Last Show, Next Show, Miles, and Memories

 Just had to share a couple more photos from the Nebraska Governor's Residence.  You can see how the space is used for a variety of meetings with a completely different table configuration when I took these photos compared to those I posted the week before.  The show came down last Friday.  It was such an honor to have my art in this space and a pleasure to work with the Residence Staff. 

The next showing of my art will be during the month of April at The Most Unlikely Place, a wonderfully fun art gallery, espresso bar, and luncheon cafe in Lewellen, Nebraska!  Tentative plans call for a reception on April 23rd...the Saturday afternoon before Easter...possibly with live music!  This wonderful space is owned by three sibling artists: Dennis and Rex Miller, and Jean Jensen.  I have painted with Dennis at the Autumn Art Workshop at the 4-H Camp near Halsey.  The cafe is open Wednesday-Saturday, with special menus that change every week!  They have parties once a month and host classes in art, dance and music.  Sure hope you can make it to Lewellen.  You will be amazed.

Lots of miles were covered last weekend.  After the trip across the state to Lincoln, I drove to south-central Kansas to paint a bathroom for my mother.  The extreme winter got the best of some pipes, which flooded their guest house, requiring new drywall and a restoration service.

I ran into a couple of high school friends while I was there.  It was fun to have my art along in the car to show Arlene, an active artist, who was in Richard VanSickle's art class with me--was that 38 years ago? (Yow!)  I found a trace of Mr. VanSickle on Google...teaching on the potter's wheel at Wichita Pottery.  I still have the large acrylic painting I did as a senior in high school--an impressionistic attempt to copy a painting I loved that hung in our high school library! I ran from the basement art room up the stairs to the third floor library many times as I tried to capture the composition...no digital cameras to help out!  After all the moves, it has a small hole in one spot, and is a bit warped, but is in pretty good shape.

Cowboy Artistry

Last Tuesday was a great day for an excursion into the Nebraska Sandhills, where one companion said she loved to watch the changing seasons.  We joked that the fall color is so evident on all the trees.... (Actually, there are almost no trees in the Sandhills, but the grasses definitely change with the seasons.)  Ten of us from The Art Society of Ogallala took a field trip to Arthur, a small cowboy town in ranch country, north of Ogallala.  Arthur County claims one person per square mile from the 2000 Census, and Arthur is the only town in the county!  The place is famous for the world's smallest courthouse, and the world's only church made from baled straw.  A brochure lists 18 current businesses.  We visited three.

We learned lots about leather working from Dennis Rose at Rose Saddlery, on the main street, "downtown".  He has some amazing industrial sewing machines and demonstrated for us on a beaded horse breast collar, commissioned for a young cowboy's birthday.  Dennis grew up in the Sandhills. He does beautiful leather tooling and has created 267 saddles,  as well as lots of horse equipment, purses, and biker clothing during the last 33 years.  He's designed a special saddle for handicapped riders with a high back support that folds to allow the rider to get into position.  Lots of his equipment was creatively fabricated to fit his needs, like a saddle frame mounted on a barber stool to pump it higher for ease in construction.

On the north edge of town, past the log cabin built by Buffalo Bill and some partners, we were treated to a demonstration of the hatter's craft by Jim Marshall of  Marshall Custom Hats.   I didn't realize the best felt cowboy hats are made from 100% beaver hair.  Varying amounts of rabbit hair are added at different price ranges.  We saw an antique conformeter--a rare contraption used to measure the idiosyncrasies of old British heads.  Custom hats really are made to fit different shapes and sizes of heads.  Jim steams the felt, shaping it on wooden forms, and flange boards,  presses with an ingenious Rhodes ironing machine, then actually sands the felt with sandpaper.   The inside sweatbands are sewn in by hand, and more shaping is done with steam and skilled hands.  In the last 10 years, Jim has created 1,059 special hats for rodeo queens, ranchers, cowboys, and even a birthday presentation hat for Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida, who has the biggest head Jim has ever fit.

Fried onion chips, and a drink at The Bunkhouse Bar & Grill rounded out our field trip.  This place also serves as the area's senior meal site!  The food and atmosphere were great:  a table of women playing cards, men coming in for a late afternoon beer...all eye-ing us "tourists."  Hunting trophies and antiques adorn the walls.  Pithy quotations and snapshots of the locals are everywhere.  But, I'll have to go back for more than the food...my one bar photo came out too blurry to include here.  Many apologies. 

I've been a bit out of the blogger mode, while preparing and recovering for my oldest daughter's wedding.  My artistic (sewing) skills were in emergency demand when the dress returned from the alterations "expert", less than a week before the big day, in a lumpy mess:  twisted boning, crooked hem, puckered neckline, bent backward side seams and zipper, buttons that floated away from the zipper with no hooks... gathered skirt pulled with double fullness at the sides  I spent nearly all of 3+ days taking it all apart and putting it back together.  Then we drove 7 hours to the groom's graduation from USAF pilot training, and 7 hours back just in time for the rehearsal!  The photo shows the final fitting--at the church!  It worked...hallelujah!  She was fabulously beautiful and so happy.  I'm amazed at how much time it takes to de-compress from all that!  Check out her last 4 blog posts for a good laugh at the stressful situation:  www.seemaikablog.blogspot.com.

Orinoconile

I'm on a roll...two new paintings! First, I want you to see this small one. Then, will try to get the other one up in a few days. This has lines of plaster, a gel transfer of a King Tut image, a piece of dried paint from my palette, and lots of interesting color. It is 12 x 9" on a gallery wrapped canvas. Our show choir concert was held the night before I finished this piece. They sang "Orinoco Flow," which seemed to go with the movement and color of the art (sail away, sail away, sail away...).  But, Orinoco is a river in Venezuela! So, I've titled this "Orinoconile." That seems to allow some honor for the Egyptian king. This is available for $150.

Athens

Art History 311:   A Greek Odyssey.  Dictionary.com says an odyssey is "a long series of wanderings or adventures, esp. when filled with notable experiences, hardships, etc."   So, we have the study abroad opportunity for the middle child.  Before it even began, the notables appeared with last week's riots in Athens over economic austerity measures imposed by the European Union in a bailout of the failing Greek economy.  We didn't feel good about sending her alone, stand-by, to a mess...so I went along!  It was only long enough to get her there, wander the Plaka, eat a meal, sleep and come home.  But I feel so much better about the situation having eased her through the subway tricks, worked with the exchange rates, and seen the facilities.  The riots were over-blown by 24-hour-news networks, but the country is still very unsettled and BBC news today notes a bomb explosion in the city. 
     I'm praying the biggest hardship of her trip is our financial sacrifice and her forced budgeting while she is there.  It is an amazing place for understanding civilization, history, ancient art, and one's self.  Blessings to the UNL study tour! On our way to Greece, we ran into a friend from when we lived in Germany--was that really 24 years ago?  Great to see you, Rocky!  "Hi" to Janet and the family.  Fly safe.