Is art dangerous? That's what some governments would say. A friend and I spent 40 minutes in this one exhibit room trying to absorb all that was going on in this exhibit, titled "Bare Life." I need to read the program and return. Such powerful images by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei. Thank you, Washington University for making this a free admission at the Kemper Art Museum.
It's fun to watch common creek rocks (that I found around Farmington Missouri) tumble into these shapes and colors. These rocks are about 1-2" and they have been tumbled through 3 levels of grit over three weeks. They are now tumbling in polish grit for another week, where they will pick up a clearness and a shine. For this batch I gathered reds and patterns and these types of rocks are easily found in creeks around Farmington and Fredericktown, Missouri. These rocks didn't look much like this until tumbled, however. After I posted an earlier post on tumbled rocks, two friends caught the passion and bought rock tumblers of their own. For anyone else interested, I'm using a Thumler brand rock tumbler, Model B.
I've lived in St. Louis all my life, not realizing (until recently) the amazing vistas located within a two-hour drive from my home. I took these two photos today (on an iPhone 11, processed with Aurora HDR). Both of these scenes were taken in the Mark Twain National Forest, somewhat south of Fredericktown, Missouri. Top photo is of the St. Francis River.
This third photo shows a friend's Irish Wolfhound, "Owen," enjoying the sunset over the St. Francis River in the Mark Twain National Forest.
I LOVE these gravity-defying sculptures. Maybe these were created by people who were half-sculptors and half-magicians . . .
Martha Ferdinand has been one of my favorite people ever since I began working with her at Arch City Defenders. More recently, we have made a habit of walking briskly through Forest Park while catching up with each other. And, of course, we often contemplate the human condition. We haven’t yet figured that out . . .
Today we took a little side-trip from our planned walk. I spotted a man painting a park scene across the street and suggested to Martha that perhaps it would be fun to go check out his work. Martha nodded, and that’s how we met “Frank James, Curbside Artist.” Frank explained that he has made a living of painting scenes of Tower Grove Park and, more recently, Forest Park. He pulled out other examples of his work from his car: several impressive detailed 30” wide panoramas of park scenes in acrylic paint. Frank offered far more than art today, however. He looked us over and offered an off-the-cuff character analysis of Martha with a big smile and lots of laughs, especially when she agreed that he was somewhat accurate. All of this while smooth music played quietly on his car stereo, but not an entire song. He only liked the first part of that song, so he cut off part where the “irritating” singer began to sing. He loops the pre-vocals beginning of the tune over and over. He explained that this is a significant part of his creative process.
We chatted for awhile about many things, not just painting, but also about his outlook on life, our thoughts on race relations and discussions about music we all enjoy (including Wes Montgomery and George Benson's Breezin’). Good vibes all around.
My friend John Simon often says, “It’s all about relationships.” I agree that this is an excellent default position for understanding almost any life situation. Certainly, my memory of Forest Park on this day will be dominated by the spirited conversations with both Martha and with that ebullient stranger-no-more, “Frank James, Curbside Artist.”
I have a theory too. It seems to me that unplanned spontaneous conversations are often the best, the most memorable. Those who know me well know that it’s hard to hold me back when I get the sense that a quirky