Friends, Bunnies and Art

This is one of my latest creations - a painting made into a necklace. I took the painting and secured it into the finding, then coated it with a concoction I made to glaze over it. I added some vintage ribbon made in England to finish it off. I wore it Saturday and got multiple compliments on it.

Saturday afternoon I had a long lunch with Kristine and we covered many topics. It was great to connect with her. It had been awhile since we'd had the opportunity to talk.



I must have been being good lately, because the Easter Bunny visited me. Actually, does the Easter Bunny leave treats based on your behavior or is that only Santa? I lose track. Lets just say I've been being good anyway, okay? Regardless, I was happy to find The Bunny's goodies and indulge in them.

I had lunch at Sharon's today. She is temporarily hosting this automated bunny Greg recently bought. For reasons I don't fully understand, I let myself be photographed without makeup yet again. I guess the bunny's presence, or the chocolate I had consumed, made me take leave of my senses. That's me next to the bunny, Greg and Sharon.



Sharon had me decorate her tree for Easter while she was fixing a scrumptious lunch. I've never done an Easter Egg Tree, but was able to apply my Christmas decorating skills to this holiday.



I have tomorrow off from the Cosmosphere and I'm so glad to have an extra day to work around the house. I'm spending most of my free time creating these days, preparing for the Hutchinson Art Show on May 8.

I went into the studio as soon as I got up this morning. I couldn't resist a photo of my hand at one point. I'm a bit messy, which is why I needed a studio space when I bought my house.



As you might guess from my hand, my studio gets messy when I work in there. I took this a few days ago. I have since tidied up just a little bit. But, it's a cycle and it's already getting messy again.



One of these days I'll get a real system for drying things, but for the moment these shelves have to suffice.



I'm still working on the same sort of pieces I've been doing for the last few months. I will try to get some more photos soon. I realize I have neglected to share very many photos of the finished products here, but I will try to rectify that.



Well, it's almost 4 a.m. and I should get some rest. I have a very full day tomorrow and will need to get a relatively early start to it. There just never seems to be enough time to sleep. Before I go back to work on Tuesday I want to have my taxes done and a magazine article I committed to finished. I'm also trying to figure out my display items for the art show and doing a little plotting for the novel while I'm working.

Some friends and I are going away for a retreat weekend in May and I think it's going to be a great time for me to refocus my energies. I seem to be scattered in many different directions all the time, but I like to have my fingers in lots of pies.

Oh... gosh... now I want to bake a pie...


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If you've landed here as a result of the Hutchinson Public Library's 2010 project, Welcome! So glad to have you along. You can read anything from the last few years by clicking the archive list of months to the left. Below is a list of a few of my popular posts. Welcome!

This I Believe

Person of rivers

Quivira

Bits and Pieces of Life

Old Friends

Mama

I am No One's Daughter

Poking at old lives

The Last Time

Ramona Retreat

Letters from 1982

Easter Sunday Thoughts

Friendship

Not Natural to Be Happy

Journal Writing


Dr. Robert Putnam

Rusty Rierson at The W in Hutchinson

Rusty Rierson played at The W in Hutchinson Friday night.



He has won some contests and is starting to make a name for himself in music circles.



He was also very pleasant - a skill that can carry you far in life regardless of your chosen path.



I've been enjoying concert photography lately and he was a fun subject.



We're really fortunate to have this venue in town, bringing great entertainment.



Rusty was opening there tonight for country star, Doug Stone. I'm sure it's a great show. Last night was certainly fun.

Possibility

You never know what's going to happen in a day - who you'll meet, the conversation you'll have, what you'll witness - that could change your life. Every day is full of possiblity.

Topeka and Google

If you didn't happen to log onto Google today - is that even possible - you missed being greeted with "Topeka" instead of the usual Google logo.

Google, of course, is known for changing its logo to honor people, occasions or holidays. They're also known for their April 1 jokes. This was a fine one - an homage to Topeka changing its name to Google. Google repaid the favor.

I hope the people of Topeka understand just what a huge bonus they got today. Not only did the explanation talk about the city, but they are in the news all over the world. I googled late in the day - or would that be topeka'd late in the day - and found numerous references.

My hat is off to the mayor, or whoever had the foresight to change the name briefly. The "stunt," which I'm sure some in town looked down on, paid off in a way they could never have forseen. If they had paid for the exposure they got today it would have no doubt taken the city's yearly budget for decades into the future. I hope they're sending some Topeka treats - whatever that may be - to Google's corporate headquarters.

Work Spaces and Art Spaces

When I got up to go to lunch today and realized I needed to get my phone I was struck by all the various projects spread out over my desk. Everyone one of those little pink pieces of paper has a task written on it that needs my attention. I wish I could report that by the end of the day those were all dispensed with, but, alas, that is not the case. In fact, I think I added a few more as the day went on.



Tonight I've been working in the studio and could only chuckle when I looked at the work space there. I keep letting things migrate toward the area I'm working in until there's barely enough room for me to work. Then I tidy everything up and start the process over again. I guess the phone is the one consistent thing.

I did two new pieces tonight and finished off a couple of others that needed to be varnished.

This is one I did the other day. Don't you love that photo? It's out of an old magazine ad.

Quote of the Day

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy.

Marcel Proust



All I can say to this is a rousing "Amen," and that I'm blessed to have people like this in my life.

Fred Kaplan at Dillon Lecture Series at Hutchinson Community College

Author Fred Kaplan spoke at the Dillon Lecture Series at Hutchinson Community College this morning. Originally from Hutchinson, Kaplan joked as soon as he got to the microphone, "I don't think I was ever this popular in high school."

Kaplan is an MIT graduate and has written a number of books, most recently, "1959: The Year Everything Changed," and is a Slate columnist. He is an expert on politics.

He spoke this morning about how the cold war caused history to pause. He said, "The cold war was a deep freeze of regional interests. Now history has resumed." The cold war caused countries to align with the US or Russia because they were the super powers. But, he said, "the thing about the cold war is that one side dissappeared overnight."

That freed countries to pursue their own interests, which he said had always been the norm, and that makes it important for the US to find places where we have common interests with others. "It's the way international relations has been conducted for centuries with the exception of the 50 year period of the cold war."

He said we must make alliances and let go of a seperatist philosophy. "If the Bush Doctrine had been in place in WW2 we wouldn't have joined forces with Stalin to defeat Hitler. The results would have been catastrophic."

Since the fall of the USSR, he said, "the rest of the world realizes they can go their own way, regardless of what Washington says." He said the US should have "reached out and formed alliances" when communism fell because, "after the cold war was over, we're playing a different game." He said, "We were left with instruments of power, tokens of power, that didn't have much meaning in this new world."



Bush missed that opportunity, and when Obama came along and wanted to sit down and talk, it didn't change the fact that others had their own interests. Kaplan says sometimes we have to admit there is no deal to be made, nothing to be worked out, so we may just have to deal with facts we don't like - such as Iran having nuclear weapons. Another issue is that Iran has wanted to be a regional power and the containment that was once there no longer exists, i.e. that Iraq is not a threat to them like it once was.

Kaplan says, "The world has a different structure than we had 20 years ago and the things we've built our strength on are not relevant." He says telling countries that nuclear weapons don't matter, doesn't align with the facts. "The only reason anyone pays attention to Pakistan or North Korea is that they have nuclear weapons," he said. "Nukes are great equalizers," he said, "and you only need a few of them... you automatically become a regional super power the second you get nuclear weapons."

He spoke at the luncheon about how Iran has had difficulty building nuclear weapons and that, "even if you know how to make a bomb it doesn't mean you can." He said he thought the danger was not nearly as much as people often think, because when a country gets nuclear weapons they get very protective. And he said in the lecture, "The mullahs of Iran are not suicide bombers. They hire suicide bombers. But they are not suicidal themselves."

He touched on the recent health care debate and said at the luncheon that the Republicans decided, "our strategy is 'no' and once you go that far it's hard to back peddle... you don't negotiate with Hitler" and they referred to Obama as the devil, making it hard to work backwards. He said, "Republicans have wrapped themselves in a trap where they can't agree with Obama that the sun sets in the west." He said it was "pretty astounding that in this environment they were able to pass the bill."



During the lecture Kaplan pointed out that this health care reform was far less sweeping than medicare and while people were upset over that at the time, no one today wants to get rid of medicare or social security or the civil rights act. He said, "I think our system is much more resilent" than people give it credit for and we can handle this change.

Kaplan got a round of applause at the lecture when someone asked about Palin and he said, "I don't want to see a nominee who never had a thought about policy just because John McCain plucked her from obscurity. I don't want that."

Kaplan was in Hutchinson a couple of years ago at the Art Center. You can read about that visit here.

Weekend

Saturday was the Hutchinson Women's Fair. I think it was the first time I've been able to just go to the show. I've always been working a booth. I have to say, it was much more fun to just be there.



I visited the Cause for Paws booth, where Pam and her best canine friend, Maile, were in attendance.

If Maile looks familiar, you might remember her from when she was crowned Queen of the Doggie Easter Parade last year.

There was no crown yesterday, but she nonetheless accomodated by meeting her subjects.



This year's doggie Easter Egg Hunt and Parade is Saturday, April 3, so mark your calendars.

Trish had a booth at the Women's Fair, too.



We went to dinner Saturday night, after she was done. We've missed our usual lunches a couple of weeks in a row and we needed to catch up. We got a start on it, but just a start.

Sunday I worked in the studio and on things like laundry. Unfortuantely, there's much more to be done. I had hoped to get more done on my taxes this weekend, but that didn't happen. Along with a long list of other things I had hoped to get done.

One thing I'm doing yet before I go to bed is making another batch of lemon curd. I bought some farm fresh eggs from Kate and Tracy on Friday and went to get some fresh lemons yesterday. It won't take long to whip it up. I make a lemon cake today so I'm having a little treat before bed tonight.



In other news, I'm reading two books at the moment, both of which I recommend. "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell and "Drive" by Daniel Pink. You may recall my thrill at meeting Daniel Pink last fall. I loved his book, "A Whole New Mind," which I have - literally - at my fingertips. "Drive" is also wonderful. Expect to see more about it here in the near future.

Chinese Caravan

Tonight I went with a group to Lyons, about 30 minutes away, to eat Chinese food at the restaurant now in the Ly-Kan hotel. It was organized by Amy, who's in the middle in the white t-shirt. It was a good time.

Interestingly enough, I've been in the very room we were seated in many times to give speeches. It had a sign above the door that said, "Petroleum Room," which Greg pointed out harkened back to another time.

Of course, I insisted everyone pose for a photo so I could share it with you. It was great to be going to an event that someone else organized. What a treat!

Something For Everyone and a Lesson in Design

Tonight at Skaets I noticed these two flyers posted on the window. I thought it was an interesting bit of irony - "Boxing" in big letters on one positioned right next to one with lots of pink on it.

But, then I realized it offered something for everyone this weekend. Not that a person interested in going to the Women's Show might not also like to watch boxing, but I'm guessing it's probably different audiences.

My second thought was that they're an interesting lesson in design. There's more design with the one on the right, but you have to admit that the one on the left tells you exactly what it's about.

At one point Greg went out to the car for something and bent over to jokingly be in my picture, so I took it. I didn't notice until after I downloaded them that my reflection is in it too.



And if you're looking for something to do in Hutchinson this weekend, I undertand there's boxing and the Women's Show.

Creative Cities Speech in McPherson Kansas

Peter Kageyama spoke in McPherson, Kansas, about Creative Cities this morning. He has been there consulting and they had a meeting this morning and invited anyone to come, which I really appreciated.

In a nutshell, as he put it, "Creativity and Innovation are the natural resources of the 21st century." At other times it has been arable land, navigable waterways and oil but now it's creativity and innovation.

He encouraged people to, "think about where economies are being created," and that creativity is not a natural resource you have by luck or geography. He said the individual, the human capital, is an even stronger resource. "Your most important resource walks out the door every day and you hope they come back," he said.

Creativity and innovation are two words we hear a lot and often thing of them as the same thing, but they're different. Kageyama says he defines them as creativity being a divergent process, a shot gun approach, the brainstorming. Innovation, on the other hand, is a convergent process where you strip away ideas and focus with a laser-like intensity.



One of the great challenges is that he says, "People think of creativity and innovation as someone else's job." Everyone agrees they're important but no one feels a responsiblity to them. He said, "let us be the geniuses in our own communities" and that "someone should be leading the charge on this because talent is too important to leave to happenstance."

He said, "Talent is not just young people. Talent exists in every age group." He cited some research that young professionals wanted affordable housing, transportation options other than cars, interesting places to live and a sense of community. Other research indicates empty nesters and retirees want the same things.

He addressed the issue of brain drain, which is of great concern to cities - young people moving away. Richard Florida pointed out, "Brains don't drain, they circulate," meaning people often move "back home."

Kageyama talked about how the tools we use to attract people are outdated. Traditionally, companies would be courted. But what you really need now is to target the influencers within a company and the rest will follow.

He talked about young people and notes three things about them:
1. They're tribal
2. They don't believe advertising, although it does build awareness
3. They do believe each other and that's why social media is so important

Later someone asked him how to reach people who don't believe in advertising. Kageyama suggested using radio to build awareness and understanding that people will then go to google and figure it out on their own. So, put money toward awareness and what supports that when you catch their attention.

He said he thinks social media may be even more important than a traditional webpage. Although, of course, you must have a webpage. He referred to twitter as an "evolving artform" and told people they at least need to be playing with it. He said, "you've got to be part of the conversation."

Kageyama said, "Green is the new black," and that while it "used to be nice to have, it's now a must have."

He said cities should make their values "visible and persistent." He used Chicago's motto to be the greenest city in the US as an example and said when they planted a half million trees downtown alone, as well as flowers, they were making that idea very visible.

One of the comments I highlighted in my notes was when he quoted Pier Giorgio Dicicco who is the Poet Laureate for the city of Toronto and said, "Arts and culture are what make a city fall in love with itself." Kageyama talked about having a mix of arts opportunities, not just the traditional SOB - symphony, orchestra and ballet.

Another of my favorite parts was when he discussed a pyramid about building a creative city. It was similar to Maslow's hierarchy. If you've read here for any amount of time, you know I think Maslow had us all figured out in the 50s with his hiearchy of needs. At the bottom of this pyramid for cities is "functional," and above that "safe." Kageyama said many leaders think that's enough. But he said we need to demand more. Above "safe" is "comfortable." Above that "convivial," and at the top, "interesting."

The Mayor of McPherson has agreed to start tweeting by July. He said, "We need to refresh our vision." I was impressed with his willingness to jump in.

Creative Sisterhood

Tonight was Creative Sisterhood. I had picked the daffodils the other day when snow was predicted and once I put them on the table, it seemed I should go with a yellow theme - all spring-like.

That train of thought led to lemon curd, which I knew would be so pretty in a white dish. As Teresa said tonight, once you start imagining how it's going to look in a particular dish you might as well go to the kitchen, because you're making whatever it is. And I could see that lemon curd in that bright white dish on that deep green tablecloth. It looked just like I thought it would.



Creative Sisterhood was great. We laughed heartily tonight. I think some of it might have been at my expense, but all in good fun.

Cool... again

Greg and I have been to the new sandwich shop in the local train station a couple of times. It's called, "Cool Beans," and has a retro look.

It has caused us both to ponder the question of when does something become cool again. Is there a particular time frame? Who decides these things?



Maybe it means I'm getting old that I'm starting to see things come around for the second time.

I, however, have not felt the urge to take up latch hook rug making or terrariums - just in case you were wondering.