Fifty Years Ago Today

Fifty years ago on this day, at this time, I was riding an escalator at the Sears store in Las Vegas.   I had taken a break from studying for an English 101 test to take my mom, who was pregnant with my youngest sister, Katy, to Sears to buy a crib.   As we exited the escalator on the second floor we came out into a room full of televisions all broadcasting that President Kennedy had been shot.   We thought it was some horrible mistake that it could not really be happening.   My mom’s face was as white as a ghost and I walked over to a chair where she sat for a moment.  We knew we couldn’t shop so we returned home.   I remember watching Walter Cronkite announce the death of the President.  All these years later I still weep when I think of that day.  More than a president died that day, my generation’s innocence died and a new era of cynicism was born.

Fifty Years Ago Today

Fifty years ago on this day, at this time, I was riding an escalator at the Sears store in Las Vegas.   I had taken a break from studying for an English 101 test to take my mom, who was pregnant with my youngest sister, Katy, to Sears to buy a crib.   As we exited the escalator on the second floor we came out into a room full of televisions all broadcasting that President Kennedy had been shot.   We thought it was some horrible mistake that it could not really be happening.   My mom’s face was as white as a ghost and I walked over to a chair where she sat for a moment.  We knew we couldn’t shop so we returned home.   I remember watching Walter Cronkite announce the death of the President.  All these years later I still weep when I think of that day.  More than a president died that day, my generation’s innocence died and a new era of cynicism was born.

Magic in the Medium

I suspect that I am not the only artist who has supplies tucked away either because they were distracted by some new shiny medium or because they became frustrated trying to make that medium act in a way  they wanted and found instead resistance.  That is what had happened to my oil pastels.  I had heard people talking about how much they liked them and even the way they used them sometimes, yet no matter how hard I tried I could not find the magic.

I don’t use the term “magic” loosely.  I look at mediums as inanimate objects that allow artists to see their innermost properties and join the muse and the artist in a creative dervish whirling that results in explosions of colors, forms, movement and sound.  Unable to find that magic in my oil pastels, I had packed them away in container and tucked them into the back corner of a high shelf.

Saturday I found the magic.  While attending a Kansas City Friends of Jung workshop at VALA gallery, the morning session was led by Ken Buch, President of the KCFOJ and teacher and Master Media Artist Zigmunds Priede.  Participants sat at tables and in front of each participant was a large sheet of white paper, a box of 12 Pentel Arts Oil Pastels, and a hard eraser.   Ken began his introduction to the workshop and put slides on the screen with wonderful quotes, still I could not take my eyes off of those sticks of vibrant color.  I turned to a new page in my sketch/notebook and started playing with the color, the longer Ken talked the more color went on the page, the colors danced in front of my eyes, I picked up the eraser and used it to help blend the colors, I put on more color, did more blending, lost in my own color zone.

By the time Zig started his part of the presentation I was hooked on pastels.  I chuckled when Zig pointed out that of all the participants only two had “doodled” throughout Ken’s presentation. With that he gave us his first assignment, start doodling on that big sheet of white paper.  I got off on the wrong foot, with a big dark blue and a big orange something in the upper corner.   Zig told us to keep going and something would come.   I worked and worked on that sheet of paper and all of a sudden I could feel it and see it, images were appearing as I drew lines and circles, added color, blended, added more color, blended. The blue and orange problem had been solved. I was having so much fun, working with pastels was not work but a joyful act. Hooray for Zig for helping me find the magic.  This morning, I resurrected that tucked away box of pesky pastels and spent my studio time today dancing with the muse and finding the magic.

September Survival

Survived another Labor Day!   It is my least favorite holiday; too many memories, too sad of heart.   Yesterday during a good chunk of the morning and early afternoon I had my IPod playing through my Bose system.   Having decided to listen to all of the albums in alphabetical order it seemed fitting that Anne Murray’s Country Croonin’ was on deck on a day when I am naturally somewhat despondent.  How could I get so damn lucky, 30 crying in your beer songs in a row, all sung with a mellow country twang.  Is the universe being just a touch cruel or just another whack on the side of my heart telling me to get tough?

Tuesday morning, the last track played, moving on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.   Ah so much better, at least the emotions run the gamut from A to Z on this CD.   Not so much like the broken record of yesterday, when heartstring after heartstring was plucked.

And now we charge through September, time to open the books, go to school, learn, learn and learn some more.   Things run through my head like a sieve but at least I keep trying to fill it up in the hopes that something will stick.   

BOSE Update

Don’t buy BOSE. The replacement CD player has now crashed.   After performing fine the first two times that I used all 5 slots, this morning, I loaded it up and was ready to hear some great sounds while getting those ribs ready for tonight.   The brand new CD in the first slot started warbling on the 6^th track.  I switched to the second slot, where on the third song (perfect CD) for no apparent reason the unit stopped playing.

Of course BOSE is closed for the Fourth, and I am stuck with a machine that will not be usable tonight at the family get together…..Totally bummed.  Quality at BOSE…maybe they should manufacture state side.   Obviously they are buying CRAP from CHINA. 

A Week of Joy and Tears

This has been quite the week, the Supreme Court acted not so supreme when it gutted the Voting Rights Act on Tuesday.   Evidently they weren't paying attention as several GOP controlled state legislatures tried to block large numbers of people of color from voting in 2012.  It was proven time and time again that the cries of voter fraud were fraudulent and  there was NO Voter Fraud.   So here we are folks in a new century having to fight the battle again! Within two hours of the ruling Texas began implementing blatant voter suppression laws.

After Tuesday, my hopes of DOMA being overturned and Prop 8 being upheld were pretty dim.   But a miracle happened and in the weirdest combination of majorities DOMA was overturned and Prop 8 not upheld.  I admit that I burst into tears when I heard them report the DOMA ruling.   As the walls come down the world will be a better place and children will know their full worth.  

By the time the dust had settled it was the women who were at the forefront of the action.  Thank you Edie Windsor's for taking on the U.S. Government and changing the world for millions and delivering the death of DOMA.   Thank you Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for calling it like it is, and pointing out the “hubris” of your colleagues when they gutted the VRA.  Thank you Kristin Perry and Sandra Stier (along with Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo) for taking Prop 8 to the Supreme Court and eliminating one more hurdle as we move towards equality for all.   Thank you Wendy Davis for your heroic filibuster in the Texas state courthouse. 

And there is one more very big thank you to Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, founders of the Daughters of Bilitis, the first social and political organization for lesbians in the United States.   They paved the way for so many to come out and shout.  You can read more about them at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Del_Martin_and_Phyllis_Lyon

While this week brought joy we all know that the fight for Voting Rights must go on, the struggle for full equality must go on and we must all join hands and work together to make America better for everyone.

Poverty in Johnson County, Kansas, you must be kidding?

I just listened to a discussion on poverty in Johnson County, Kansas on Up to Date with Steve Kraske on my local public radio station KCUR.   Kraske, whose conservative leanings often bleeds  through to his interviews, was shocked to discover that there is poverty in what was once one of the most prosperous counties in America. 

Kansas through the past few years became the playground of the great Republican experiment where a reduction of wages and an increase in taxes for the working class along with tax breaks for the excessively rich increased income disparity and created a state that can no longer fund even rudimentary education for its children.   Higher wage white collar jobs (middle management, IT, business and finance) disappeared and were replaced by benefit free, low paid, jobs often filled by foreign contract workers.  Of course those onetime well paid white collar workers, who looked down on union workers, never made the connection that when the working class can buy products produced by companies, companies can hire more people, profits increase and the economy grows.   Eliminate decent wages for the working class and the ripple effect destroys the middle class and the economy in general resulting in a SPIKE IN POVERTY.

The greedy billionaires David H. Koch and Charles G. Koch have bought and paid for the Kansas governorship and most of the seats in the Republican ruled Kansas legislature   The paid off officials are diligent in executing the Koch campaign to destroy union jobs, decent minimum wage legislation, education and the middle class. Increasing taxes on the poor and reducing them for the rich ensures that an uneducated easily manipulated workforce. All of this impacts Johnson County where salaries are decreasing and decent paying jobs are disappearing.

Poverty in Johnson County unthought-of a decade ago, is a fact of life today.   Left to the puppets that are currently at play in Topeka it will do nothing more than increase until the county becomes a mirror of Jackson County, Missouri.   Kansans can turn this around but it will take the will of heroes to take on the super-rich and overthrow a state government that is not working for the majority but for a very rich very few.

Note: In his article Wealth, Income, and Power,  G. William Domhoff writes “In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2010, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 35.4% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 53.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 89%, leaving only 11% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one's home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.1%.” (http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html)