A Creative Connection

Stories entertain and affect. They can explain the unexplainable, make sense out of the senseless, and if lucky, make us feel connected. I believe we all crave connection and a sense of belonging. In some ways that seems odd since we ARE all connected. It’s an ecological fact. Yet facts don’t always satisfy the human mind and rarely the heart. John Muir knew of the law of connection. He said, “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”

Steve and I recently watched the 2015 movie Mr. Holmes on Netflix. Although not a block buster, it was moving and quietly poignant, an account of relationships. Ultimately, even the aged Mr. Holmes dispensed with his addiction for facts and held hands with the realization that straying from facts in telling a story had value in the sometimes lonely world of living. It makes life more beautiful, seasons it and can enhance our feelings of hope and redemption making it easier to swallow. The closing scenes made me believe that by his telling a story scarce of facts, Mr. Holmes finally was able to feel more connected.

The late Irish poet, author, priest and philosopher John O’Donohue filled a book with discussion on connection and belonging in his, Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong. The word “belonging”, he said, is comprised of the two elements of Being and Longing, belonging being “the heart and warmth of intimacy”, something for which we hunger. Long before I read Eternal Echoes I wrote my artist statement.

In it I explain how my art is how I celebrate what I see and feel connected to – that often inexplicable yet palpable sense of belonging to something even when that something is inanimate, like my passion for and sense of belonging to light tan grasses, ledge and texture.

Recently, during a discussion about my art while at lunch with friends, Steve started to recount the story of, as he called it, my “best piece ever.” He was referring partially to the artwork itself, an abstract textured piece, but more to the circumstances that inspired it and those that mushroomed because of the art.  It’s a piece our friends weren’t familiar with. Deferring to me to impart the details, the story caused tears to well up in my eyes. Sue strongly suggested it become a post on my blog. She felt others would love to hear the extraordinary story.

Incredibly, this story is genuinely all facts, in contrast to Mr. Holmes story at the end of the movie, yet just the same a deep and uncanny sense of connection and sense of belonging are the fabric of the tale. There are few absolutes.

In June of 2011, Steve and I still owned our street rod parts business and were in York, PA at a show where we had a large booth and display of our parts set up.

On the way to the show we determined our pick-up truck that pulled the trailer with our display in it had an electrical issue that required checking out. Once the booth was setup we took the truck to a garage in Dallastown, just south of York.

While the mechanics assessed the truck we meandered the main and side streets that make up the tight-knit borough of Dallastown. It was old but well kept. Most all the small, connected row houses had tidy and personalized decorated porches that screamed with pride.

On a back gravel alley we passed an aged, well-worn wooden, single-vehicle garage that had been patched over time. The door’s state of deterioration drew me in – the gray, cracked, weathered boards, peeling and uneven white paint and staining drips of rust made a beautiful abstract in my mind’s eye.

As in Margery Williams Velveteen Rabbit where the skin horse and rabbit talk about becoming Real … this door was real especially in its decaying state. “Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand,” explained the Skin Horse.

To me, this door was showing its shabby and Real side, what it was made of and it was beautiful in its candor and decay. I was inspired to create my interpretation of a portion of the door, the first in what I hoped would be a series – a tribute to textures and a way to celebrate them while gaining a better understanding of what it is about texture that appeals to me. Once the art was done, though, I struggled to name it, wanting to include Dallastown in the title, but it alone didn’t seem to adequately define my work or what it meant to me.

When I got Madeleine Pickens emailed newsletter from Saving America’s Mustangs a few months later in mid-August, the title of the piece became clear. Normally prone to skim read and, at best, take a superficial glance at her emails, something made me pause and study this one more closely. There was a photo montage tribute to the 30 American troops, the special forces that had recently been killed in Afghanistan. There was another side-bar article I was drawn to read as well, in its entirety. It’s title, “Fallen Marine Lost Life Attempting to Save Dog”.

A 29-year old Marine and two fellow soldiers were killed on 7.31.11 in a fire that swept through their living quarters in Western Afghanistan in Herat Province. I could hardly believe what I read … one of those killed was Sgt. Christopher Wrinkle from Dallastown, PA! He died because he went back in the burning quarters to save his beloved canine partner, Tosca, but not before Christopher called out to one of his colleagues when the fire broke out to make sure that he was safe.  Chris and Tosca both perished in the fire, inseparable partners in both life and death.

I was so moved by the heartbreaking story and the incredible fact that he was from the little borough that we had walked through only two months earlier where I had fallen in love with the dilapidated wooden door that the title became clearly evident.

“Dallastown’s Wrinkle”

It was a connection not to be ignored. “Dallastown’s Wrinkle” would simultaneously give tribute to where the inspiration came from and to one of its fallen heroes, Sgt. Christopher Wrinkle. As well, the title described the texture of this aged structure with it’s inherent crinkles and furrows … holding and celebrating the “Real”ness of it from a Velveteen Rabbit perspective.

Providence at work through my hands and my art.

But that is not the end of my story …

I could not believe the astonishing connection between our having been in the little community Christopher was from, walking perhaps the same back alley he may have, my love for that dilapidated garage door, the resulting art and having, what I considered, the freak of fortune to learn about his fate to help me name the piece.  Had I not gotten Madeleine Pickins newsletter and taken the time to read it, the knowledge of Christopher and Tosca and the connection would have remained unknown. I felt an overwhelming, powerful connection to life itself and belief that none of this was a coincidence. All of this crushed any hint of coincidence in fact. And there was more that needed to be done.

The side-bar article in Pickins’ newsletter, sourced from an on-line article from, Life With Dogs, noted that in lieu of flowers, contributions be made to the Christopher M. Wrinkle and Tosca Memorial Fund care of Metro Bank.

Funds would benefit the Courtyard of Honor at Dallastown High School and the U.S. War Dog Association. A colleague of Christopher’s at the barracks said he knew that Chris was going back into the burning building to try and save his dog Tosca. “He took a chance on his own life to get her. Chris died a hero.”

Compelled to honor Sgt. Wrinkle and Tosca, I decided to write an article about how Dallastown’s Wrinkle came to be and get it published in a paper in the greater York, PA area. In it I indicated that 100% of the sale of the art would benefit the fund set up in memory of Sgt. Wrinkle and Tosca. Certainly someone who knew Christopher or his family would find this a wonderful way to honor him and have an original piece of art inspired in Dallastown.

After writing the article, doing on-line research and making some calls, I emailed it to the editor of the York Daily Record newspaper on May 8, 2012 thinking that the timing would be good with Memorial Day close at hand. The article was published in the Sunday, May 13 edition. That same afternoon I got an email from Sgt. Wrinkle’s mother. She let me know how touched she was reading the article and thanked me for using my “God given talent and inspiration” to benefit the Christopher and Tosca memorial fund. The connectivity of the shabby garage door and abstract art just kept expanding.

She also told me that the connection between the old garage door and Christopher went beyond Dallastown. Chris’s great grandfather had been a well known automotive mechanic and his business was located just outside of Dallastown at an intersection known by the name “Redfront”.  Chris apparently, although not a mechanic did enjoy working on his old blue pickup truck and Jeep.

Back in our office on Monday, May 14, there was a message on our phone left on Sunday for me. Someone had called about the artwork, wondering if “Dallastown’s Wrinkle” had been sold. If not, he wanted to buy it. I called him back and asked his name since he hadn’t left it. He said, Mike Wrinkle. My pulse quickened. Because he was not readily open with more information, I bravely asked his relationship to Christopher. Mike was his Chris’s brother! I felt almost overwhelmed.

We chatted a bit first then discussed arrangements. I said I could send him the artwork once I received the check and also mentioned that Steve and I would be back in York again in a few weeks for the early June show we vended at annually. If he wanted, I could bring it with us and arrange to meet sometime in the five days we’d be in town. Mike liked that idea.

And so it came to be that within a year after I had found creative artistic inspiration in a little place called Dallastown, a family had lost a son and brother from that same little place and we – the mother and remaining son and the artist, previous strangers, met in the parking lot of a hotel less than five miles from Dallastown. It was there that I exchanged my art for a donation from Mike for Chris and Tosca’s memorial fund and personal family stories of a fallen hero. It’s where I learned that “Dallastown’s Wrinkle” was to be placed in a room along with other mementoes of Christopher, a shrine of sorts to a man I’d never met and never felt more connected to.

Those are the facts. This is the end of the story and I am forever affected.

To read the article about Sgt. Christopher M. Winkle and Tosca as sourced from Life With Dogs, follow this link.

Posted by carol@mylifewithcreativity.com & filed under Inspiration. This post has 4 comments.