Visit to the Ohio State Reformatory Historic Site

Evander's Cub Scout Pack toured the Ohio State Reformatory on Saturday. His den leader volunteers there and is a tour guide, so he arranged it and gave us quite an extensive tour. The building is most famous for being the set of the movie The Shawshank Redemption (such a good movie), but it also attracts visitors who attend ghost hunts, as some believe the building is haunted.

When we arrived, Evander said, "Woahhhhh. That's the awesomest looking museum I have ever seen."  It technically has a museum section, but I totally pegged this as a museum visit to get over the creepiness of seeing an old prison. :-P

The building itself is quite impressive. Too impressive to get in a single camera shot.

Center of the building, East and West Cell Blocks not in view.

Image: Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society

But for all of its external beauty and splendor...the inside is literally crumbling.  I seriously felt we needed to detox after being in the building for three hours!

Part of the reason it is so poor on the inside, is moisture. Many, if not all, of the large windows on the cell blocks were broken at some point in time (by prisoners!) which allowed the elements to just flow right in.  Additionally, the architect designed the building so that the downspouts are enclosed in the walls (duh!), and not on the exterior of the building...so, yeahhhh...lots of moisture.

View of the East Cell Block with newly renovated windows

Waiting for our tour to begin

The East Cell Block remains the largest free-standing cell block in the world at six tiers high.  Seriously tall.

Looking up, inside the East Cell Block

Evander got excited that there were bunk beds. Hmmm...

Walking on the fourth tier of the cell block as quickly as possible...totally creeped out:

It's hard to believe that 23 years ago...these cells still contained prisoners!  At its height of occupation, it housed 1,900 men.

The prison closed its doors in December in 1990 after about two decade's worth of attempts to shut it down because of poor conditions and poor treatment of prisoners. At one point in time, 120 prisoners were kept in solitary confinement cells, six to a cell (kind of defeats the purpose of *solitary* confinement) in 98 degree temperatures. 

Prisoners - 1935

The Shawshank Redemption filmed in 1993. The prison's cell blocks were not used in the movie as producers wanted cell blocks that faced each other.  They built the ones seen in the movie in a nearby Mansfield warehouse.

The State of Ohio charged Columbia Pictures exactly $0 for use of the facility. Wow. They told movie producers that they could do whatever they wanted to the place.

The rooms seen in the movie were living quarters for the warden, assistant warden and chaplain when the prison was in operation. Can you imagine living in or growing up there?!?!?

Warden Norton's Office with the original safe from the movie

Looking out from the warden's office

Above is the door that the guy below broke in the movie when Andy was playing the music of the opera ladies singing for all to hear.  I've thought all year long that one of the dads of a cub scout looks like this guy. :-P

source

Here's the room where Red was denied parole and eventually received it:

And the pipe full of crap Andy crawled through to freedom:

Here's the room that housed Brooks and Red upon their reintroduction into the real world:

The wooden beam is not actually the original. Once the movie people moved out, the building sat and homeless people took residence here.  They completely trashed the original beam, but volunteers recreated it.

Doing what boys do. :-P

Outside of the Brooks/Red room in the hallway is a cool architectural element can be seen.  It is called the "Scofield X," and I believe it was a signature of architect Levi Scofield. Light from four surrounding rooms create an "x" in the middle of the hall.  I did not get a picture since there were so many people standing on it, but here is a picture from our den leader/tour guide/volunteer:

Scofield X

Resting for a bit in the prison chapel

Someone was getting married here today!

I can't even imagine how much it would cost to fully restore this building--some astronomical figure.  It really is a shame how run-down it is inside...the living quarters must have been beautiful in their day. It was a neat place to visit, and I enjoyed viewing all of the things I recognized from The Shawshank Redemption, but I don't really have the desire to go back...I've seen enough. :-P

Cub Scouts!

Lake Erie Center Art Contest Entry

My lovely sister works at The University of Toledo's Lake Erie Center (LEC) near the beautiful Maumee Bay State Park.  Each year, the LEC hosts an art contest in the spring, and a photography contest in the fall. I think I've told my sister many times, "We'll enter something!" but always ended up forgetting about it, or couldn't muster the troops together to contribute.

This year's art contest theme was "The Nature of Our Region: From Oak Openings to Maumee Bay."  Having stayed at Maumee Bay State Park at the end of last summer, I knew EXACTLY what I wanted to do...in my art form, quilting, of course!!!

Here is the inspiration for the deer quilt:

We had seen lots and lots of female deer hopping around all over the place. Typical, huh?  During one of our walks on the boardwalk, we spotted this guy.  He impressed me so much!  I had never seen a buck in the wild before.  He was beautiful.  He was majestic...and he was alive!  Although, you couldn't really tell since he was so still and cautious.

The green half-square triangles represent the grass, and the blue half-square triangles represent the sky or the lake or both---you pick. :-)

I was so blessed to be able to start this project with my friend Becky at a sewing night at her house.  Lots of fun talking...and lots of sewing tips from an awesome quilter.

I quilted the green squares like blades of grass:

And I quilted the blue squares with bubbles...like little clouds in the sky:

The deerie is appliqued.  I used the same technique that I used for my self-portrait quilt:

A quilt certainly isn't something you'd see in a traditional art show, but I am proud to submit something a little different. :-)

Easter Eggs 2013

Each year I paint three eggs for Easter, one for each of my children, and this year's theme was MY LITTLE PONY of course!  Last year, I let each kid decide what they wanted on their egg, but I didn't even ask this year, because I WANTED TO PAINT PONIES!  Ha.

From left to right, your ponies are: Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Princess Cadence.

Don't you just love Spring?  :-)  I actually don't mind the cold and snow. I am very blessed to not have to drive to and from work every day. However, I do get tired of everyone being so grumpy about it. Wait...does that make me grumpy about their grumpiness?

Rainbow Dash was my favorite to paint, and I think the one that turned out the best.  I had this one in mind for Emory, since he is strong and athletic like Rainbow Dash.

Both boys say that Fluttershy is their favorite pony because "she is so cute, and she loves animals."  Both boys want to claim the Fluttershy egg.  I have Evander in mind for this one, though, since he is the nature and animal lover.

Marin wanted her favorite pony, Princess Cadence.  This is also what she wants to be for Halloween this year (the kids talk about their next costume and next birthday party theme all year long!). Good luck to me figuring that costume out!

I <3 painting eggs!

Check out previous year's eggs here:
Eggs 2012
Eggs 2011 & 2010

Eeeeeeeep! My Self-Portrait Quilt

I've been working on a little secret project since we rang in the New Year, and I am happy (and obviously excited!) to finally be able to share it with all of you.

It's meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!  Can you believe it? :-P

The lovely Shruti at 13 Woodhouse Road walked a group of us quilters through the whole process of making a portrait quilt (you can view her portrait quilt here).  We interacted daily on Facebook asking questions of each other, updating our progress, and sharing our disappointments and encouragements.  We agreed  not to post about our projects online, until Shruti revealed them all together on her blog on March 1.

Well, it's March 1 at her home in India...so I can share, share, share away! :-)

I'm not sure how many pictures of my face you really need to see...but as always, I had a fun photo shoot with my quilt.

The kids weren't convinced that this was me while I was working on it.  But, never fear, they warmed up to it.

Kissing Mommy

Hugging Mommy

Being dramatic around Mommy

Photobombing Mommy

Kissing Mommy again

The cat stayed true to her love of quilts and love of getting in my pictures, too...

Meow

And meow, again. Always meow.

This project was incredibly stretching for me. The first mental challenge was getting past the idea of fussing over a picture of my SELF.  Does this make me self-absorbed?  What will people think of me?  I could hear the Carly Simon song playing throughout my head...:-P  As I began cutting and fusing the pieces, I decided that I liked it and that this was going to be really cool. 

Once I *wanted* the quilt to look like me, the next big hurdle was getting past the fear that at any moment I could totally mess this whole thing up and the stupid thing wouldn't end up looking like me.  I read quotes on Pinterest that said, "Creativity takes courage;" "To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong;" and "An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail," and I thought...that's exactly it.  You just have to dive right in there.  And I am so happy that I did!

Finished quilt size is 25" x 25"

Check out the other self-portrait quilts from the group on Shruti's blog: The Big Reveal!  Don't they all look fabulous?  I loved seeing how everyone tackled their project and which fabrics they ended up using.  And, I *definitely* needed help from this group at many different points along the way.  This was my first experience participating in a "quilt along" and I would definitely do it again!