KANSAS CITY CULTURE...

In the last post I wrote only an introduction to our time in Kansas City around the bell Convention. I want to share more...

I mentioned "my" lion at the Nelson-Atkins Museum which has continued to grow with vitality.

My cousin Kathy had mentioned sculptures on the south terrace when we were making plans by phone, but we were surprised, walking from a fortuitous street parking space, to confront these botanical wonders... replications made in resin by Philip Haas from 16th century paintings by Giuseppe Arcimboldo ... a wonderfully playful garden at the top of the museum's sculpture park where a badminton game has been lobbing sculptural shuttlecocks over the museum for some years.

I've long loved the older Beaux Arts building so was cautiously curious when I heard about the plans for a contemporary expansion...

But, I like the Steven Hull design & feel it brings new life to the tradition I love. I was happy to realize that my lion is standing guard, looking down from the top of the stairway into the underground entrance of the new addition...

  Afine transition from inside the classical space to resurface into the light-filled new.

While the web photo above illustrates how the luminous volume rests easily next to the original, I made the photos below showing how freely spacious is the result...

We've have visited many museums, many with new additions to their history & this is one we both celebrate heartily. One feels there is room to grow. The collection is fresh. 'Seems a good marriage.

I caught him several times as we explored. We both were caught by a rather garish introduction to an Indian painter...

It too is transitory in that his richly Indian sensibility depicts a surreal scene of fantastic collapse from the Mahabharata in thick gold paint enhanced with rhinestones & glitter! It keeps growing on me!

Another Indian piece uses common steel objects to assemble one of our favorite forms.

We had hoped to revisit the museum on the day we had lunch with the Mitchell cousins, but again it was closed. We were to meet my cousins [our mothers being sisters...] Kathy & Mike, with his wife Mary Jane at the Kemper Museum for lunch. The disappointment was that Kathy was ill, so for the second time we missed seeing her. We used the time we had planned for the Nelson to explore a show in this handsomly intimate museum we've enjoyed on previous visits. It took awhile & some elucidating comments from the two women there we discovered were docents preparing notes about the work of Adam Cvijanovic. They are big. They are mounted flat on the wall. They are painted on Tyvec, the vapor barrier one sees in construction sites. In pieces... collages... remounted... with wheat paste... to be site specific... sometimes in different compositions!

 The view of an abandoned drive-in theater was nicely placed for consideration of times past He has a thing for the movies, as you will see...

 He plays with notions like the diorama of history in his studio...

 He made this image with my initials flying off an "anti-gravitational" movie marquee above the docents...

 See the G... R & B ?!?

Both museums have no admission fee... impressively noting Kansas City's cultural richness.We look forward to being able to visit the new symphony building on future visits, but I wanted to see the new library, if for no other reason than the huge book spines on the parking garage...

 With details continuing the book theme...

 Inside it is repeated at the steps up into the children's library... with our guide BroJon...

 A roof garden is a place movies are shown... like a new version of that painted drive-in... or one can play a game of chess overlooking the revitalized down-town.

I'll write about a more somber landmark in the next post...

ABA CONVENTION - KANSAS CITY - 2015

The 70th annual American Bell Association Convention was held in a city I've known & appreciated since first visiting after graduating from 8th grade. Over the years I've visited two aunts; an early art teacher; a college roommate; my only sister; & my closest brother... plus several favorite cousins.

We have lots of good reasons to visit KC... even before the barbecue!

The city's Nelson-Atkins art museum is a great & unusually lively institution,  It was there, in 1959, on my first visit I met the ancient Greek lion sculpted of marble which became the model for my logo. I drew him as a wheeled pull-toy, inspiring in turn my doppelganger, Leo Toye. He was long in the repair shop & on our last visit the museum was closed... although the translucent walls of the Steven Holl building glowed enticingly...

I certainly was anticipating remaking acquaintance with this important entity who has become a personal symbol. He's still wonderful!

We are most likely to attend the ABA convention when it is held in a city we want to visit, Because it is such an expensive show we often don't find it worth the time/expense. The group has been getting smaller in the decades since I began attending in 1983... coincidentally staying with brother Jon & his partner Michael that trip as well. They loaned me a car to drive to Springfield, Missouri, where that meeting was held. In those days 350-400 registered. When I came to know only 128 were attending this year, I became concerned... in spite we'd been 4 years absent ourselves... which does historically help build interest.

The first day is a gathering time before the next day's first official session. The display room is open that day for the longest block of time. We begin setting-up our display after breakfast & the room is opened from after lunch until dinner time. I usually write half my business in those 5-6 afternoon hours. At closing time we were still wrapping-up an single client's order for 10 bells... a  sale handsomely allaying earlier fears. Appreciative business continued to make a very successful show for the bells.

THE BELL DISPLAY 

 

The hotel was rather perfect: with a pleasant staff; a roomy suite overlooking an open interior court from 8 floors up; breakfast with custom omelets; a generous happy hour... both gratis; & meals from quite a good kitchen... we were pleased.

Of course I have developed friendships with many of the ABA members over the years. Stephen has his own relationships since he often has accompanied me during our 20 years. We were the first out gay couple during times which did not easily guarantee the acceptance we feel now.

During handshakes & hugs hello I found myself repeatedly queried... with puzzled or concerned glances... about my health. We discovered a rumor that I was perhaps dying of AIDS! I can only presume some story concerning my period learning about inflammation got overblown during the years we were absent from attending conventions. That all got fixed years ago by my changing to a gluten-free diet with copious amounts of kale!  It was amusing to ravel by explaining the young man with whom I work in our garden & woods is often impressed how well I can keep up with him. 

"Oh, the humanity!"

At least they were talking about me!

Our luggage, waiting on the Island's dock with me for Stephen's hike up to the parking lot to bring down the car. This is our total baggage for the bell show; his biz; &amp our wardrobes. It includes a very well-traveled taped paper construction I made sometime in the 90's to transport the bell display boards... it still functions beautifully even as it has accumulated significant additional value over the years in terms of shipping costs. 'Slap another $50 bill onto its hide for this trip...

'Twas a good trip indeed... beginning with rare views of the backside of our mountain on the first flight's takeoff...

WEB-SITE BEING RE-VAMPED...

And what a vamp she has become! 'Always was a bit of a vamp but now will claim my perpetual attention... she will have a live store! I will have to keep on top of the inventory! There will be more designs displayed. Still, there will be yet some more for which I must find or re-make good images.

The process on the site [GRBBELLS.COM] has become its own adventure... taking much longer than expected in the beginning... no surprise. I am not doing this myself, but working with an interesting technician who became a friend while he was living on the Island, but now lives in Central America. However, I have been put to work organizing myself in the most thorough manner ever!

Photographs, texts, sizes, prices & inventory counts... all needed to be pulled into systematic organization. Ultimately that is a greatly beneficial to me... I'm pleased.

We are nearly ready to bring her back to life... I am most anxious to see her working again...

ENDING A SEASON... ENDING AN ERA...

I broke my favorite gardening tool several days ago... ending a twenty year era using it to fork-up garden soil. I bought it just after my 50th birthday with a gift of cash from Frederick & Rodney in Sonoma County, California, carving an inscription to that effect along the handle. It had been fragile & we had replaced it with another so as to coddle its weakness, but, in a mood of reminiscence. I took it out of its corner in the shed for a gentle chore. 

Its time had obviously come... 

I might have used it to dig the tubers of the Mashua, which has covered its trellis this summer & is now blooming... the first indication that the harvest at its roots is beginning to develop... probably to be ready around solstice...

The entire plant is edible, leading leaflets are great in salad, as are the insignificant blossoms, 

This is a Peruvian nasturtium I discovered when I was volunteering at the "Mother Garden", the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center, also in Sonoma. Most years I've had difficulty growing enough "seed" tubers to plant, but last year I didn't let us eat any of the zippy morsels  & we are now going to be rewarded! We happily eat them sliced raw, but they are also delicious roasted, when they mellow n flavor. I've posted about this before with these photos of a previous crop...

 I'll close with these delightfully colored Fava beans from earlier this summer...

Apprentice Chandler took the time to sort them into a gradually spectral line...

Now I will shop for a new handle for the still sturdy tines of the fork... 

perhaps it will yet help to harvest Mashua!

Frogs & Fog...

Recent mornings have been rather mystically misty.

Bringing my morning coffee down to sit in the garden startles the frogs into silence for only a few minutes while they assess that I am no danger. I could not say "chorus", which certainly applies to the sound we often open car windows, slowing on our drive home, to enjoy passing several ponds higher on the slopes above Soundcliff.

As I settle the quiet restores & they begin again... usually only a trio or quartet of young explorers, presumably from those wet places further up-slope. I sip, celebrating that they chose to grace this garden at the edge of... well... everything! To have frogs, butterflies & bees, plus increasing variety of birdsong in our Eden gives some hope on our cliff's edge... emissaries of the Goddess.

How does one measure a garden's progress?  Years ago I grounded myself as quincunx to the center of the four raised beds I call "Roothole". I've held faith in the intelligence of growing beauty & food, rejuvenating my patchy gardener, after some years living urban... proving my devotion.

These musings sometime get warmed by bright moments aptly described  in our vernacular as the sun-breaks we cherish. The camomile bed begins to call me. I've ignored it this summer to the point I was ready to give up weeding it. Weeding again becomes meditation...

Summer has been gloriously sunny... the garden has similarly responded!

There is a lovely wild plant abundant in our neighborhood. I do not know any name, but we have dubbed it a "gourd". It is not. Instead it is a fragile husk which protects three large seeds, which develop into a sturdy perennial octopus-like root mass. While not on my list of weeds, I am chary to let its lovely rampant growth into my garden!

 The pea trellis eventually gave a long season of both snow peas & sugar snap varieties.

 It grew in the old fire-pit, which has developed rich soil...

I found seeds for a variety of beans I knew from the Mother Garden in Sonoma County... which we came to call "Dragon's Lingerie" mimicking the French name.

 We grow many kales & greens, but our favorite kale has long been Lacinata, rich substance, dark green. Late summer brought another old favorite in Trombonchino, a squash often living up to its name in shape!

Our favorite of the several varieties of kale we grow is Lacinatta, a deeply vital, dark green, rich in texture & nutrition... glorious fiber!

Squash blossoms are further boom, offering cavities to stuff with goodie before sauteing.

 

One result...

 

We love having fine displays from new bulbs... Hymenocalis, so reminiscent of blooms in Bali, we can only welcoming this exotic flower to Soundcliff's garden!

Another "exotique" was dug out between paving stones as I weeded...

This ginger was gift from Taylor some years ago. finally finding a home to bloom...

The challenge is to determine our zone as it might define our unique exposure for such specimens... I've a life's-work yet in this garden. 

I end with a nocturnal view of Soundcliff wishing you good night.

!!! EGADS !!! EQUINOX !!!

I remember as a kid being intrigued when my Auntie K used the phrase 

'egads'.. I often heard it as ye-eee gads. By high school I seem to have figured out it was probably a way to circumvent our Baptist family's prohibitions about using the name of deity... for whom there was only ONE. I've used it with my fondness for her, celebrating her gentle slyness. She was my mother's eldest sister, a passionate teacher, becoming one source of rare wisdom... if sometimes a bit cynical... for this boy stuck on a farm.

The phrase came literally to my tongue when I saw that this blog has languished almost a year!

I'd been thinking about posting for the late summer garden, but then I've contemplated any number of posts during this vacancy... the spiders are once again beginning to stretch their airy palaces... EGADS! how do I weave some such "palace" to bridge this lapse of time? We all know my proclivities toward daunting dumps of photos & verbiage.

In my imaginary silky palace floating above another year I see the garden surrounding Soundcliff changing diligently, by design or at least intent... then things happen...

So another of the swath of aging alders long shading our southern yard had to come down, opening our exposure radically. Shade no more.

 Numerous loads of manure from a local farm were hauled & dug-into beds old & new.

The gardens in the north continue thus to build fertility. We've eaten well in each season from a variety of kales & collard, peas next... an abundant red lettuce added to salads.Great to have grilled favas for several months!

A singular bounty of "Dragon's Lingerie" beans... beautifully purple streaked ivory yum. Lacinato kale becomes staple as Tromboncino squash begin to dangle as I stuff & saute their blossoms.

This one had opportunity to become very exuberant !

An early spring view of the potager... with the pea-tipi in lower left.

I tackled a number of projects, including replacing the last of the original raised beds... more than 15 years useful! I'm building them now out of rough sawed two-inch cedar, believing they might outlive me!

The flower boarders have given us much exotique satisfaction from favorite bulbs like Tigridia...

Plus new first timers... these Hymenocallis will definately be invited back next year!

 

For years we have kept a Brugmansia on the upper deck during summer for years, which needs to be sheltered during the winters... taking some major space indoors as it grows rangy in spite of pruning!

 

We've had an abundance of bird song & bee buzz... now come welcome frog chorus.  Weeds constantly challenge battle... but that's the earthy web of roots & fruits & wildlife nurturing &  cocooning our human lives.