“Making Your Marc”

“Making Your Marc”

     As far back as I can remember, I was always intrigued by the” birth mark” my Aunt Marcia was adorned with as she developed in her mother’s womb.  Marcia is very pretty; she has straight dark brown hair, light skin, a small “willowy” stature, medium height, and brilliant clear blue eyes. Her skin is graced with freckles and a very unique birth mark, or beauty mark. Directly above her left hand on the front side of her wrist, where the face of her watch might be, is her perfect size, freckle-type birth mark! I often admired how it was centered so perfectly on her wrist among a spattering of much smaller standard size freckles. Only recently did it occur to me, the unique shape is similar to what you might see on a map of the United States, and could be described as the shape of the state of New York, West Virginia or Maine.

I asked myself, “Why is this woven into some of my earliest memories?” Then I remind myself of the road her well-worn artist birth mark has traveled and the stories it could tell. Being in her care as a child on occasion, I would notice it as she read books to my siblings and me. I always noticed it was attractive, and I would compare her wrist with mine. I remember first learning to read her handwritten notes, and if the birth mark could see, it would see how close it is to some of the most beautiful handwriting ever joined together with ink.

Marcia & me

Throughout her life her birth mark has been surrounded with some very creative and artistic experiences. I remember being with Marcia as the two of us looked at the room divider full of decorative vases and art work making sure the colors and shapes were pleasing to the eye. This is one of my first memories and moments of my introduction to art and its affect around us. On this occasion, I recall the background music of Andy Williams a popular vocalist, decades ago and at that time one of Marcia’s favorites. If the birth mark could hear, those would be the tunes it would remember.

I recall when Marcia first took an interest in photography. Even though I was just entering my teenage years, I was struck with amazement at the images she captured with her great eye and the camera lens; they were unlike any I’d seen before. To this day, some of the best are framed portraits of her children, usually very informal and some in black and white. Many portraits welcome you as you come into their home. All the portraits she displays are photos taken in beautiful lighting, always lit from the side making shadows in just the right places. No matter where she makes an impression her own unique “art mark” is with her.

Her special mark was there when she raised her hands, holding the camera to take one of my favorite pictures of my cousin. In the picture my cousin had fallen asleep reading and the book had fallen to her chest with the warm reading light illuminating just one side of her face. Since the birth mark is skin and has feelings I know it felt the same warm reading light that shone on my cousin’s face, when Marcia moved in close to capture this reading moment.

While Marcia was as an art major in college, the birth mark was very near when she used her hands to sculpt an 18 inch reclining bronze nude resting on a white marble slab. I would have loved to be close by and see her thumbs and fingers as she pressed the shape of the feminine figure out of clay into a delicate form before covering it with the bronze over lay.

Her mark felt the heat of the June day under a black cap and gown when she walked across the stage graduating from the oldest public school in the United States, in Athens at the University of Georgia.

The birth mark was also with Marcia one day when she stopped to photograph a mural being painted on the side of the building known as the “Piggly Wiggly” for the filming of “Driving Miss Daisy” in Atlanta! What makes this photo so unique? To capture the right year of history, the Coca-Cola advertisement on the side of the store, depicted a boy with a bottle cap for a hat! The colors of red, grey, coke brown and touch of green were halfway painted by a man on scaffolding wearing a red and black large checked long-sleeved shirt, looking as though he expected to be photographed! That day the movie scene was shot and when she drove by the next day thinking she would see the finished mural, to her surprise it was all painted over solid…she had caught movie making history, just in time.

Today, a person initially meeting my aunt would probably not notice the birth mark on her arm. Over the years she’s been carrying it under her watch and it is slightly faded now. However, having it with her every day, if that birth mark could smell it would tell about the smell of paint on paintings brushed with acrylics or oil. Her mark could tell of the smells unique to welding school when she took up sculpting. The mark would tell about the smells of chemicals for processing photographs, and the sweet smell of glue used in framing them.

Through it all, “it” is with Marcia when she is cleaning, washing the car or the laundry, dusting, feeding a baby, changing a diaper, sewing curtains or a toddlers dress, taking a photograph, creating artwork or walking the dog, her artistic birth mark is with her. And when she‘s cooking if the birth mark could taste it would really want to taste the food! Wherever my aunt is many of my memories are with her…I wonder what my nieces notice about me?