Scenes of Kingman Kansas and More of the Day

I have had a very, very, very full day. I sent the newsletter to the printer last night only to wake up this morning to discover it hadn't worked as I'd hoped. So, by 10:30 this morning I had that done again, and was ready for lunch. For the second time this week I decided some Roy's was in order. Teresa and I went on Tuesday. I called her this morning and said I was going to get Roy's again. She decided to join me. Teresa and I have had lunch every day this week. That may be a record for us.

And, the Roy's was great. I even snapped a photo of the brisket because the smoke ring on it was just beautiful today. If you're not into barbecue that probably means nothing to you. But, if you're into it, this probably makes your mouth water. You don't get that out of a bottle. Kansas magazine was coming later today to do a piece about them, and the News just did a feature on them, too. Anyway, Teresa and I enjoyed our Roy's.

Yesterday wasn't technically a lunch for the two of us. It was the diversity luncheon and we were both there. It was a really good gathering. Theda was there and that's always fun. Also Cleta, Dorothy, Trish and Lovella. Unfortunately, I'm going to break our lunch streak this week because I've got volunteers tomorrow so I won't get to have lunch.

After lunch today I went to my office and worked on it more. Tomorrow is my recycling day and I wanted to make use of it by getting some things out of the office. I brought a couple of old computer boxes home the last couple of days. The oddest thing - I went ahead and put one of them out yesterday and someone took it. Why do people take my trash? It freaks me out. I put another one out this morning and by noon someone had taken it. Why do people want my empty computer boxes and other trash? Why? What is so enticing about my trash? Tonight I've got a big stack of things out there. I broke down the boxes so they would be less appealing to people. These boxes were bent and crunched and not really useful. And, of course, they had other recycling stuff in them, which I fear may have just ended up in the trash somewhere. Anyway, I'm hoping the recycling guys get to them before some passerby steals my trash. Why do I care? I don't know. It just freaks me out for people to take my trash.

This afternoon was the Horizon's board meeting in Kingman. I really didn't want to go, but I talked myself into it. It was a beautiful day and I thought the drive would do my mood some good. We didn't have a quorum at the meeting, which is very rare, but that meant we were out while it was still sunshiny, which was nice. I drove through downtown Kingman to check out the buildings. The afternoon sun was doing wonderful things for some of the buildings, including the museum.



and the courthouse...



I also couldn't resist this sign...



I occasionally hear from someone who's enthralled with getting to see bits of small town Kansas. I can understand that - particularly if you've never seen the rural midwest. It has a beauty of its own, like any place, I suppose. Most of the communities around here were formed in the 1880s or a bit later, and the buildings reflect that. There are neat details to be found if you look for them, like the fan design in the panels on the building where that sign is painted.



I headed back to the office, but remembered that tonight was a fundraiser that I would have gone to if I'd not had the meeting out of town. Anyway, I detoured to the art center to get a glimpse of the goodies. It was nice. I chatted with Debbie, Leah, Rosalie, Cyndi and Jennifer, although it was just briefly.



They had about 30 four by six pieces of art donated that they auctioned off. I didn't even have time to get a card, much less bid, but it was nice to see everything hanging. They were closing bidding just a few minutes after I arrived. Leah was managing the cash - she's good at that.



I hope it was successful for them. It's hard to come up with new fundraisers and not step on the toes of anyone else in town.

I worked at the office until about 9 and came home to a nice bubble bath. I really need to take good care of myself these days. I'm not depressed, but I'm not normal either, and I need to nudge myself back toward normalcy. It's almost midnight now and I have a really busy day tomorrow so I do need to get some sleep. But I think I'll make a cup of tea and spend a little while journaling before bed. There's something magic about putting pen to paper.

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Check www.patsyterrell.com for the blog, art, and more.

Beauty of Monet

This is called impasto. It's an Italian word that refers to part of a painting that has a build up of paint. I don't recall where I first learned the term, but no doubt from some of the art books I've read. I developed a real interest in art when I was in college - really even earlier than that but I just didn't know what to do with it until later. I eventually learned that when one is interested in something the easiest thing to do is start reading about it and learning. I often start with a children's book to "get my feet wet" when I know nothing about a topic.

It wasn't until I had done some reading that I even knew what kind of art I was interested in, much less who any of the artists were.



When I was in college at the University of Kentucky the Armand Hammer collection traveled there. It was a major art exhibition and I went. It was the first time I was exposed to Impressionists on a large scale. My exposure to art had been very, very limited. Art was not an interest of anyone I knew growing up. It wasn't something that was available to me. It was not something that anyone thought about. Literally, it just wasn't on the radar screen. That's not a slam against my family or the place where I grew up. It just wasn't part of my world.

All of life is a trade off and I had some amazing experiences growing up that people who spent their weekends in museums missed out on. So, there you go. But, being who I am, I want to have it all.



For many years now, I have sought art in every venue possible. I'm certainly no expert, but I can hold my own in a basic art discussion, particularly about the impressionists. I've traveled to some of the places they painted, including Monet's home in Giverny, and I've read and studied their personalities, thought processes and techniques. I don't study their techniques to try and duplicate them - I don't have that talent or interest. I study them because I want to understand the work.



However, all of that does nothing to prepare me for the experience of getting lost in a painting. It's as if every molecule of my body becomes devoted to only experiencing what is in front of me. Nothing holds this power over me like a Monet painting, particularly his later works. The Orangerie in Paris, where his final eight panels reside, is an all day visit for me, as is the Musee Marmottan, which has some of his unfinished works on display. Most friends don't want to go to a museum with me. Not only will they be bored and ready to leave hours before I will, but I will be completely non-communicative. I'm there to "commune with the art," not visit. I have given "the Patsy tour" of various museums to friends - and that's fun - but that's a different kind of experience.



I know many art experts look down on those of us who love impressionists. That's fine. I still love them. In particular I love Monet. I know he wasn't the most pleasant personality, at least from what I read, but when I'm looking at his brush strokes, and examining up close every square inch of the canvas his brush has touched, and the amazing beauty it has wrought, I don't care. I don't care if the art snobs think I'm a neophyte. I don't care if people who don't like art think I'm a snob. I don't care about anything except losing myself, my ego, my entire being while I immerse myself into that beauty. It's as if I'm melting into it, experiencing it on multiple levels at the same time. It's truly an other-worldly experience for me.



This would be related to why I absolutely despise bus tour groups that disgorge a huge number of tourists who have no real interest in being there, but are just there because it's stop number four of the day, and rush in, talking loudly, and generally ruining the experience for the rest of us.



And you don't even want to get me started on school groups. I want children to experience art, but could we have at least one day or morning or afternoon or sometime when we could experience museums without dozens of loud children? Or could we just have children who come to museums without screaming? That would be another option. It's amazing the difference between a school group in an art museum in France and one in the US. Kindergarten aged kids in France sit on the floor in a semi circle in front of a painting and listen patiently to their instructor explain it. There's no running, no screaming, no jostling.



This painting, Flowering Arches, is the one Monet in the Phoenix Art Museum. Generally I head straight for the Impressionists in any museum - depending on what the collection is like I may want to spend all available time there. This was painted in Giverny in 1903, so it's one of his later works. It has all the hallmarks of the things I love about Monet.




The Phoenix Museum allows photographs of some paintings, and I was thrilled this was one of them. Of course flash wasn't allowed, but Greg took these for me and I just cropped in on bits and pieces of the close ups he did. This is generally how I most love Monet paintings - in these closeup bits that show the layers, the colors, the impasto, the brush strokes, the passion of the artist. It truly feeds my soul and is a beauty unlike any other I know.

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Check www.patsyterrell.com for the blog, art, and more.

Gnarls Barkley Banned Video

I heard about the Gnarls Barkley video that was banned because of some strobing effects that can cause epileptic seizures. Naturally, I had to go seek it out. Although I don't have epilepsy, some of those black and white backgrounds moving around were causing me to have to look away. However, it's worth looking at just because Justin Timberlake is funny in it. Besides, how can you not like something that involves a guy named Danger Mouse, and his buddy Cee-lo?

Typing Speed

84 words

Speedtest

I'm often teased about typing. Comments generally cluster around the "is that keyboard smoking" variety. I contend I really don't type all that fast - it's more about how the keyboard sounds. And, of course, the corrections I automatically make sound exactly like things that don't need to be corrected.

Tonight I decided I'd just do an online typing test to see how fast I type. As I suspected, it's not spectacular. Apparently I type 84 words a minute, although I don't think this test deducted for errors. So, lop off a few points for that perhaps.

This is about double what it was when I took typing in high school. But, ergonomic computer keyboards allow much better typing speed than old manual, and even electric, typewriters. I'm also guessing that years of typing every day, sometimes for many hours a day, haven't hurt my typing speed at all either.

I write every single day - from articles to work to email to blogging to dozens of other things. I'm thinking that all helps my typing speed too.

I'm not sure what a "fast" typing speed is, but I'm guessing 84 words a minute isn't it.

Beauty

I am so eager for spring. I'm ready for the beauty of flowers blooming, and being able to bring a little bit of that indoors. I remembered this photo I took last June - I love this picture - and decided to post it again on this 27 degree night.

This photo is certainly not technically perfect and I could have turned the doily around so the little spot where the lace has a hole in it wasn't visible, but I just love the softness of the whole thing. It was taken on my desk in the downstairs sunporch, where I regularly sit to journal.

I haven't noticed any of my little plants popping up yet, but surely some of them are. Maybe tomorrow if the wind isn't blowing like it was today I'll be able to look. There's something encouraging about seeing the flowers start to grow - knowing that winter must be coming to an end.

It won't be too long before it will be time to plant the little garden out back. I've been thinking about what to plant. In addition to the herbs and tomatoes I always plant, I want to put in eggplant again. I loved having those last year. And I want to grow some squash this year. I want to be eating squash blossoms. I'm not sure what else I'll put in - it will probably boil down to what I can find in the stores.

I certainly like having things picked fresh from the garden. I start to get hungry for "real food" as winter wears on. Of course, we can buy things from the grocery, but that's not really "fresh." I start to really want something that was picked five minutes earlier. I'm guessing before we lived in this global village where we get strawberries in January that those fresh foods were all the more anticipated.

Can you imagine what it would be like to have no fresh foods for all the months of winter? Of course, people canned things and had some foods in storage, but I'm guessing those first radishes were really welcome.

I think like many people, I'm ready for spring... more importantly, I'm tired of winter.
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Check www.patsyterrell.com for the blog, art, and more.

Computer Catching Up

I've been doing a lot of computer catch up today. In the midst of doing that I've had opportunity to be surfing to one place or another that popped up in emails. One of the sites I've spent a few minutes with tonight is http://www.on-my-desk.blogspot.com/, where artists share their studios.

It's always interesting to see how people arrange their workspaces - be it an artist's studio or someone's desk at work. My studio space is always messy if I'm working in it. The only time it's nice and tidy is when I'm not really doing anything in there, which, of course, defeats the purpose of having a studio.

As I was looking at that site tonight I was thinking about how cool it is that I can see studios from around the world sitting in my little home office in Hutchinson, Kansas. The internet is such a part of my daily life that it's mindboggling to think it was really only in 1995 that I first surfed the net. It would be some years after that that I had a computer at home and regular access.

The thought of being on that slow computer on that slow dial up doesn't sound very appealing now, but at the time it was quite wonderful. Computers have dramatically changed our daily lives. I spend many hours a day working on the computer now - hours that people obviously used to spend doing other things.
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Check www.patsyterrell.com for the blog, art, and more.

One of my favorite websites is Post Secret. I was lucky enough to get to meet Frank, the owner, a couple of years ago in DC.

Although I won't be able to attend, Frank will be in Lawrence at KU Wednesday night from 7-11 p.m. I know it will be worth a visit. You can see the facebook invite page for details.

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Check www.patsyterrell.com for the blog, art, and more.