Newspaper Page Text
Scrapbooking is a billion-dollar industry and a creative quest
By Patrick T. Reardon
Chicago Tribune (KRT)
Tracy White tells this story:
"Back in the first part of 97,
a friend and I went up to
Montana, and we stopped in an
antique shop. I distinctly
remember coming across a box
of old photos for a nickel each.
1 picked one up, and it struck
me that here was this picture of
a woman who lived and died,
and I knew nothing about her.
"1 think about her a lot. I
don’t want to be that woman in
a box, nameless. I don’t want to
be sold for a nickel.”
White is editor-in-chief of
the Utah-based Creating
Keepsakes magazine, in print
for seven years, which makes it
one of the oldest scrapbooking
periodicals in the nation. She
has been making scrapbooks
for nearly two decades, from
back when she was in high
school. Most of her half-mil
lion readers, though, are much
newer to the experience.
The act of scrapbooking
seems simple and straightfor
ward: It preserves the past
through photos and other mem
orabilia. using modern acid
free, lignin-free papers that are
less likely to fade or deteriorate
than old-style materials.
But scrapbooking isn’t just
another hobby. For many
women the vast majority of
scrapbookers are female cre
ating a scrapbook is an act of
artistic expression in an era
when such opportunities have
dwindled or disappeared at
home and in the workplace.
A scrapbook is an individ
ual’s own work of art. But it's
also one that, most often, is
fashioned dunng "crops,” mod
em throw backs to quilting bees
at which women sit around
tables together to work on their
pages, talk and build friend
ships.
The scrapbooks they create
are antidotes to the chaotic
fragmentation of everyday liv
ing. Here, on the pages, is the
life story of a family or an indi
vidual idealized, to be sure,
but also, in a unique way.
KWMVWVVVWVWWVVVM
11TH ANNIVERSARY!!
Forsyth County American Cancer Society f *
Relay For Life 2004 ( forufe
7 4 —, Friday, May 14, 6 p.m. through IBfBF
a Fenn2oo4 schedule Saturday, May 15, 7:3 oam lliiw
X s«PM 600 PM Spectators ARE Invited TO Come RUN, .a
J) 5.00PM-6.00PM WALK, OR JUST WATCH THE fun! special thanks to fcrfl \
A OPENING CEREMONIES!! fA it /k/ CUMMING FAIRGROUNDS STEERING OTmT .(Nl 4 !
7 6:3OPM / Overnight of Non-Stop X
survivor commemoration C* A u Z Entertainment & Family Activity emus & diam buntin, chom. daws,
A Survivor Celebrytha Os ijff! cHRMW0 R * J Phvuis Green. KeueyKymiele, Mu: Keuy.
X fgEESU / CANCER is limited Siduje Kits. Ijmm Shu™. k)RiTH<>Mi>so\.
K O' l ' 0 .o > It cannot cripple love. ft
6: W 7:30P.M W**' / It cannot corrode faith.
xX “Bay of Pugs" Raw Z ß to K it cannot eat awav Deace thank you to our
r* S u cannut eat away peace. fcrfl 2004 teams! <Y
/ / rVsr^ KHOk ?a \ It cannot destroy confidence. X
SURVIVOR Dinner In The Arena \ It cannot kill friendship.
7:oopm 7 & frEHCH k\V It cannot shut out memories. chnsuh.
<>-4 Z/T a AAik l\ I\\ nV ir, . Coal Mountain Baptist Church
Y Campsite Judging rl A / A / \ XX It cannot Silence courage. Crossroads Baptist Church N
N. / /I/ \ 1 \ll \ A ' » . , Cumming Elementary /\
8:30 pm 9:oo pm //F\ IZ V N It cannot invade the soul. Cumming Kiwanas Club *“*AX I
If Y ’ Daves Creek Elementary \ V
*s\ Liberty’s Chorus \lt cannot quench the SPIRIT. 'XtewT
Vr} Forsyth County Health Department \|
Y 9:00-10:30 PM /i/VC/ZVI Friendship Baptist Church N
l\ Haw Creek Baptist Church /A
LUMINARY CEREMONY
Ah A I'hcrty Middle School \v
5\ 10:3G12:15AM
> “Feedback Band Midway Elementary 2*
" (*1 R-MBLI- . Mt Tabor Baptist Church ZX
12:30 AM-2:30 AM New Harmony Baptist Church J
PraronMANCF HV N A. Tt V Otwell MS
fl JM / Pinecrest Baptist
y/ . 7 Family \|
? YARD DOGS Band ‘ L, Sawnee EMC A
b , Sawnee Elementary
2:30 AM 4:00 AM V Sawnee Primary
Settles Bridge Elementary \“
Karoke WETHANK & SALUTE OUR SPONSORS!!! SFMS and Kroger
Y 7:3OAM BILL HEARD CHEVROLET “St? >
A . COLDWELL BANKER/FRENCH PROPERTIES Vickery Creek Elementary school
CLOSING CEREMONY CUMMING COUNTRY FAIR AND FESTIVAL Vicke y c WalMart eSc 0
XX FCRFL 2004 BEGINS! FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS plZsHlghi' candle In Memory or /« Honor of my loved one or end I under
'J THANKS TO ALL TEAMS GEORGIA DERMATOLOGY CENTER stand the proceeds will go to benefit the American Cancer Society.
A OAK GROVE YOUTH GROUP | Nam. Telephone L
SPONSORS.SPECTATORS* OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE | A<WrM » |Vv
.A nnieimeir'njurc . Suggested donation IS.OO-JIO.OO or more. Please make checks payable to the .
v SURVIVORS!!! SCIENTIFIC GAMES ■ American Cancer Society
TYSON FOODS I In Memory Os or In Honor of (circle one) (trammuMO) I
Y.\ __ u/cn TV I 84,1(1 <hlt ,ornl * ln ’ y° ur contribution to ACS I
Z'W WSP ~ IV I CALL Lori Thompson MOO Sugarloaf Pkwy Suite 200 I
< M M
coherent, rational, attractive.
At an even deeper level,
scrapbookers create their pages
as an expression of themselves,
as a record of their own time on
Earth, as a sort of autobiogra
phy. "They’re scrapbooking,"
White says, “because they want
to connect, to reach out and
touch someone, whether it’s
someone sitting next to them at
the crop or someone 100 years
from now they’ll never meet.
It’s away of saying. My life
was worth something. I was
here! “
It’s early afternoon on a
Saturday, and four women from
various corners of Lake
County, 111., converge on scrap
booking store A Page in Time.
Along the sidewalk, each
woman pulls a suitcase-size
carryall-on-wheels, stuffed
in an organized manner, to be
sure with scissors, markers,
papers, stickers, pens, glues,
rulers, tapes, pencils, glitters
and a wealth of other supplies,
as well as the treasure of treas
ures, envelopes of family pho
tographs.
In the back of the store, five
long, cloth-covered tables are
set up in a thin U shape. The
four women find places, reach
into their cases, pull out their
albums and begin to create new
pages. Welcome to a crop.
"My job doesn’t allow me
to be creative," says 38-year
old Adina Boyer of Vernon
Hills. 111., as she arranges the
elements of a page with a patri
otic theme, all red, white and
blue.
Boyer works in the human
resources department of the
North Chicago-based medical
products giant Abbott
Laboratories and spends much
of her day in front of a comput
er screen. Her husband is a
salesman. They have three
bovs, ranging in age from 2 to
8. ’
Working next to Boyer is
Noreen Biegalski, a 35-year
old home day-care provider
whose husband is a biologist at
Abbott Labs. "It’s like a blank
canvas every time you start.”
she says of her book. “You can
do so many different things:
You can sew on your page. You
can put down stickers.
“Everything’s so speeded
up. This slows me down and
makes me think about happy
things: Oh. we went to Door
County over the summer. “
Biegalski is looking down at
the page on which she’s work
ing. It has photos of her 1 -year
old daughter, Megan, eating an
ice-cream cone, rather sloppily.
This page is for Biegalski’s
third Megan album. For her 7-
year-old son, Robby, she’s on
her eighth. "I’m usually a year
behind," she says.
On the other side of the U,
Michele Smith knows the feel
ing.
She's only up to last June in
the scrapbooks she has made
for her 23-year-old daughter, a
graduate of the U.S. Naval
Academy at Annapolis, Md„ a
recent bride and now in training
to be a Navy pilot. The albums
for her 21-year-old son. a junior
at Boston College, are com
plete only through last spring.
And the set she has started of
her own childhood well,
she's only up to 1954. when
she was 3. "When my daughter
got engaged, her fiance was
looking through the scrapbooks
to see her growing up,” says
Smith who lives in Waukegan.
"Eventually, grandchildren will
look at them.”
A former paralegal married
to an attorney. Smith got into
the hobby in 1994 after attend
ing a home scrapbooking party
sponsored by Creative Mem
ories. a 17-year-old direct-sales
firm headquartered in St.
Cloud, Minn. A Creative
Memories party was the entree
as well for Boyer. Biegalski
and the fourth woman sitting at
the tables, Maggie Workman.
Wearing a long-sleeve Ohio
State T-shirt. Workman is lay
ing out photos of a daughter’s
music recital.
“The documentation is
important to me." says the 34-
year-old Workman, who lives
in Waukegan. "I’m not as much
of an artist as these guys.”
It’s no news that modern
housework is still primarily
done by women. Or that it’s
much different from what it
was a century ago. The back
breaking strain of many tasks,
of course, has been eliminated
by the washing machine, the
dryer and a host of other labor
saving devices. But, as handy
as those machines have been,
they’ve also served to lock
women away from each other.
“There is much more isola
tion in housework for women
today than in the past,” says
University of Delaware histori
an Susan Strasser, author of the
1982 book “Never Done: A
History of American House
work” (Owl Books. 361 pages).
"At one time, women would do
their washing together down at
the river or at the well. And.
when the first wringer washing
machine came, it was outside
on the porch. But then it moved
inside, and housework became
much more isolated.”
Scrapbooking at crops
breaks down that isolation. And
not only that: The process of
turning the blank scrapbook
page into a historical record
provides something that has
been lost by mothers and
housewives over the past centu
ry because of the industrializa
tion of the home what
Strasser calls “craft satisfac
tion.”
One of the compensations
for the drudgery of housework.
Strasser notes, used to be the
opportunity to be creative to
sew your family’s clothing, to
cook your family's meals.
Today, though, clothes
come from the mall, and
meals? Well, there’s fast food,
and there are frozen dinners,
and pre-packaged lunches, and
just-add-water meals.
“Most people who love to
cook and get a lot of satisfac
tion out of it do it now once a
week,” Strasser says. "There
are very few of us who are
doing major cooking every
day.”
Scrapbooking provides that
FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS - Sunday, April 18, 2004 - I
|| 5 l
Tra ■ -
Photo/Michael Walker-Chicago Tribune
Noreen Biegalski, from Lindenhurst, 111., puts new pages
in her scrapbook at A Page In Time in Libertyville, 111.
missing creative outlet, says
Georgie Cameal. co-owner of A
Page in Time even for the
many women who don’t feel all
that inspired. "Some people
who never thought they had any
creative ability at all with all
the material available, all the
doodads, it's not hard to be cre
ative in a scrapbook,” she says.
PAGE 7B