Colorful

Week 30 is "Colorful." Maybe it's the relative who would be described as "a character." Maybe it's a relative who was artistic and enjoyed lots of color. What person in your family tree makes you think of "colorful"?

Meta Reith, my grandmother, was an artist and craftswoman. She created many artworks, but the family lost all during World War II and I've written in other posts about their experiences of that time.

Still Life by Meta Reith

But I have one painting, which I assume my mother got from the family in Germany and some embroidered articles that made it through the camp and photos in the family album showing off some of her work she produced pre-war.

I think she must have done this still-life in her student days at an art college in Hamburg, so it probably is about a hundred years old. It hangs in my kitchen now. The bright red of the lobster stands out.

Most poignant though are the two pieces she made while in the camp. For my mother's birthday, perhaps her twenty-first,  she created an embroidered vest, from an old khaki skirt and left-over yarns (Pictured). 

Embroidered vest created by Meta Reith est. 1944

More colourful is the embroidered table cloth she had started at home and her daughter Gretel had packed along with the few things they were allowed to take with them to camp (see my post Week 17 - Cemetery). My mother completed it finally about twenty years later.

Table cloth started by Meta Reith ca. 1944 and
completed by her daughter Annemarie ca 1962.