Kansas City Odds and Ends

Let me share just a few more photos I took while I was in Kansas City.

First of all, here’s a little decor.

Very little…

I am amazed by all the decor people add to their trailers. It just doesn’t seem to be my thing. But, I love the simple elegance of spring clothes pins. I clipped up my hat and a piece of artwork done by my friend, Frank DiBona.

Frank does what he calls “mashups” and he inserts Airstreams into the works of art via Photoshop. (Personally, I think he uses magic.) A while back, he asked me to come up with some works of art he hadn’t been using and to send me some photos of Flo, the Airstream. If you want to see some of his other work, he has an online business that sells tee shirts and other items with his parodies. (I have a few of his tee shirts.)

Anyway, that’s Flo behind the gunslinger. You can tell it’s Flo – and not just any old Airstream – because she is decorated with the wreath I rescued from brother Craig’s house when I helped him move in 2016. I was going to a pre-Christmas rally near Savanah, Georgia, so I hit up a Dollar Tree and prettied it up.

After the rally, I headed to my other brother’s house and gave Scott and Lesley the wreath.

So, the only one of the Davison siblings that didn’t have the wreath was my sister. Sorry about that, Amy.

My first trip to Kansas City was in 1974. I took part in a national Girl Scout event at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. I wanted to go visit it again. As luck would have it, I tried to visit it on one of the days it was closed. I knew it was closed when I headed over, so I wasn’t horribly disappointed.

Big art museums like the Nelson-Atkins frequently have interesting artwork around it, so I thought it was worth a trip. Quite frankly, I didn’t remember much about the museum, as my last visit had been 44 years ago!

I didn’t remember these enormous shuttlecocks, and that concerned me. I was kind of wondering if I my memory was slipping altogether. I found an information plaque, and I was relieved when I learned that the four shuttlecocks were installed in 1994 – twenty years after my visit.

My photo of the information plaque didn’t turn well, so I will type out what it says, in case you want to learn more.

“The husband and wife team of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen were commissioned in 1994 to design a sculpture for The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. They responded to the formality of the original neoclassical building and the green expanse of its lawn by imagining the Museum as a badminton net and the lawn as a playing field. The pair designed the four birdies or shuttlecocks that were places as through they had just landed on opposite sides of the net. Each shuttlecock weighs 5,500 pounds, stand nearly 18 feet tall and has a diameter of some 16 feet.”

There was a message at the bottom, too.

“Please do not touch the sculpture.”

Oh, and the title of that work of art: Shuttlecocks.

This work of art is titled Standing Figures (Thirty Figures). Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz began work on it in 1994 and finished in 1998.

Again, the photo of the information plaque didn’t turn out well, so I’ll type out what it says.

“Magdalena Abakanowicz’s figures are instantly identifiable by their stark imagery. The haunting power of these headless, standing figures invites many interpretations, and the artist welcome this approach. Could they be awaiting final judgement? Do they suggest war victims? Art they primordial beings in silent communication? Each figure is individually cast from a burlap-lined body mold.”

The message at the bottom of the plaque: Please do not climb on the sculpture. So, I guess you can touch them – just don’t climb on them.

With that, I headed out to explore some more. I came across a sign pointing the way to Thomas Hart Benton’s home and studio. I decided to see what I could see.