The STUFF Sisters

Stupidest Humans

We had already seen one snake slither across our path, which we were sticking diligently to as the map at the trailhead had prescribed.

When I got to the top of the hill, I turned to him and said, “We are the people that you read about in the paper. You know that, right?” I threw the word “paper” in for dramatic effect, knowing full well that most of us, sadly, read news on small screens.

The day was simply gorgeous in the Flint Hills. Big round clouds in crisp blue skies. Of course the hills were green with all the rain. Flowers were blooming at all heights within the tall grass. We were past the hottest part of the day, but it was not cool at 93-degrees.

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26 Hours

I am finding it harder to get through a day without finding the absolute magic that this amazing Earth puts in front of me.

“I’ll bet you took pictures of the plants and stuff. What about the art?”

Parents. They know too much.

Redbud pom-poms bursting from the trunks and branches.

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Polished

I visited museums. This is never a hardship for me. I delight in wandering through and wondering at what is placed in front of me.

Every winter, my hands suffer. My dear friend, Susan, always surprises me at some point in the chilly season with yet another balm that will make all the breakage end, the cuts heal, and the dryness disappear. I use it religiously, and still I cannot be mistaken for a hand model.

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Cold Air & A Voice

“Arctic air is not to be trifled with.” His words when I asked about the slightly grimy cardboard after I sighted it the first time. I was in my early twenties.

My grandmother and grandfather lived in two homes during my childhood that I vividly remember. Both had carports, which as a child I found mesmerizing. Our old homes in the big city did not have these “modern” features. Low brick walls and a slick concrete floor defined the second and last carport.

In the heat of summer and on breezy days, they could be known to park the car further back in the driveway and not under the carport. This signaled that part of the evening would be spent in aluminum-framed folding chairs with the plastic webbing reforming our thighs.

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Three Hours and Forty Years

Last Friday took me three hours down the road from my home and forty years back in time.

It was the only day on the calendar that was “free”. When my Sunday New York Times arrived over a month ago and had a flyer in it about a show at the Wichita Art Museum, I did a double-take. Wichita? In Kansas? Then I grabbed my calendar to pick a date to go. A Friday three weeks away was the only day on the whole Month-at-a-Glance that had nothing on it, or at least the only one that could handle six hours of driving for art.

It was a show of pieces by Hudson River School painters curated by the New York Historical Society. Three words hooked me. Hudson. River. School.

When I was in fifth grade at William Cullen Bryant Elementary School, a docent from The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art brought a huge – to all of us – painting from the museum. She talked about it at length, asked us to “look more closely,” and urged us to answer “What else do you see?” with real words.

I was mesmerized by this piece. It was full to the edges with deep, dark corners of trees and bushes. Greens that ran to black but still showed leaves and vines. It was filled near the top of the frame with white clouds and a sky of every shade of blue. A top corner of the canvas held a foreboding cloud out in the distance that warned of change coming. It had animals and flowers and rocks and cliffs and possibly a waterfall. I am unclear on the waterfall, but there was water coursing through it somewhere.

I learned years later that, in the late ’70s, the pieces that went out with the docents to schools were replicas. Being very close to true size and with frames that were gold and fancy, if not as expensive at the originals, they were breathtaking to my 10-year-old self. They even showed brush marks.

I looked deeper, and, when we were told we could come closer, I did. I gazed in to the darkest corner for more and then up to the sky for relief.

I vividly remember telling my parents about it, probably yet that night. I nagged that we had to go to the museum “soon” to see it. I wanted to take them there and walk them to exactly where it hung, knowing I had no idea exactly where that was but sure that someone would know about the huge painting that a blonde lady had brought to my school just a few days ago! I wanted to show my parents what the docent had shown me. I wanted them to look closely and see more than I did. I wanted to talk about it like she did.

The docent kept mentioning the “Hudson River School,” and I just knew that was a place I should go to school. She made it sound like college, whatever that was. A place of learning with dark corners and majestic skies is what hooked into my brain.

I walked to school back then, and my family could have walked to The Nelson had we chosen to. I also walked to the Plaza Library at the corner of Ward Parkway and Main Street. The kids’ section was in the basement, but I knew that any books or information about the Hudson River School would be listed upstairs in the big card racks. I loved that building, and I really, really loved those 3×5 cards and talking to the librarians. Slipping into the Dewey Decimal language always felt special and foreign. And grown up. Sometimes they would give me “the look” that silently willed us younger people to realize we shouldn’t be upstairs. Not this time.

I was happy to know more about the Hudson River School and the painters who defined it using the pile of books I scavenged from the shelves. I spent a fair amount of time that day looking at many paintings in several books, but I was devastated to learn that there was no physical school. I had no desire then – nor do I have now – to be an artist, but I was crushed to find I could never, truly go there.

Except at a museum, which I go to every chance I get. The Hudson River School genre is no longer a true favorite, but it can hold me in its sway for the length of a special visit. I can still hear that docent and see that massive painting she carried into our room. I can still feel the old library and the gazes of those wise women behind the desk as I traipsed by them with my large format books to sit by the big windows.

Last Friday took me three hours down the road from my home and forty years back in time. On the ride back, as the sun was fading in the Flint Hills, I remembered that the original painting I saw when I was ten is still in the collection of The Nelson. I saw it a few years ago as I was hurriedly cruising through the museum on my way to a meeting. It stopped me in my tracks.

I stayed riveted to that spot just as long as I could, and I still can’t tell you if there is a waterfall.

p.s. All the photos above are tiny pieces of paintings I saw at the special exhibition at the Wichita Art Museum. I was enthralled by the skies and water in this particular set of works. The show runs through April 30, 2017. We also strolled the permanent collection and found the woman below. I love her.

The Whole World Nicer

He was silent as he continued to stare at me. Deeply and for almost a full minute. He was taking me all in. I never broke his gaze.

Several days before we left to meet our son in New Orleans for his spring break, I was ribbed a little for wearing my AIDS Walk wind breaker. My partner that night informed someone we ran into that “…she always wears that jacket. I don’t think she owns another coat.” I saw no reason to defend myself, and I smiled.

I love this jacket. For many reasons. One: It was a gift over ten years ago for meeting a goal in fundraising. Two: It is lightweight and perfect for travel. Three: I can wear it in the winter easily. Four: It reminds me every time I look down at the logo that AIDS Walk knows no season for me. HIV/AIDS doesn’t quit. It is a 24/7 disease.

So you can imagine my terror when I found a hole on the seam under my left arm. I was crossing my arms on the bus back from a plantation home. I was trying to get my right shoulder in a comfortable position so that my son could fall asleep on it. He might have moved out of the house almost two years ago, but a mother NEVER forgets the pain of a limb arranged stupidly for a child’s nap!

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10 Questions for Amy Meya

We are excited to launch a series of blogs about the creative people we represent. These posts will feature 10 questions – chosen by our employee team at the store. The 10 answers to those questions have been written by the artists, creators and inventors who make the work we proudly sell. We have included a photo of the featured person (supplied by them) and a few images of their work currently available at our store. Pursue good stuff.

We are excited to launch a series of blogs about the creative people we represent.

The 10 Questions for Artists, Creators and Inventors Series will feature ten questions – chosen by our employee team. The ten answers have been written by the artists, creators and/or inventors who make the work we proudly sell. We have included a photo of the featured person, supplied by them, and a few images of their work currently available at our store.

10 Questions for Amy Meya: Ceramic Artist

1. As a child, what did you wish to become when you grew up?

From the time we first worked with clay in elementary school I told my mom: “if I could just be in a room with lots of windows and work with clay all day, my life would be fulfilled”, she said “yeah, well, that is a nice dream”. Dreams can come true!

2. Describe a real-life situation that inspired you?

When my first son was only a few months old NCECA, the ceramics arts conference was here in KC, one of my best friends, Angela, and I took him to all the galleries to see the work. The following year Angela and I decided to do all the gallery shows again, this time the conference was in San Diego, my sister was living there, so we had a free place to crash. We took my then one year old with us and went to all the gallery shows, he must have picked up on all our ooooohhhing and aaahhhhing, when we walked into the 6th or so gallery he pointed to a large red platter hanging on the wall and said “oh, wow!” These were his first two words strung together. That moment inspires me.

3. What’s your favorite book or movie of all time and why did it speak to you so much?

One of my favorite movies of all time is “Mr. Mom”, my sisters and I would watch this over and over, we could quote it the entire way through. I love this movie for so many reasons, but now, (I re-watched it when it came out on Netflix) I love it because it is a movie that demonstrates that staying home with kids is also a full time job and families need to figure out a work/home balance.

4. What’s the most beautiful place you’ve ever been?

The “Nature Island” Dominica in the West Indies. Rainbows everyday, waterfalls, black sand beaches, steep mountains and a thick lush rain forest. Heaven on earth!

5. What’s your favorite smell in the whole world?

Garlic cooking.

6. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be?

I can’t pick just one, I have a deep seated wanderlust. Lately I have been wanting to go to New Zealand and Thailand, and Indonesia, I guess generally Southeast Asia. Also, South America, I would love to go to Peru and Argentina.

7. Which fictional character do you wish you could meet?

Here I go again dating myself, but Indiana Jones.

8. What is the best piece of advice you’ve received?

Work on your goals everyday, even if it is only a little bit some days, just do something to move yourself toward your goals because it all adds up in the end.

9. Cake or pie?

Definitely pie, sweet potato pie that isn’t sweet, a more savory pie spiced with lots of rich favors.

10. What is your dream project?

My dream, and current goal, is to figure out a way to work in the Caribbean for four months out of the year, the extremely cold four months to be exact.

– Amy Meya, September 2016

We hope you enjoy this new series. Stay tuned for more. Pursue good stuff…

Hands Free Existence

I am afraid of missing what’s right in front of me – my friends, my loves, curious strangers, the familiar, the unknown – because my face is buried in a screen and fidgeting with buttons and prompts.

I seldom have my phone in my hand. I do not enter stores – even the grocery store – without my handbag. In that handbag is my wallet, phone, keys, and too much more. I like a “hands free” existence, although lugging around my beautiful handbag can get old. Heavy, physically and emotionally. Technically, it’s on my shoulder, so, therefore, I am “hands free”.

For years and years, I took photos on a camera. A Canon PowerShot. I made sure I had it with me for daily life and special events. I have carried it in my evening bags along with only cash for tips, my reading glasses, and Chapstick when attending charity events. At one such event, one of my cool, hip, young friends said, “Look, an old-fashioned camera.” It didn’t phase me, and all my photos came out nice and crisp. I still carry the camera every day, and it might just be a lifetime member of the “too much more” referred to in paragraph one.

Lately, it sees little use, as the lens on my phone has become better and better. Or I have become so at taking photos, which is highly doubtful.

However, I refuse to hold my phone in my hand, and I have lately taken to stopping and digging for it when I want to take a photo. Usually I am with other people and talking while strolling, and I want to stay “in the moment” with them. I register what I would like to photograph in my mind and wait for the conversation to find a resting spot, and then, excusing myself, I walk back to what caught my eye. In museums, I wait until I have walked the entire exhibition and then ask a guard for permission, all while traipsing back through the show. Art is always worth the second look, especially when viewed in the opposite direction and against the flow.

I am not afraid of missing a shot, because I am not a professional photographer. I am, however, afraid of missing what’s right in front of me – my friends, my loves, curious strangers, the familiar, the unknown – because my face is buried in a screen and fidgeting with buttons and prompts.

This past August, I traveled to New York City and New Jersey for work. I was not alone, and my husband and sister made for delightful travel companions. Besides, our son had worked an internship on his campus in Hoboken over the summer, and he was my reward after two long summer months at home without him.

My phone stayed in my briefcase, and many times I was heard to say, “Just a minute. I want to take a picture.” My walking companions would linger while I sought what had been fleeting. Then, as a group, we moved on.

I liked it.

p.s. All these photographs were taken in August with my phone’s camera, the last photo captured with my son’s right arm built in selfie stick. Some were posted to STUFF’s Facebook page and some to my Instagram account. One of my favorites from the trip is on Instagram and is the first time I’ve every really tried to photograph neon at night. Look for it here.

He Would Have Been Horrified

Rain was changing to snow. The temperature had dropped fifteen degrees in less than an hour. It was dark. We were still two hours from home. The highway I was on was familiar but not memorized. I was not wearing socks.

Friday night I stood in the ice-flecked, bitter air at a truck stop in very rural Iowa. The wind that blew across the concrete from the wide open and fallow corn field beyond was cutting. In the brief minutes it took me to finish operating the gas pump and wait for the receipt, I heard my grandfather’s voice in my head at least two times.

“Are you prepared for the road trip?”

“Have you checked everything?”

Maybe there were a few more of his comments bounding around my frozen brain. He spent his career as a Missouri State Highway Patrolman. He not only loved a good road trip – as I was on that day – he spent most of his career working the highways and back roads of central Missouri in a car. He didn’t teach me so much about cars mechanically, but what safety on the road really was.

When I was in college at Mizzou, I made trips to Chicago to visit my boyfriend (now husband) many times in my 1983 Honda Civic 1500 S. Thirty years ago, at lower speed limits, it was a rock-solid eight hour trip. Time meant nothing to me and my passengers. Well, not time of day or daylight. We would leave for a weekend just as soon as we could on a Friday and not get into the car in Chicago to return until midnight on Sunday night – a time chosen because it was exactly eight hours and forty minutes from the start of my geology class.

He knew about these trips. When I saw him during this time of my life, he would drop hints like, “Sweetie, have you checked the tire pressure lately?” or, “How’s your washer level?” I visited him and my grandmother often. One, because I loved them with my every fiber, and two, because they lived in Jefferson City, which was only thirty-five minutes from my dorm. A hot meal and great love was a short ride away.

Any deficiencies in my car upkeep was dealt with in the carport right off the kitchen. Extra jugs of washer fluid were always on hand, and I knew exactly where it went. His son-in-law may have been my chief teacher of all things under the hood, but my grandfather’s eyes shined with pride when I knew to pull the dipstick, wipe it, and place it back before pulling it again for the “real” oil level reading.

I had checked my car tires before leaving Friday morning. I checked the gas level. (Oil level and the like are now the purview of the dealership that leases me my car. I trust them.)

Travel safety was my grandfather’s ultimate goal. He always wanted me to have a few bottles of water in the car in the winter. A blanket would be nice. “Pretzels keep nicely,” he would mention. Of course I had harnessed a AAA card in my wallet, a birthright of all his descendants. Cell phones were not of his era, but I now have one.

He would have been horrified at the conditions last Friday evening. Rain was changing to snow. The temperature had dropped fifteen degrees in less than an hour. It was dark. We were still two hours from home. The highway I was on was familiar but not memorized. I was not wearing socks. There was no water in the car. Heck, I didn’t even have a winter coat with me. Quite possibly, his first born great-grandchild, who was in the car with me, was coatless as well.

An angel swooped in on us when I bothered to try and swipe the salty road crust off the windshield while idling at the truck stop. I had pulled forward from the pumps so my dear friend had a shorter walk from the restroom. Nothing came out of the sprayers. My husband jumped out and purchased a gallon of the magic blue water like he was jet propelled.

I am wise enough and have been happily married long enough that I did not jump out of the car to help my sweatshirt-clad husband find the reservoir in the thirty degree wind. He did just fine, although he utilized one choice cuss word.

I would have so loved to see my grandfather’s smile had I been the one to remove the big black cap and place it for safe keeping in the track of metal to the left formed by the fit of the hood to the body of the car. Far away from moving parts. Safe and secure.

p.s. These photos were taken Friday when we drove to and from Kansas City, Missouri, to Des Moines, Iowa, to eat pizza that we meant to eat last March on another road trip. It’s a long story, but the pizza and friendship were divine. Much love to my friend and travel buddy Sherry Jackson, who remembers my grandfather well and enjoyed many a meal at their home when we were in college. You can read about the trip that birthed this one here.

Day Into Night at 37,000 Feet

I sat on a plane several nights ago in a seat I never seek out. The window seat. Planes have become increasingly painful for everyone, and more so if you have height on your frame. I regularly choose the aisle.

As we flew east and the day turned from pink to brown to night, I would occasionally turn from my magazine and look out. Daytime was leaving me, and my interest in farm, field, ponds, and highways was diminishing. As I continued to read in the dark, not a full paragraph passed before a flicker from outside caught my eye. It then held me for the next hour and a half. I was transfixed and slowly let the magazine fold.

The waxing moon, which was above and beyond my limited view on this clear night, was catching the surface of every body of water we passed. It was one of the most beautiful displays of light I have ever witnessed.

As we passed over ponds, rivers, and lakes, they would shine a silvery grey as we approached, then a shock of the moon would glimmer for only a moment the brightest white. The white you see when you first light a handheld sparkler with a match on the 4th of July. The very hottest center of all that magic in the pitch dark. Then, the body of water would recede into grey. Then black.

Rivers were split second ribbons of mercury. Lakes had sinuous edges. Ponds were usually still enough to catch and hold briefly a snapshot of the moon’s surface.

But the swampy parts – the marshes and wetlands – were the most fascinating. The silver of the moon would pop up between darkened trees and old growth. Big swaths of small silver shimmers with no discerning shape from 39,000 feet.

Quick. Sleek. Gone.

p.s. I lifted this image from Google Images. What I marveled at looked nothing like this. My night was darker, and the moon was not full. I will never be skilled enough as a photographer to capture with the camera on my phone the magic I witnessed through an airplane window. Mostly, I just want the memories to live in my mind forever.