The Most Elegant Couple of Kansas City

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IMG_2223The Most Elegant Couple of Kansas City: Rowl’and  Along

NOTE: Be sure to watch the IMG_2223 video above of Mr.and Mrs. Rowland dancing in Kirkwood Hall at the Jewel Ball, held at the Museum.

In 2012 I was a surreptitious paparazzi working in security at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. No, not really, my job was to ‘protect the Art. ‘ And I did, at the Exhibit curated by Catherine Futter, ‘ Exposition of Decorative Arts at the World’s Fair to 1935.’

I returned to Kansas City after 30 years away to a job at the Museum, or as we used to call it, ‘The Gallery.’ 

I had actually spent formative years here as my mother was ‘The Nelson Art Lady’ on Torey Time (children’s) local tv show.

But that’s not the topic. I was a Security  Guard. We protected the Art, first and foremost. And another of our duties was working events. This is just one my memories of working the Front Hall at the Jewel Ball. This is a debutante ball that benefits the Kansas City Symphony in addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

But that’s another post. This is about the Most Elegant Couple.. Sarah Rowland was the chair of  the Board of Trustees of the Nelson-Atkins for five years. I was privileged to be there when she was serving. She was beautiful, poised, gracious, and kind, a graduate of Smith and worked with Condé Nast and the Harvard University Press before moving to KC. There her work focused on the arts, ballet, symphony, preservation, Kansas and Kansas City history and the organizations that support it. and other stuff you can google!

But I mostly remember her as kind and the epitome of a lady.

Her husband Landon  was her partner and President and CEO of Kansas City Southern Industries and more. Google him too.

But this was at the ball. She always spoke to me at the Belles of the American Royal Events as Landon Rowland served on the American Royal Board of Governors, but this evening she knew I was ‘at work’ to be as a guard, an unseen presence. 

IMG_2223

But, I did have my camera (iPhone!). I  am sure I probably was breaking some type of NDA or rules ( and I did break a few!) but I saw them ‘on the floor’ and I just had to capture the moment. I believe she was aware for I had my camera ( held below waist) in a visible spot. And, they performed! It was beautiful darling and just what I hoped to be captured.

They are embedded in my mind. The Most Elegant and Giving Couple  of Kansas City.

‘Well…I (guess I?) see a resemblance…’ 😳

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Portraits of others can be a bit tricky.
When I do my friends,  can get a bit sticky.

When I do my family, it makes me weepy.

But hung in their houses, I fear they find creepy.

Lacycakes.

The Jackster.

An Unfinished Cowboy.

Lacy and Mei Rose on kilim ottoman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s why I stick with me and with dogs…

with brush or pencil and also in blogs.

Angst.

Paula with Andy Warhol Flower bolo tie.

They hang in my house like a visual eulogy…

dogs that have passed or a self  re-new-logy.

Expectations of outcome do get in the way.

Of attempting a likeness on any given day.

Rosie Posey.

Phil in Field, XIT.So, just as with yoga,  I stretch and go do…though I’ve just painted cows, they had a good moo!

 

 

Black and Red Baldies.

XIT in West Lane.

Art IZ for Everyone! Who is the Art?

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Art Iz for Everyone!

I work at Grason’s Estate Sales. It is a great job. We go into a home, generally for one of three reasons: death, divorce, or downsizing. After defining the goals, Grason’s crew of people like me enter the picture. I am then in the zone where I organize and throw things out, except that the family has already thrown out (we hope) most of anything that is not valuable or that they want. And, almost anything has value, even multiple boxes of bandaids, so we are obligated to keep and price everything from sublime to ungodly.

Anyway, you get the idea, sort, price, sell. So, I get to see many collections of things that people have consciously collected or just accumulated. To give some examples:

  • a woman’s 67 watches, many multiples of the same color Chico’s watch as well as in every cover.
  • over 600 boxed metal model cars
  • a bedroom stacked with Christmas ornaments
  • 9′ tall moving nutcrackers for Christmas lawn adornment, a hobby of a retired engineer.
  • “toys.” I won’t go on out of respect to the deceased widows.
  • some wonderful collectors with Moroccan rugs, vintage Talavera, storyteller dolls and kachinas.
  • various statues from one man in pewter, I believe.

I picked this up in the last category. It is a discobolus, a statue I thought perhaps any woman would enjoy in her home. It reminded me of “The Scraper” (Apoxyomenos) by Lysippus. You can see why I like them, they are attractive.

Apoxyomenos by Lysippus

Anyway, I brought home to arrange with my other figurines and to make the small painting that says, “What is Art?”

When arranging this, I realized that I was being ethnocentric in assuming that they would all be gazing at the Greek statue. I mean, who really is the art? Each of the figures surrounding the had it’s own history and story, it’s own culture. And, someone had cared enough to make a figure of a groom in a Cochiti storyteller doll, to craft the Amish Couple, the iron and porcelain cowboy(s) and wife, the metal lizard, the pewter bull and the iron Parisian pug. What really is the art?

We are now learning to use words for people before us in America called indigenous cultures. And it is confusing for there are so many people who feel unrepresented in the story that now goes into Museums. And in defense of the Museums, they are already far over capacity in their archival storage.

It does make me feel so careful not to tread on feet, while also having a voice when something speaks to me.

So, if I were to edit, I might move the people into a circle with the point still wanting to be made that…

ART IZ FOR EVERYONE! 

 

Pete, Pantsuits, and Philmont

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"Pete and Paula, Street Dance at Morgan-Graves Circle, June 30, 1978

Pete and Paula, St. Dance at Morgan-Graves Circle, 30 June 78I loved jumpsuits though I used pantsuits in the title for alliteration. I don’t need to say much, the pictures tell it all, but I will.

  • all one tone, shoulder to toe. creates the illusion of height.
  • generally very form fitting, a nice slim silhouette.
  • though I wouldn’t want this now, there’s a reduction tendency, like a running bra, really appreciated at the time.
  • if worn with platforms, legs look very long.

Denim and Plaid

 

 

Train to El Tovar, II Too! (Don’t) Stop this Train…

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I’m just now planning a trip for tomorrow on a train to the Grand Canyon. Tonight is with Lace and Jay. Tomorrow  by 9:00 am, I’ll be in the middle of a shootout at the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel. How exciting….

Of course, this makes me remember another trip in these parts…another shootout that hadn’t yet happened….

A few thoughts and old photographs about that trip first…
Then, we arrived driving through Hoover Dam after a few days in Las Vegas. Yes, we took our Grade school kidlets to Las Vegas before we took them to Disneyland! Did not matter, they loved it, architecturally the same trip and none of us really gamble….Or at least I did not then. Life has many risks and it is so much better if one takes them…It was Easter. He is Risen indeed!

My main memory of Hoover Dam was looking down over that precipice and thinking of Albert Brooks meltdown in the scene from Lost in  America the morning after Julie Hagerty has gambled away their ‘Nest Egg.’  Jim Carrey in Cable Guy, too… “Kill the babysitter!” Thank you, Hollywood, for taking us on our first and sometimes only travels.

https://youtu.be/MnIzvH5GvOA


Here  are the Easter Day’s  highlights which began with our hike that started at 5:00 am. 

 

Hoover Dam Grand Canyon page from Jack Adams Webway

 

More El Tovar and Grand Canyon from Adams Family Webway.

 

I show the two photogs to document and remember two things:

  1. Yes, as I’ve said before… often it’s as if the mother taking the pictures never existed. Even then, I had to cut and paste myself into my life! (did you notice…? In my family album, I had not yet bothered to cut and paste mom into the photo!)
  2. I’ve included the second picture of this ‘family scrapbook’ 3 reasons. a) these are really the only photos of me taken because the kind waiter asked, b) it gives a feel for El Tovar Hotel Dining Room (Easter Dinner), and c) “Dad” has a derriere fetish and thinks it’s funny to fondle at the most inappropriate photo ops, oops… So, I have kind of a weird look on my face…Whatever.

Trip II I’m embarking upon tomorrow will have a more leisurely visit to draw at beautiful El Tovar Lodge designed by Charles Whittlesey. I’ll keep you posted…Trails to Rails…

(Don’t) Stop this Train…

https://youtu.be/mS2o4q7vRFM

Louie Louie where are you?

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https://youtu.be/1RZJ4ESU52U

Louie Green Apples

Louie Louie where are you?

Louie Louie ‘loved you, too.

Even though we never met

Louie so much more than pet

Louie Louie oh so agile

Never knew you were so fragile.

You were there for steph and jack

Oh so bad they want you back.

Only new diverts from pain

Never knew how much the gain

Louie Louie steph and Jack

Louie with Steph Pappas

Yes, In memory you are back.

Switch the love ne-ver forget

Even if there is some debt…

With the sadness of the past

Thoughts of Louie always last

( sing’in)

Louie loo-ai… oh, yeeea, uh huh, yeeah…

( bumph-buh,

ba-da-ba-

buuumph…bumph bumph)

Louie did die, ooh yea,

yea yea yeeah,

oooh oh aaaah yee-ah..

Louie did live,

given’ given’ did give

Bumph bumph ba-da dah.

Oooh, yea, yea,

oh oh…

yeea yea…

Jewel, Rose’s most Famous Relative.

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“Rose,

Have I told you about your Aunt Jewel, the singer and songwriter?”

Rose: “No…but don’t you mean that she’s my niece?”

Paula: “Well, I guess, maybe. But I’ve never worried much about all that cousins, twice removed, ex-etc. type of thing with ‘kin.'”

But, I want to tell you the story. She IS proo-ba-bly your most famous relative.”

 

Paula: “Once upon a time the heroine, Paula… ”

Rose (interrupting): “I’m the heroine, I’m Prairie Pug! Well, I’m the current and most important descendant from the original Prairie Pug, Jade Snow Wong Graves.”

Paula: “Well, okay. Let’s just skip the ego and say Paula got married and one of the first wedding gifts the young couple received was the promise of a pug puppy still to come.”

Rose: “Who promised this to you?”

Paula: “T., Mona and Layne Hier. T. Hier worked on the Adams Ranch, the Maple Hill ranch that worked in tandem with the family’s XIT Ranch in western Kansas. He had been an employee for many many years of his adult life, and continued to work for and with Raymond Adams until his passing.”

Rose: “So…I’m not getting the connection…”

Paula: “Well…Mona Hier’s nephew was Ty Murray, the famous rodeo star. That is, this is my memory.”

Rose: “Memory! Whaddaya mean, meeemory!! Facts here, you are a historian! And, carry on…I’m still not picking up on the connection.”

Paula: “My best fact checker is a bit ‘out of pocket’ in terms of having that dialogue. Let’s move on…So! Ty Murray and Jewel used to be married. Well, that’s about it, that’s how you are related to Jewel.”

Rose: “I’m still not getting it…”

Paula: “Don’t you see…Jewel’s ex-husband’s Aunt (and son) GAVE them that dog! His name was Winston, named for the cigarettes, aka Prairie Pug II.

It’s almost like you were in their wedding! In fact, here’s the picture!”

Rose: “Well…this seems like kind of a tall Tale to me!”

And, it seems to go around in circles a bit, just like mine. It’s a curly tail. Ha ha!”

Paula: “Oh, Rose, you are such a card and a bard…maybe this should have been a poem. But, I always circle back and return, don’t I?

Rose: “To what is that?”

Paula: “Pugs, of course. The Pug. You, of course, Dearest.”

 

 

 

 

Mania, Melancholy, and Making Stuff.

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Fear turned out for a Saturday Afternoon.

Most of my life, if my selective memory works, I think I have been in a state of productive mania. I don’t remember the fits of rage, retaliation, or Indecision, for I HAD Purpose. I had a goal.

And, I do think this is most of the time, or at least MORE of the time. Or did, until I hit a rough patch, let’s just call it my 50s, soon thankfully to be at an end. In March, In Like a Lion, and let’s hope to reach 60 as the lamb of God I hope to be.

But lately, more chronically, I have had a problem feeling purpose. I’ve been working on edits for a second book, a Children’s Book that I’ve discovered is not really a children’s book at all. And, while I will hold onto Prairie Pug as a memoire, I do want to re-think if it even needs to be a book or might be better done in a blog. Mostly the writing is therapeutic for me. Sometimes, it’s much harder Work. Books, in print, or in digital, are not cheap to produce or market. They definitely aren’t a breadwinner.  So, I’l keep the ego and belt cinched, save that decision for another day.

I think I’m finally feeling and acknowledging the word “Depression.” Anxiety, though not of the sort I had when I resorted to taking xanax. This was while working at a large architectural firm in Wichita. It wasn’t the job, though I knew MY path wasn’t to even work long enough to be able to sit for the architectural exams, much less to pass them. My trail was to get Lacy through high school at Wichita Collegiate. And, we did do this, but taking xanax wasn’t worth it. After two years and about 4 months on xanax, I quit, and headed to Drugs (Off) Camp in Halstead. She was able to live with a dear family friend, Sally, for her senior year. I had been trying to live TWO lives, and not doing a good job at either. Mostly, I couldn’t go home to cook in the summers and fall, my main ranch responsibility after some “facilities management” with historic and domestic buildings. I’d ‘left my post’, though not in a deliberate way as I perhaps did later.

I still do not know the answer to that one. No big, life is hard sometimes! Was before that big (or)Deal got undone, too. No matter…

On the good side of Depression…I’ve

  • had a lot of sleep,
  • seem to have laid my scale on a bath mat and thought I’d lost 10 lbs but seem to have gained 10 instead,
  • and I have tried not to “consume”. That’s one way I falsely think I can “snap out of it!” as Cher would say.
  • And, I was with some women at a Meetup (GET OUT OF THE HOUSE REGARDLESS!) at Cafe de l’Art who made stuff.
  • And, more importantly, they shared about it, the details to the questions I love to ask, tediosity!

So, yesterday, I pulled out my beads, and followed my vow that I will NEVER buy one more art supply, at least in the bead department [except as needed to finish a piece, a fastener, etc.].

First, all I did was pull out the wire and “posts” and tools. Immediately and as was necessary, I felt compelled and stressed into seeing if I could remember how to “wire wrap” and if I still had the half-round pliers. I could and I did and it was “Good Enough”. FYI, a $28 brush-up is available at BEADholiday on Fort Lowell weekly, no problem. By then, I had started and I couldn’t wait. Messy ‘wire wrap’ had served most of my projects and so it would work “today.”

Stuff: so…nice and SHINY!

SOME TEDIOUS WORDS ABOUT TECHNIQUE

Then, I picked out my favorite silver charms and pieces, and decided that it didn’t matter if the posts were sterling silver (which does tarnish) or the inexpensive shiny ones I had. This post, technically I believe maybe called a “headpin,” is like a big straightpin with a head. You just put the bead on it, and make sure it’s big enough that it won’t slip off the other end. Then the other pieces can sit on top and you make the jump ring or loop at the top to string with the wire wrap. Then, you can either string the wire loop or add an open jump ring to this. It’s all super easy, one hour of a wire wrap class and you’re in business with help from their business. Crafts are good for the economy and MOI, on the other hand, then spend far less than in other forms of shopping.

So, doing something prevents the ‘living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work’ that I can find even in the midst of trying to edit a book. We read about this in church today (2 Thessalonians 3:6-13). I’ll let you look it up if you care to, just because the interpretations are all unique, just see it as a positive impetus for me. I had decided I would make gifts for Christmas for new family members. I had a purpose for the act of making something. But it was the making it that made it therapeutic, the STARTING came before the purpose, for I had remembered the medicine. It was so meditative that for the first 1+ hour, I just organized, designed, and basically made a plan. It’s like when Jesus brought the hungry man to the older lady who was despondent. She got up, she made food and drink and she had purpose. My Jesus, I guess, being those ladies who shared about their projects.

Here are some of the thoughts and things about the necklace I’ll share that also relate:

  • RECYCLE. in using old and broken jewelry, it takes the artful act of former shopping to a new plane. Not “better” just a different place.
  • enamel bunny necklace and stamped cats bracelet

     

    • That’s what the little bunny is, and the cats. These were small, one enameled, one stamped, horizontally linked charm pieces that my mother had seen in antiques and thrifts stores that reminded her of the tiny jewelry I gravitated towards. They had broken, but I keep all of my broken jewelry, often because it’s hard to find places that will repair costume jewelry. Recycle.
      • Here’s one I’ll share…https://mcmullenjewelry.com. It’s at Oliver and Douglas in Wichita, across from Aspen Boutique.
      • Ayala Bar Chandelier Necklace, Solo

 

In the center, I used one of two “chandelier” earrings I’d kept after losing it’s mate. These are by the jewelry designer, Ayala Bar (Mosaic at Denver International supplied the name I couldn’t remember but the gift given to me was from Aspen Boutique, Wichita, don’t believe they still carry her work).

    • fetishes from something…either someone’s old fetish necklace (I didn’t have one) or maybe a Nancy Nichols Lopez creation that had broken…?

      Fetish from Nancy Nichols Lopez creation, also using recycled jewelry necklace, hers late 1970s.

  • The rest…some of those small crystals, turquoise, other mineral and plastic stuff I had!
  • last ingredient….meditative bliss.

 

  1. That’s the recipe for Depression. Acknowledge It.
  2. It may start with a class, something I MUCH prefer over utube though, not to discredit online learning. I need people…So…Get out of the House.
  3. Get around others who are doing something
  4. Create something, maybe for a reason, maybe just for fun if it sounds fun.
  5. The time will pass…the mood, too, shall pass.

 

My Future(s) InSecurity(ies): My Friends of Art

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Imposing and Formidable, Art is actually a real lightweight when compared with anyone too heavy (in their critiques). Must be his experience with all that cocktail party conversation…he prefers to work the room.

Art is my friend,

He is BIG wheel.

Du-ane made him

Gave’em his spiel

And that was quiet

One place we can go

Yellow Rain
Red Heart
Musee Inside…
“We Love Art!”

To escape the rain

To escape the snow

Where ADD will not attack

Still and silence will fight back

So go inside

Well, ‘cept Tues(z)…then,

Students, Teachers are their ‘boos’

 

Staring Contest...Art Always Wins!

But, look! Just see

How Art Reacts…

Open-minded no attacks

He just listens

To their part

but Mostly, He Protects the Art.