Horses have wonderfully expressive faces and artists have been trying to capture this since the time people first started painting in caves.   So the best part of my trip to the Cowboy Hall of Fame was the art with horses.

Horses often look like they are just about to say something to you (like the famous Mr. Ed), if only one would stop to listen.

They have their opinions about what the humans are up to, and they mostly are too polite to say.

This statue celebrates the life and career of Khadafy Skoal (named after some dictator or other).   He was originally slated for a career in horse racing when his humans noticed that he did not care for jockeys.   He started his career at age 7 and was named Horse of the Year in 1990, 95 and 96.  (He was very well liked by his fellow horses).  He retired in 2004 and died late in 2013 at age 31.

Much as I liked these other horses I must admit that my favorite horse of all time is Pegasus.   Those wings just give him an unfair advantage over mortal horses.

Back in grade school, whenever we had to do a section on poetry, the teacher always picked “Trees” by Joyce Kilmer.  It made no difference what grade we were in, the poem for the poetry unit was always “Trees”.  (And I have no idea why, it was just the way of things).   So here it is, the first line of “Trees”:  ” I think that I shall never see.  A poem as lovely as a tree.”   Obviously Mr. Kilmer was a bit confused by the subject, and he would have been even more confused after a short walk through our downtown.    We do have the usual sorts of trees, but then there are a few special ones.

I love this tree.   It has been downtown for several years and was purchased from the artist after being part of the art in the streets program.   It is made of steel and river rocks.

This tree is more recent, and has these lovely spinning leaves which give it a rather festive air.   I took this snap during a recent street event.

But this is the best tree downtown (or anywhere in the city).   This is part of the newest batch of art on the streets.   This handsome creature is formed from steel wire and looks to have a few river rocks inside.   I do love the local deer, and I hope this one stays and gets to be part of herd.

“Poems are made by fools like me.  But only God can make a tree.”

I got the notice rather late in the day after running errands and such.  It was free day at the local museum and I had not been there in a while, so off I went for the last days of the latest show.  As usual I got completely sidetracked by the lovely shadows of museum lighting and other irrelevancies.

There was a current display of art from Brazil.  I loved the enigmatic nature of this canvas, with both the figure we see and the unseen figures of the shadows.

This unfinished etching by Rembrandt has a shadowy quality, perhaps it really is finished.   (The green in the picture is a reflection from the exit sign).   (The exit sign is in case you don’t notice the huge gap in the wall).

Chihuly managed to flog a number of pieces to the museum’s permanent collection.   They are pretty enough, but the shadows make them extra fabulous.

The author as a pair of legs.  I love how this makes me look extra tall and slim.

And what was I up to?   Just snapping away at  random things which caught my eye.

This particular shadow was cast right in front of a painting by Andy Warhol.   I don’t think that he could have done a better portrait of me, that captures my essence. 😉

For many years I have been an exhibitor in Fine Arts at the State Fair.  In fact their acceptance of a piece that was rejected at a quilt show was how I decided to continue making art.  Over the years I have had a lot of good hang spaces and have even sold a couple of pieces (also have won ribbons and prize money too).  The show has a lot of entries and a huge rejection rate, so it is a good thing to even get accepted.  I had an idea for this piece, but after going to Santa Fe and house sitting a bunch of geriatric dogs and a naughty cat (she bit me quite deeply on the hand) I did not have a lot of time to work on my entry.

So this is where I started, with a drawing of a lion.    I usually spend a great deal of time dithering about fabrics, etc.   but I really didn’t have time to do this, so I just banged it out.  I will admit that I bought some of the fabric in Santa Fe.   Some of it worked and some did not make it into the final piece.

It doesn’t look much like the vision in my head, and it would have been better with more fabrics, but it was more or less together, and I found a piece of background fabric that I thought worked with the face.

I crammed it in my domestic sewing machine (not the giant industrial) to quilt it.  As I did this I was glad it was not a more complicated design.

I finished sewing the last bit at 10 pm the night before it was due.   And later I realized that I forgot to put the whiskers on it, but

it was accepted into the show!   So I was pleased, and can’t wait to see it hanging in place.

I once again found myself sitting in the airport, waiting to get back home.   But this airport at least had some interesting art that celebrated the region.

The airport had some contemporary art right at the top of the escalators on this terminal.   And as this was contemporary art, it needed the label “airport art”, otherwise one might wonder what it was and why it was in the glass case.

As I mentioned, they had a bit of art that celebrated local deities celebrities or somehow notable persons.   This is Robert Johnson, the renowned delta blues guitarist from Mississippi.

More Southern icons from left to right (not a comment on their politics):  Hank Williams, a country singer/songwriter from Alabama, Elvis Presley, a singer from Mississippi, Mahalia Jackson, gospel singer from New Orleans, and Olivier Hardy, film comedian from near Augusta, Georgia.   The dude whose picture hangs below is former president Woodrow Wilson who also lived in Augusta, Georgia for a spell.

This bit of art had some identifiable faces as well as a couple of mystery folks (I suppose I could have looked for a sign).    Patsy Cline, country singer from Virginia, and ‘Tennessee’ Ernie Ford, country singer from of all places, Tennessee.  The people in the middle were the mystery, I don’t recognize the woman and the man is possibly Ike Turner, a musician from Mississippi.   Dr. Martin Luther King was a minister from Georgia, and Ty Cobb, a baseball player also from Georgia.  Hanging below the rest is Jackie Robinson, a baseball player from Cairo, Georgia.

The circular portraits are set inside a notched automobile inner tube, which is a popular way to make a planter in the yard for one’s posies.   So I suppose that the artist wanted us to know these persons were all grown in the South.  Maybe.

Well it’s not anything I’m making, I remain quite short on inspiration, but I do buy the occasional bit of art to put on my walls.  And as it is that time of year with craft shows there has been the opportunity to add a few things to my walls (although I admit that none of these has been framed or put up yet).

This came from the same Japanese festival as the obi in the living room.   It is a 3 dimensional fabric piece made using old kimono fabric.  I don’t really have a need for it, but I loved how darn cute it was.  And you know how I love textiles.

I saw this photo at a craft fair at the college this past weekend.   I was in a crabby mood and did not want to buy anything, I just walked around for a while, feeling crabby.    But I kept thinking about this fox, so I had to go back the next day and buy it.  I have bought art from the photographer before.   She is an older woman (that means she is older than me 😉 which makes her ancient) and she takes amazing wildlife pictures.

http://annettephotos.com/Annette_Photos/Welcome.html

Here’s another look at little boy, her backyard fox.   He has quite soulful eyes, he was much more interesting than the other fox she photographed.   (I used to have a little fox that lived up the hill, but he disappeared one day 🙁 so now we are over-run with rabbits).

I liked this photo of two Sandhill cranes.They are perfectly lined up so it looks like a three winged bird at first glance.

www.stephen-weaver.com

This tiny piece of art is a refrigerator magnet.   A friend gave them out at a party and I like the sentiment.  And unlike the other bits of art, this one is hanging ;-).

I’m completely out of inspiration, so here are some pictures of old art that hangs in my living room.

I still like this piece and the jungle fabric that I used in it.   It sits behind a burgundy wing chair which is the perfect place for it.

This piece was made for a show, the theme was “Jazz”, so I did some improvisational piecing in it.   Then I quilted it in a riff on traditional quilting.   It doesn’t show in the photo, but the black fabric is iridescent, and the quilting is done with different colors of shiny thread.   I did win 1st place in Professional Quilting sponsored by my quilting machine company and this quilt hung in their booth at the giant quilt festival in Houston.  It was the third quilt in a series based on this same idea.

This is an ancient piece, it was probably the 6th or 7th quilt I ever made.  I was just showing off my technique.

I think I made this quilt in about 1985.   Back then it was hard to find all the different solid color cotton fabrics, and as it has aged the fabrics are fading at a differential rate.  I think this has made it more interesting.

This one is obviously not made by me, and it is the newest thing (sort of) in the room.   It is a vintage obi and I bought it back in October at the annual Japanese festival.   I thought it would just fit a narrow space and look good hanging there.  I guess all of this shows how much I love textiles.