Giant Van Gogh

I have been going back and forth on I-70 from California or Colorado to the east coast it seems like forever. A while back I started seeing signs for a "giant Van Gogh" in Kansas, but somehow never seemed to have the timing to see it. That's unusual-because I try to never pass up the opportunity to see a giant anything. Well, this summer we managed to hit it in daylight and voila-it is fabulous. I highly recommend it to anyone, especially if you don't have the time to go to Amsterdam and see the Van Gogh museum

My neighborhood

I live in a fairly-okay-let's say very conservative town. The two interesting old areas are very cool-Old Colorado City-the Westside- and Downtown. I've lived in both of them. I loved the west side, but there were always a few too many pitbull owners and strange guys with really long beards and aluminum foil covered windows for my taste. (Sorry if you have a long beard and an aluminum foil hat, I'd probably like you, I just don't need to live next door,kthxbai).Outside of those areas the housing is generally bland. We're not talking cool 50s ranch bland we're talking miles of expensive sand coloured garages in front of the house bland.
So-this is what I like about my neighborhood. We're not historically perfect -just on the edge of the historic district, but it's like a hidden gem. These pictures were taken at the end of summer. There is an old man who heats his house with mounds of wood. There's a metal artist who keeps half of a WWII uboat buoy in his back yard (He used the other half to make a hot tub). There's a house with a big metal eye on the front of it, grama and grandpa houses with year round plastic flowers, old TB huts, a lady who grows thousands (really) of dahlias. I aspire to be the artist they all are. And who wouldn't love a neighborhood with a real drive-in restaurant and a lawnmower hospital!!!

I am going to start posting some of the MANY pieces of ephemera I have-feel free to use them -most are in public domain now. These are from a French men's humour magazine called Frou Frou from 1902-they would be interesting in collage or on atcs.

I seem to have a thing for chairs-I hate to throw them away. Here are a few I've found and altered

Art/Craft/TIme/

So, it's been a very busy time since the art show and I haven't followed through on my promise to myself to post-or craft!! We all had a yukky cruddy ikkiness going through the house.
The show went very well, I talked to a lot of people who liked my art and I sold several of my smaller pieces. I'll do it again in the spring. I could have sold about ten of the little Frida art doll/shrines I donated for the auction. I didn't get very good pics of her before she left. I'm planning a series of them for next time-Lizzie Siddal from the Pre-Raphaelites is first. I just read an amazing biography of her.

These are the wall piece collages I had in the show. The one on with the boat is from an Edna St Vincent Millay poem . I gave another in this series to a friend with a Sara Teasdale poem-both typed, of course. I love typewriters.
The chubby girl was all ephemera I got last summer when I was in Ohio visiting my family. There is the most amazing permanent barn sale run by some bachelor farmer types right near my sisters house in the hills of southeastern Ohio. I want to go back and buy everything there. I framed her on the wrong side of an ugly "country" frame I had around forever.