Remembering Kaden

 

Kaden

 

Kaden’s life was a short four years. The grief that his friends and family felt when he died was palpable. The brief life of this little boy created such a depth of feeling in those who knew him that one couldn’t help but sense and be moved by it. I offered to create a drawing. The parents decided that some of Kaden’s happiest moments were when he was being pulled in his wagon by a fellow “Yellow Jacket” classmate. Sesame Street’s Elmo, a smiling, hugable, exuberant character, was a favorite buddy. I created an Elmo image on his shirt that could be flying or reaching for a hug; the things that Kaden might like to do if his body had served him better. There’s a hint of the Kansas yellow brick road.

The family invited me to the dedication of the drawing at Sunnyside Elementary School in Olathe, KS. A large group of Kaden’s family, teachers, classmates and friends stood round as Grandpa Rick unveiled the drawing. There was a soft exclamatory sound and the tears welled, remembering Kaden and feeling the loss.

Bean Bag Game

Varnishing Laura and Dan's Bean Bag Game

Salmon Enter the Columbia

Salmon Run in the Columbia River

• 2 – 36″ x 24″ panels
• Acrylic on Plywood

I’ve constructed and painted a Bean Bag Game for my daughter, Laura, and son-in-law (to be), Dan. In late spring, the inaugural game will be played at their wedding celebration on the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge (note the heart). The salmon won’t be running yet, but the motif was too good not to use. The bean bags still have to be made, so I’ll add a picture of the game set up on site later.

The object of the game is to toss a bean bag to the board which is set up 30 ft. away, aiming for the hole in the board for 3 points. A bag on the board scores 1 point. The first player to reach 21, wins.

Remembering Robert Sudlow

“It was ideal. Every semester, there was an eager, fresh crop of young and not-so-young art students. If they expected lectures and demonstrations, that is not what they got from me. A couple of times a week, we went to the prairie and painted together. They learned from me and I learned from them. I don’t think it will ever happen like this again.” Robert Sudlow

Chair in Sudlow's Woods

Kansas landscape artist, Bob Sudlow, passed away at the age of 90 last month. He was a sweet and gentle man. Twenty five years ago I was one of Bob Sudlow’s not-so-young students. It was his last year of teaching and I had returned to the university for a painting degree. I found that I loved painting outside. This oil sketch was done on my first outing with Bob. The setting was in the woods above his home. The bright orange antique dental chair was one of several that could be found scattered along walking trails through the woods of Bob and Barbara Sudlow’s country property. It speaks perfectly to Bob’s practical, yet whimsical spirit.

Bob once told me that if I wanted to find out if I’d like to be a painter, the Flint Hills offered a solution. Rent an inexpensive loft in one of the small towns in the Flint Hills, paint for a year, then examine your work and how you feel about the experience.  With a family that wasn’t practical at the time. However, I give Bob complete credit for introducing me to the beauty of the Flint Hills. The prairie is the landscape surrounding a host of intriguing characters whose lives I find fascinating and whom I count as friends. Through the years I have found more satisfaction in incorporating the landscape as an element in my painting, combining still life and portrait with it. I continue to plein air paint and sometimes take my grandchildren. When painting the weekend after Bob died, I could imagine that shock of thick white hair blowing in the wind as he stood before his tethered easel, beautifully capturing that elusive time of winter’s exit and spring’s arrival. He loved chasing spring. I am so very glad to have known him.

Painting with Maxx

Maxx’ Drawing “Racing to the Birthing Center”

Racing to the Birthing Center

• Marker on paper
• 8.5″ x 11″
• Priceless

My grandson, Maxx, loves to draw and I really like this drawing. His family is just a few weeks, perhaps days, away from welcoming a new baby into the world. During a visit from one of the birthing center’s staff, Maxx drew this picture of the family racing for the Birthing Center. No doubt he recalls how fast his little sister, Nomi, arrived. She was birthed on the living room couch. In the drawing, the purple spot below the runners is their car; the only one in the parking lot, Maxx explains. As for the runners, Dad’s in front, Maxx and his sister, Nomi, in the middle and mom brings us the rear.

Excellent Customer Service, Dot Line Corp

Surprise gifts in the packing from Dot Line Corp.

In this age of outsourcing, I like to recognize excellent customer service when I receive it. For years I’ve used a not inexpensive set of studio photofloods to light work for photography, still life setups and canvases in the studio. A section of a light broke. I called the marketing group listed on the lights’ storage box and was directed to Rusty Reeves, at Dot Line Corp in Dallas. After I explained my problem, he said, “Sure, I can help you.” The part arrived today and when I opened the package, there, along with my new part, were two tootsie roll pops. Made me smile and impressed by Dot Line Corp.’s service. They get 5 stars out of 5 in my Customer Service Rating System.

The Land Institute’s 50 Yr. Farm Bill Proposal

Cornfield in Winter

Moonrise Hill in the Flint Hills

In a recent mailing from the Land Institute, there is introductory material for a 50 Year Farm Bill that has been submitted to our Sec. of Agriculture in Washington, DC. After reading the proposal, I recalled “Cornfield in Winter”, which was painted decades ago. The heavy harvesting equipment had cut deep ruts in the foreground. No ground cover has been planted to protect the soil from erosion. I consider this a tragic scene. Various folks made some money and little thought was given to preserving the soil, fossil fuel use and the cost associated, toxins in soil and water, etc. in this technology led model of farming. In my “Corn Rhythms” post I tell of working on a corn detasseling crew along I-70 in the early 1970. I have, to date, never seen any other crop but corn grown on that land. That’s 37  years! When a friend was writing a play on water and the settlement and history of Kansas (which inspired my painting “Ogallala Siren”), he asked an area seed corn farmer if he could shoot some irrigation footage to use in his set design. The farmer refused, showing, perhaps, some consideration of his farming practices.

Contrast “Cornfield in Winter” with a Flint Hills prairie painting. This land was saved from the plow due to its shallow soil and for that reason remains one of the last remnants of tallgrass prairie in the world. The prairie is providing the laboratory for the Land Institute’s research. Their purpose ” is to develop an agricultural system with the ecological stability of the prairie and a grain yield comparable to that from annual crops.”

The 50 Year Farm Bill is a proposal for a gradual, systematic change in the way we grow our food using 5 year farm bills as mileposts.  Check out the Land Institute’s proposal, contact the powers that be and help turn agribusiness back into agriculture.  The Land Institute’s director, Wes Jackson, states, “The social stability and ecological sustainability resulting from secure food supplies will buy time as we are forced to confront the intersecting issues of climate, population, water and biodiversity.”

Kayaking the Kaw

The Kansas River, originally called the Kaw River, is the longest prairie based river in the world. It runs for 171 miles from Junction City to Kansas City. The river has advocates in an organization called  Friends of the Kaw (FOK). It’s leader and the Kansas Riverkeeper, Laura Calwell, led folks on a 5 mile trip today. She loaned me her kayak and I floated gently down the slow moving, muddy river. Mostly I luxuriated in the ribbon of light that surrounds a boat in water, but I also learned some area history and met some nice folks. It was a heavenly day.

I am one of several artists who have a page on the FOK website on the Life on the Kaw page. You can support FOK by buying prints of my work through their organization. I donate a portion of the price to FOK.

How Deer Antlers Found Their Way To My Wall

Mike Brewer with "Deer Rack and Bluebirds"

• Acrylic on Canvas
• 20″ x 14″ approx
• In the collection of MB

Mike and my husband, Rob, spend a lot of time on the farm cutting, seeding and mowing trails and building treehouses among other things. Last winter they came upon a deer carcass and Mike really wanted the rack. So the next time they were out, they cut the rack from the deer skull which was no easy task. A few weeks later, generous soul that he is, Mike showed up with the mounted rack as a gift. This is a painting of the mounted rack along with a flock of bluebirds who also like to  gather on the farm. The strip frame was made in woodworking from Tresa’s mahogany and the turkey feathers hanging from the bottom can regularly be found along the trails or on the prairie.

deYoung Museum, San Francisco

Nancy and John Stuart Curry

John Stuart Curry is a relative of my daughter-in-law’s, thus my grandchildren. Curry was born in northeast Kansas in 1897. He died in 1946.  In 1941 he completed a powerful mural, John Brown, which is in the Kansas Capital building in Topeka.

This photo was taken at the new deYoung Museum of Art in San Francisco. An architectural wonder, it holds a fantastic American art collection. The interior space flows nicely too. If you visit, when walking through the sculpture garden, follow the path through to the end. You’ll enter a round building where sound changes as you walk through it. You have to provide the sound. Be sure to stand in the very center of the room.

See Nancy’s Work

To view the artist’s work, visit NLM Studio  Contact the artist.

Additional venues for viewing work:
Kinetikos, 920 Massachusetts (above Milton’s), Lawrence, KS,  Selected prints are available for viewing.

Upcoming Show, Summer 2012
Park University,  Parkville, MO