Cabin Life, Chapter Nineteen

What is a Cabin?

You may have noticed that some posts about art are beginning to be regular interruptions to our series called “Cabin Life”. My art business is waking back up after a semi-comatose summer. 

So, let’s wrap up this topic with some final posts. These are a rerun from 2018, but maybe you have slept since then, or maybe you didn’t read my blog back then.

What is a Cabin?

In 1986 I married into a Mineral King cabin. I’d always wanted either a cabin or a beach house. Here in Tulare County, cabins are more available and accessible than beach houses. It has worked out well, even to the point that my art business is called Cabin Art. (Or Cabinart. . . for a Typo-Psycho, I am awfully ambivalent about the spelling of this invented word.)

One would think that I would know how to define the word “cabin”. Alas, one would be wrong about that!

We had an old dictionary at the cabin, so I looked up “cabin”. The 3rd definition said, “A small, rude hut”. Clearly the word “rude” has changed in meaning since the dictionary was published in 1935. I looked up “rude” and saw “Poorly constructed”.

Alrighty, then. A cabin is a small, poorly constructed hut.

But is it? 

I looked up “cabin” on my Mac. The dictionary on my computer has fairly useless definitions as far as our discussion is concerned.

Cabin may refer to:

• Beach cabin, a small wooden hut on a beach
• Log cabin, a house built from logs
• Chalet, a wooden mountain house with a sloping roof
• Small remote mansion (Western Canada)
• Small, free-standing structures that serve as individual lodging spaces of a motel
• Cottage, a small house

We called this The Beach House while growing up; never once did the word “cabin” enter our little skulls.

Forget that. Where’s my real Webster’s dictionary?? Mine was published in 2004 rather than 1935. Oh good grief, look at this: “A small, simple, one-story house.”

That’s it? Au contraire! (Is that how you say “You are wrong” in French?)

In 2018, a few folks checked in with their thoughts on what a cabin is. One suggested “primitive”; another said a place to get away from every day life; someone else put forth the idea that a cabin is a state of mind. “Non-fancy” is a good description, and another added gave a description of an ideal cabin. She used the word “spare”, which could mean an extra home or it could mean without clutter. (I’ve seen some pretty cluttered cabins, and I have lived in a cabin when it was my only place of residence.)

To be continued. . . (and your thoughts are welcome!)

P.S. I can draw your cabin (or house) because. . .

. . . using pencils, oil paints, and murals, I make art you can understand, of places and things you love, for prices that won’t scare you.