Dec 27 2020
Art IZ for Everyone! Who is the Art?
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.
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!
Oct 4 2020
Pete, Pantsuits, and Philmont
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
Jul 10 2020
Train to El Tovar, II Too! (Don’t) Stop this Train…
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.
Here are the Easter Day’s highlights which began with our hike that started at 5:00 am.
I show the two photogs to document and remember two things:
- 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!)
- 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…
Jul 10 2020
Louie Louie where are you?
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
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…
Jul 8 2020
Jewel, Rose’s most Famous Relative.
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.”
Nov 17 2019
Mania, Melancholy, and Making Stuff.
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.”
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.
-
- 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.
- 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.
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…?
- The rest…some of those small crystals, turquoise, other mineral and plastic stuff I had!
- last ingredient….meditative bliss.
- That’s the recipe for Depression. Acknowledge It.
- 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.
- Get around others who are doing something
- Create something, maybe for a reason, maybe just for fun if it sounds fun.
- The time will pass…the mood, too, shall pass.
Nov 14 2019
My Future(s) InSecurity(ies): My Friends of Art

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
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’
But, look! Just see
How Art Reacts…
Open-minded no attacks
He just listens
To their part
but Mostly, He Protects the Art.
Nov 10 2019
My Future(s) InSecurity(ies): Uniforms.
Yes, believe it or not, I worked in Security. And, I must like uniforms because
- I was a cheerleader AND in pep club. So, I rarely got to wear my own clothes to school. Sad, but then, not.
- My school didn’t have a dress code or uniform. Midriffs were FINE in the 70s for the policemen in our parking lot were focused on students OD’ing on school property and had somewhat “locked it down” with open school and 6th-7th hour “off.” So, I’m getting to the fact that Carolyn Howard, our Sue Sylvester, MADE SURE that we had to wear
- Lancer blue girdle swimming suits and
- a red romper (not EVEN Our Colors!) for gym.
- Point: Ms. Howard made sure there was nothing remotely SEXY about gym, even if the school administration (largely men) had larger problems to contain and were ignoring (? uh huh…) the teenage girls’ sexuality vis-a-vis stomach or chest visibility in dress code.
- I worked at the pool in the summers, so I alternated two navy blue tank suit 6 days a week for 8 hours. I’m sure the guy lifeguards’ gym short swimming suits could walk on their own.
An excellent qualification: I have a history with uniforms.
So, it was nothing strange to be wearing this Security Uniform at a large ‘beaux arts’ museum in Kansas City, I won’t mention the name, at least for now.
Here is my uniform there. I’m not sure if this was really allowed, so just pretend I’ve blacked out any name of the museum. It’s backwards so that’s kind of encrypted.
This is how I looked on duty so you can see the whole gig. A gentleman I didn’t know took these pictures and later sent them to me. Nice or creepy? I’ll take nice, kept the pictures.
And as I’ve enjoyed all kinds of “social” uniforms such as:
- kilts in college,
- fair isle sweaters (but never buttoned up the back though I wanted to) at functions,
- ballet flats in France.
- NOTHING feels quite as good as a real uniform that (usually*) looks just like anyone else’s and carries with it a badge of authority.
- *that is, I was reprimanded (nicely) about pushing the boundaries. And I’m sorry, the T-SHIRT advertising of the show that we wore on occasional Fridays was an XTRA large, so it really needed a WIDE BLACK BELT.
I hope to somehow have a future in Security Work, though my recent behavior may have eliminated me from the running. I’m making amends slowly, but
- I can be trusted and
- I am honest TO A FAULT and
- I hope the period of “crazy” is coming to an end
- or at least subsiding,
- (or at least in presence of my fellow authorities in security and law enforcement.)
To this decade…’to Security and Beyond!’
We will get there.
Nov 7 2019
Whatever Happened to Old Man Nick?
Whatever happened to old man nick?
Lost his bees and
He Lost his..schtick
All those mags
the counter Bee’hind
Behind behind,
Oh, ladies oh so kind.
I stopped at red roof
Out here in A-ri-zona
To see any sign-a
That might now make it known-a
I remember the first time
With grandfather Paul
Grandamolie got candy
But I went with Tall
“Lena”
They called him
For he was quite thin
We gazed at the hives
Drones humming within.
But, Whatever REALLY happened
to old man nick?
Lost his bees and
Lost his…
Pick of which heir
Appeared
to bee
Next in line
to charge the fee.
For next in TIME
In Roadside travel
Kids places to go…
Spray the gravel
But not here cuz
Ain’t got no buzz
Few trips with gramps
no tales no fuzz
So why the relic?
There still standing
Strange red roof
Was so commanding
Why the bees
And candy corn?
Mixed in with it
You think some…
Poorrrr….nother coke
Just take your time…
Grandma’s shopping
Grandpa fine.
Go see hive
Wow, see THAT honey
Find the drone
And spend some money
(great selection)
What a rack
‘Hind the counter
More in back
Grandpa’s here!
( but keep sealed lips)
And first the bees
Some edu-tips
And so it was
The story ended
Historic credits
On property, lended?
I didn’t google
I didn’t ‘wik’
I just imagine
It happened so quick
When ‘ol man’ was
Starting to fail
Next of kin knew
Bees would bail
But oh so clever
He was, I see
Would he pay penance
To every bee?
That lost its job
Were they set free?
What really happened?
I’d better stop…
At these old haunts
These roads my jaunts
Still see red roofs
in states across
The Wild West
But where’s the boss?
I could stop in
The place next door
I’ll be discreet
Won’t buy any poooorrr…
nnn’Nice items inside!’
And toys galore
You think funny pops
Now test this out?
What an idea
To carry about
Gets me to the next stop
Where I will get out.
And when I imagine
Kids running around
flipping switches
Hearing sounds
It is a comfort
That things don’t change
All that much
Just rearrange
And I will stop
‘nother pic ‘nother state
And I’ll report, I won’t be late
Just ask directions
“Where’s the loo?”
Use the ladies
Some candy too
And if they ask
Why I stopped there
I’ll be real casual
As I stand in the lair
‘New to Arizona’
‘My phones not stable’
‘You have strong wi fi’
Good fiber and cable
An’ in my mind
He sends me out back
I’d like to imagine
To the funny red shack
So altogether now
You’ve got the BUZZ
“It’s Not about stops
It’s about the FUZZ!”
So ‘Whatever happened to
‘Ol man nick’
Son lost his bees
And he lost his schtick.
Without any bees
Well, there was no honey
Sugar or spice
And there was no money
To keep up the roof
So let’s inspect
A Cultural icon
It’s still erect!