Buying Art With Grandma: My First Visit To Mendocino

The first time I remember visiting Mendocino County was on a road trip to the Mendocino Coast with my grandmother. I can’t tell you the year, but I’m guessing it was in the 1990s, and while I also don’t remember where we stayed or where we ate, given my grandmother’s spending habits, I can guarantee you they were the most reasonably-priced options available.

What I do remember though, is walking on Main Street in Mendocino and into all the galleries, as my grandmother loved buying art. And my most vivid memory is buying a small ceramic cat that I’ve kept all these years, mostly because the argument we had over it still makes me laugh.

The cat looks like a Himalayan, basically a fluffy Siamese, with a Mermaid tail, and it made me smile.

“Isn’t this funny,” I said. “It’s a mermaid!”

“But… it’s a cat,” my grandmother said, looking at me with confusion and pity as if I had suddenly become very stupid.

“Yes, it’s a mermaid that is half-cat instead of half-human, which is why it’s funny!” I said, but she remained unconvinced by these new facts, her face now showing more annoyance than pity when she said: “But it’s not a mermaid. It’s a cat.”

Right, I thought, looking at the mermaid cat in my palm and deciding to do what I always had to do to end an argument with my grandmother: Stop talking and change the subject.

(Thanks to the Internet, in the years since I have learned that such creatures are called “purrmaids,” so I guess my grandmother was right after all – it wasn’t a mermaid!)

The next time I bought art with my grandmother was more pleasant. Or at least I don’t remember any of our arguments, though we must have had at least one.

This time we met in Sonoma County, and I can tell you it was May of 1998, because she wrote about it in her journals. We went there because Carla, one of my mother’s high school friends, was an artist living in Cazadero and had opened her studio as part of a tour that weekend.

That day I fell in love with a purple vase that looks like someone standing indignantly with their hands on their hips, a piece aptly named “Vase with Attitude,” which my grandmother bought me along with a mirror, and I bought a bowl. Now, more than 25 years later, everything we got that day are still functional pieces of art in my home: the vase in the kitchen, the bowl in my bathroom, and the mirror – which my husband now likes more than I do – in the living room.

But again my most vivid memory of that day is an exchange with my grandmother in Sebastopol as we prepared to head home after lunch. As she started to drive away, she stopped her car next to me and rolled down her window.

“Have you been eating a lot of candy?” she said, her eyes focusing on the large, red pimples on my face that appeared every month like clockwork. And before I could think of a response, she finally got the nerve to say what she really wanted to: “And your bosoms have shrunk.”

Then she drove off, so all I could do was shake my head and try to laugh, finally realizing how to argue with my grandmother: Don’t. Just stop talking and let her have the last word.

Of course, she wrote nothing about that exchange in her journals:

• Friday, May 29, 1998

To Carla’s. Take African statues!

Up 5:30, ready by 8:30.

To Half Moon Bay by 9:50, got muffin.

To bridge by 10:45, not much traffic.

Called from Rio Nido at 12:15, 154 miles.

Carla met me at Guerneville grocery. Talked, etc.

Bed early.

• Saturday, May 30,1998

Up early. Chores, etc.

Visited numerous studios. Got vases (2), also another cat.

Also, “Friend of the potted plants.”

Talked to lots of people, very interesting.

Much riding, did not always buy things.

Met Donna, nurse who was in Belize. Next Portugal.

Bed early.

• Sunday, May 31, 1998

Up early again. Left about 9.

Got gas at Guerneville.

To bookstore, met Justine.

To art center, got mirror for J, vase for me.

To John Chambers, got tea pot. J got bowl for $5.

Back to Silvermine, got vase “with attitude” for J.

Left Justine at 4:30, back to Carla’s.

(Ukiah Daily Journal)