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Linda Butti
"A native New Yorker, I grew up in the Bath Beach section of Brooklyn.
Our neighborhood was one of transition; areas of sea grass were
transformed into building lots on a daily basis. I remember 'hanging' out
the window , watching workmen mix thick, viscous buckets of cement
and layer them into courses of bricks to form walls and eventually
homes. In the evenings, I would spend time watching my father in his
'shop', the basement. There he would magically transform pieces of
cardboard into accordion bellows by methodically folding and bending
them and attaching cut strips of sateen from a thick wooden glue
board onto the edges of the cardboard. After setting them into a
handmade frame, a bellow would appear! Magic! I loved the smells: the
glue boiling on the stove, the dampness of the basement walls, the
smell of wet paper ............"
Our neighborhood was one of transition; areas of sea grass were
transformed into building lots on a daily basis. I remember 'hanging' out
the window , watching workmen mix thick, viscous buckets of cement
and layer them into courses of bricks to form walls and eventually
homes. In the evenings, I would spend time watching my father in his
'shop', the basement. There he would magically transform pieces of
cardboard into accordion bellows by methodically folding and bending
them and attaching cut strips of sateen from a thick wooden glue
board onto the edges of the cardboard. After setting them into a
handmade frame, a bellow would appear! Magic! I loved the smells: the
glue boiling on the stove, the dampness of the basement walls, the
smell of wet paper ............"