Tilting at paper wasp nests

Dad grinned. He was clear-eyed and engaged in my tales.  When I said I was so glad he was in a better frame of mind, he slowly got out, "I am in a better frame."

He was grinning at my Pancho Sanchez role in a playground quest to remove wasp nests from the roof above the sandbox.  My boss loves all nature to the extent that she practices catch and release with wasps.

She loves nature so much she collects the Sunsweet Ones cannisters from her elderly mother and other residents at the independent living center for the express purpose of catching and removing wasps from the school playground with the cannisters.


I collect peanut butter jars for worm shows, but consider prune can collecting for wasp relocation borderline insane.  I am not nearly so charitably inclined toward wasps, and only eat prunes in kolaches.

Usually I can remain undrafted for wasp removal efforts by supervising children on a far end of the playground.  Having sounded the warning about the diggity-dog wasp nests, I felt obligated to assist in this catch and release effort.  Two big dang nests high up in the pointed roof, each with many wasps fanning the nest equal a bad situation on the playground.  

Temp around ninety-eight, and did I mention my boss has one arm in a sling recovering from a fractured shoulder?  "How brave are you?," she asks.  

So, yo, Pancho Sanchez hauls the stepladder and prune cannisters out to the playground, and offers to spot for Ms. Quixote on the ladder.  Cue the "Impossible Dream".  We shoo the kids to the other end of the playground and plan our mission.  My goal is to keep Ms. Quixote from falling down the ladder and refracturing her shoulder.  

Her first two attempts at tilting the wasp nest into the prune can are near misses.  One wasp clings to the outside of the can each time.  We regroup and make a final effort, but the wasps are ticked off now and ready to counterattack.  I keep Ms. Quixote from rebreaking her shoulder, but she ends up with four superficial stings.  For a sec it seems like a wasp flew in my mouth.  The kids are rushed back into the school.

Hearing the tale, Dad shuts his gaping mouth to keep wasps out.  Then he grins.  It is a sweet Tom Swiftie moment. The blind carpenter picked up his hammer and saw that wasps are not to be messed with when you are a one-armed paper hanger.  Next time I hope to stay pure and unchased from afar!

To dream ... the impossible dream ...
To fight ... the unbeatable foe ...
To bear ... with unbearable sorrow ...
To run ... where the brave dare not go ...
...
To fight for the right, without question or pause ... 
To be willing to march into Hell, for a Heavenly cause ... 

I'm pretty sure Hell has lots of wasps.




© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Bendy buses and Woodrow Wilson

The caterpillar turned left without signalling, but it was in the correct lane, and in the dill.  It looked just like a little bendy bus.  When last did I ride a bendy bus?  Been racking my brain, or is it wracking?

Preparing for tomorrow's Traveling Worm Show, I'm feeling inarticulate.  A bendy bus is an articulated motor coach, often used for shuttling to major events.  Marathons.  Balloon festivals.  Graduations.  My old red dictionary indicates articulated means having joints. Hookah-smoking caterpillars?

A caterpillar is not a worm.  A worm cocoon is not a chrysalis, but the term for an egg case.*

Not a basket case, but I've got a few too many billiard balls in the air and not enough pockets.  Thank heaven baize rhymes with maize.

Sitting in the nap room, patting the back of the most reluctant napper with my left hand, and doing a fiendish Will Shortz crossword puzzle with my right...  Six letter attendee of the Potsdam Conference?

S T A L I N  doesn't work.  Maybe Potsdam was WWI.  I used to know history, but now Yoosta sounds like a small unreliable car make imported from a developing nation.

Yoosta know that smart skinny Ivy League sickly President's name.  Can see his face on the page of Presidents in the old encyclopedia, Vol. 14, Pil-Raf.  Died in office.  Was Teddy his VP?  What was his name??  No.  I'm getting way out there, standing in my field.  Awkwardly going left or right.

Yet again, I look up gee and haw.  Grateful I'm not driving a team of oxen.  As unsuited as I am to sing worm songs, I would be a greater failure mushing an Alaskan sled team of huskies or malamutes.  Nice to visualize when it is ninety-nine degrees, though.

*Each adult worm can produce 3-4 cocoons per week.  Each cocoon will produce 3-4 surviving hatchling baby worms.  Plan to skip through the hermaphroditic sex life of worms pretty fast with the audience of 6-12 year olds.  More interesting to me is that worms don't parent.  They don't drive the kids to ballet class or sit on the soccer sidelines.  They don't pack lunchboxes.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Straighten up and fly right

When I get to his room about five Dad registers my presence pretty quickly.  He is trying to say something, so I sit down beside him on the bed to read lips and listen to his whisper.  It's easy to get sucked into a no-win game of twenty questions, so I try to give him plenty of time to get some words out:

"You picked a hell."

"I picked a?  Can you say it a little louder, Dad?"  

"Can't."

"You would be louder if you were mad.  I know because I've heard you."

Dad gives me a flicker of a smile, but suddenly looks like he might sob.

"You picked a helluva time to be gone."

"I'm sorry.  Did something happen?"

"Picked a bad..."

"I had to go to work today.  It was the first day of summer school.  Are you worried?  Do you hurt?"

"Put me up."

I raise the head of his bed.  Dad keeps stroking his whiskers.

"She wanted to..."

"Shave you today?  You didn't have her do it.  Would you like to shave?"

Dad shaves.  I go ask the Lady In Red if something happened today, but she's not Dad's aide.  Still, she comes right in to say hello and get his attention.  She deserves a medal everyday.  She thinks maybe Dad got upset yesterday.  I agree, since I didn't recognize anybody on duty Sunday noon.  She says she has to do a "total reboot every Monday" with all the residents.

"Bad day."

"I'm sorry, Dad."

"Where were you last night?"

"I was at the condominium working on my worm presentation.  Was it a bad night?"

The person Dad thinks I am at this moment should have been with him at some time in the recent past.

"I was here at lunch time yesterday, but you didn't want to eat the kolache I brought."

Dad's supper arrives.  Mac & cheese, asparagus, ground chicken, milk, roll, brownie.  I feed him as much as he will allow.  He chews and chews, but forgets to swallow.

"...not worried about."

"I'm glad you aren't worried.  Then I don't have to worry so much."

"Don't worry.  Not worried."

...

...

"Straight."

I help him sit and adjust his pillow.

"Straighten up and fly right."

"Straighten ... fly... right."

Dad eyes are mostly closed.  I pat his arm. His skinny chest breathes more regularly.

"Down."

I lower his head some, accidentally raising his feet.

"They don't let me drive."

Dad smiles at this, then dozes for awhile.  I move to the other side of his bed so I won't slide off onto the floor, and pat his other arm.  He rears up.

"How long do you have to teach?"  

"This was the first day of summer school.  I leave for work at 7:30, and get off at 5:00 for eight weeks."

Pat Dad's arm until he seems asleep, but he opens his eyes when I stand up.

"I love you, Dad.  I'll see you tomorrow.  Good night and good luck."

Buzzard took a monkey for a ride in the air

Monkey thought that everything on the square
Buzzard tried to throw the monkey off of his back
But the monkey turned around and said, "Hey listen Jack!"

Straighten up and fly right
Straighten up and stay right
Straighten up and fly right
Cool down bubba don't you blow your top

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Double wide world of worms

An army marches on its stomach.  Napoleon I

True for worms, too.  The traveling worm show will be marching out Wednesday, and it won't be going light.

1. Large laundry basket full of sixty peanut butter, mayo, and spaghetti sauce jars.
2. Turquoise ten-gallon Sterlite storage tub with air holes, drain holes, and a catch tray.
3. Fifteen-gallon Rubbermaid storage tub marked, "Dave".
4. Paper bag holding two "worm castle" jars filled with layered soils and including nightcrawler tunnels.
5. Book bag containing Doreen Cronin's Diary of a Worm, Harriet Ziefert's Class Worms, and Wendy Pfeffer's Wiggling Worms at Work.
6. The Sneetches, by Dr. Seuss.
7. Lid with air holes for #3.
8. Large bucket of ninety-eight cent topsoil from Home Depot.
9. Large UTZ pretzel jar full of sand.
10. Large UTZ pretzel jar full of pea gravel.
11. Coffee can full of Miracle Gro organic garden soil.
12. Seven tie-dyed giant fabric worms.  (Six adult and one hatchling)
13. Photo flashcards of food to feed and not to feed worms.  (No pizza)
14. Bedding materials for a worm bin (egg cartons, newspapers, tp tubes, smashed eggshells, shredded classified documents).
15. Tie-dye fabric strips for the craft project.
16. Large parakeet food jar full of rich homemade humus.
17. Bucket of scoops, spoons, and trowels.
18. Plastic drop cloth.
19. [Not pictured] My active vermicompost bin full of red wigglers.
20. [Not pictured] Bag of organic material.
21. [Not pictured] Magnifying glass.
22. [Not pictured] Emergency back-up sand and gravel in the Buick trunk.

Yes, I keep asking myself, "What was I thinking!?"

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Seeking (and picking up Rx at Walmart)

Cockleburs and questions.  The cockleburs were in my socks.  The questions, but no good answers, were in the camera.

Still stunned from my daddy long-legs revelations, I hiked several of the unpaved trails at Arbor Hills Nature Preserve, and eventually found the Open Field Trail.  Improved signs name the trails at intersections, but maps are not posted.  Still the park is a gem of Plano, and is well-used.

The Open Field Trail was a glory of gaillardia and Queen Anne's lace. Flitting around, then disappearing, black butterflies teased with solos and duets.  What were they?  They were completely new to me, and there were so many!  Flashes of yellow on the upper wings showed as they flitted.  Light points on the under forewings and many eyespots...  I was getting crazed.  Maybe it was "heat prostration", one of those dreaded  and delightful calamities learned in childhood like "quicksand", "frostbite", "sleeping sickness", "merthiolate", and "ringworm".

The black butterflies were totally uncooperative whether I stood still or tracked my quarry.  They did not land and spread their wings for a photo shoot.  They just disappeared into the grass.  I followed, wading out into the vegetation, vaguely worried about snakes.  Should have worried about the burs!

Would the young couple coming down the trail think I was a deranged old lady dancing around in the hot sun with a camera?  OR would I wonder if they were nuts taking a shortcut with their pure white Great Pyrenees dog bigger than a polar bear right through the grasses?  Holy iceberg, Batman!  That dog's fur was going to be full of burs.  Oh, right.  So were my socks.

Eyespots.  On the forewings?  On the forehead? This is not your daddy's buckeye.  This is more like the guy with the tattooed third eye at Freebirds in Austin.

How to stay focused on the butterfly mystery until I could download my photos and hit the field guides?  OM.  OMG.  Wandered through Walmart waiting for my prescriptions, being one with the cat litter and stacking plastic storage containers.  Feeding Dad ground chicken, potato salad, and spice cake at the nursing home.  How do nuns serve in the earthly realm and hold the spiritual in their consciousness?  Not that I'm holy, but I've been in the moment on the Open Field Trail.  How do I hold both the wonder of the butterfly and the caring feeding of my shriveling, drooling father while his tv blares "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?"


The common wood nymph flies erratically.  It does not stop for photo ops.  It is one with the open field, staying clear of the trail, unaffected by the burs.


Be Here Now
Common Wood Nymph

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Wait, wait! Don't wash me.

Sadly today I say goodbye to the ancient Kenmore. Sadly because it handled giant loads and saw me through the heavy tie-dye textile art and sweaty teen son era.  Sad, also $pending money on $omething so grown-up and boring.  Waving goodbye right to left, as the Kenmore lid opened to the left. Body memory must be retrained because the new washer opens front to back.

For way too long sweaters have whispered, "Don't wash me in hot," from deep in the laundry hamper.  The Kenmore refused to fill with cold water no matter the threats or incentives.

W is the letter of the week.  Waiting for washer delivery?  The Home Depot delivery guys were great.  In a 10-2 window they called at 9:40, arrived at 10:02, and were gone by 10:07.  I'd gotten up early to clear a path for them.  The condo is a skinny place with many obstacles.

Wow what filthy floors you have! Red Riding told wolf to trot on over to Albertsons for some Swiffer wets.  There were creepy/fuzzy things under that old washing machine, predating our move into this condo in 2000.



Staying wide awake for Mavs NBA Finals games has been wicked difficult.  Flashbacks to childhood piano lessons were even worse ...  Go down to the levee.  I said to the levee....  Had to sing to myself, "It's simply great, mate, waiting for  the Dirk Nowitzki."
I sang a worse verse about Wiley and the turkey meat treats. Welcome, my new grandpuppy!  Isn't Wiley just the smartest widdle wuzzum?

Wait, wait!  A month ago I walked without a pedestrian green toward the old NPR headquarters.  Did the ATM dispense Morning Edition mugs?

Wonder of wonders, my opera buddy found discount tickets to the Bruce Wood Dance Project performance tomorrow evening.  I'm whirling in anticipation!

Agitating.

Rinsing.

Spinning.

Way cool!

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Congregations on the rock

Sometimes we are seekers.  Othertimes we just stand still and have our eyes opened to the enormity of what we do not know.

I started out to take a photo of a daddy long-legs on the shady stone beside the trail at Arbor Hills Nature Preserve.  Just one.

Soon it was dancing with its shadow--

Me and my shadow

Strolling down the avenue

That one was headed to the gathering of far more than I could count!  "Adults are frequently seen in huge gatherings, standing with legs interlaced." *

I pray their shoes are velcro.  Not anxious to get in there to tie shoes.

Wouldn't want to be that one roly-poly, either.  A mother pulled her two young children over to see what I was photographing.  "Look, kids," she said, "those are the most poisonous spiders on earth."**
Thankful I was off-duty, I didn't even blurt that daddy long-legs aren't really spiders.

I slowly realized the exposed stone faces on both sides of the trail were hosting congregations of daddy long-legs.  Was this a break-out session at a synod convention?

Why did some groups hang upside down?  Why did others stand sideways?  Through what miracle did they all get the memo to wear striped socks?

What if the plenary session reconvenes?

*National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects & Spiders.

**This seems to be a prevalent urban legend, although it was new to me.


The seeker will have to wait for the next post.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Hot time, summer in the suburb

The cows had a boom box.  They were grooving to the Lovin' Spoonful.

Back of my neck getting dirt and gritty. The cows were all bunched in the shade at 9:45 this morning.  My walk buddy wanted to take photos of the Haggard Farm -- OUR farm -- across the street from our homes and our Walgreens.  The farm is soon to be housing built by Toll Brothers*.  The development will have a farmsy name to make up for the loss of the breathing room in the middle of Plano.

We weren't breathing all that well as we walked along the barbed wire fence with traffic whizzing past.  It wasn't that we had Dirk Nowitzki sympathy sinus infections.  We were being bombarded with massive doses of grass pollen.

The llamas were under a different tree, probably listening to Peruvian flute music.  We walked toward the farm's tree-shaded drive with its modern day recycling carts.

Much of central Plano was part of the Haggard farm at one time.  We have Haggard Library, Haggard Park, and Haggard Middle School.

Although W. O. Haggard, Jr. married Merle, it was NOT that Merle Haggard.

I am still pleased that none of my sons turned twenty-one in prison doing life without parole.

Part of the Haggard farm property will become a new city park.  We walked all the way east to take some photos of the horses there.

It won't be an massive soccer field park, but a real open space park, thank heaven.

 *I would be much more crabby about this if the Toll Brothers were not the sponsors of the Metropolitan Opera's live Saturday broadcasts that bring me great joy on WRR, 101.1 FM.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Tomatoes busting out all over

Not my kitchen, of course.  This photo is a painting in one of the diplomatic reception rooms at the U.S. State Department taken without a flash.  It is reminding me to eat more fruit.

"Fruit" is such a confusing term.  At least once a year I look up the distinction between fruits and vegetables, but I never get it clear. Thankfully, tomatoes are in the overlapping area between "biological fruits" and "culinary vegetables".

In the good old Sixties, we had the Basic Four Food Groups--dairy, meat, bread, and fruits and vegetables.  We didn't have to sort fruits from vegetables, we just had to eat them.  The Food Pyramid made things too complex in both the horizontal and vertical versions.  Michelle Obama is the only person in Washington who has uncomplicated my life in a long time, and I applaud the new My Plate.  Now if we could just reunite the fruits and veggies, I'd be thrilled.

My fruit and veggie parings go into my worm bin.  The red wigglers do the ultimate combining.  One of the best parts of vermicomposting is the mystery garden that sprouts in the rich worm dirt.  Our school garden gets volunteer cantaloupe each year.  Those will take over the garden and a good section of the playground if we allow it.  At home I've got tomatoes growing everywhere.  This morning I dug up four from the front flowers that were big enough to attract attention. Now they each have a big pot on the patio.  Hope they produce my favorite fruit soon.

As soon as I got inside, Stubby II appeared on the fence to make sure I hadn't goofed up his realm.  The original Stubby ruled my patio in 2009, a fearless, tailless anole if ever there was one. I don't think the anole with the partially regrown tail I spotted Sunday is really the same lizard, although some sources say anoles can live up to four years in the wild.

2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Communing with balloons

Took flowers for Dad's vase after lunch.  He'd been pretty sharp in the morning, just uncomfortable being folded wrong in his bed.  Dad doesn't weigh much these days, but still enough that I need an aide's help to scoot Dad up toward the pillow.  Then I can raise the head of the bed so Dad can sit up to drink coffee, always important!

After lunch I stopped back with the bouquet.  Dad was still sitting up, eyes wide and unblinking, mouth agape, and hands tracing the route of the suspended ceiling's grid.  He looked like a flight attendant pointing to the exits during the safety demo.  Oblivious to me, I arranged the flowers, chatted about lunch, took off his glasses and cleaned them.  He grabbed the glasses back and returned to communing with the ceiling.  Pair of L lines receding toward the horizon.

Spur of the moment, I headed to downtown Dallas for free admission First Saturday at the Nasher Sculpture Center.  I needed art.  I needed free.  I needed driving directions!  "You cain't get thar from hyere" should be the Mavs welcome to Heat fans.  Downtown is a massive detour due to construction on the Woodall Rodgers deck park that will change the freeway into a tunnel with a giant urban park above (take a virtual fly-through at the link).   For now you cain't fly through.  You cain't exit.  You cain't backtrack.  You cain't find the parking garage at the Dallas Museum of Art to save your life.  Not even from the three-point line.

While I was struggling to get off of Woodall Rodgers to circle back to the Arts District, I got a view of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, also under construction.  The bridge is the first of a proposed trio designed by Santiago Calatrava for the Trinity River Project.  It would be nice if the construction went as quickly as this time-lapse video.

While it looked like I might be stuck on the Interstate all the way north to Denton, I was able to exit at Victory Avenue.  This was as up-close as I've been to the site of tonight's game three of the NBA Finals.  It figures that I was lost at the time.

This is not a map of downtown Dallas with detours, but there's a resemblance to my completed Worm Knot textile project.

The good news is that my auto travails were completely worth it.  The Nasher Center has an outdoor exhibit, "Statuesque" with very fun works by Aaron Curry in blazing pink and lime green.

The bright colors contrast with the dark figures of  Thomas Houseago.  (Both these artists were born in 1972).  Hut, hut, hut!  The works resemble football centers from this angle.

And Curry's "Horned Head Trip" looks a bit like my new "CollageMama" Chinese chop:

What about the balloons?  What about the communing?  That's a whole different exhibit on the lower level of the Nasher Center.  "Whole different" doesn't begin to describe the experience of "Sightings:  Martin Creed".

Walk down the stairs, and the balloon-filled room grabs your vision.  But, wait, these are musical stairs.  Each step plays a tone.  You and everyone else is making the strange music filling the museum.

Wait in a long line with anticipation building for your turn inside the balloon room.  A few people lost their nerve, as I would have in my anxiety days.  When you get to the arrangement of cacti you are on deck.  No eyeglasses allowed in the balloons.  It would be easy to lose them.  You begin to anticipate the static effect on your hair before you even enter.  The atmosphere is that electric.

You are in!  You are pushing your way through balloons.  You push them up for a glimpse of the ceiling.  It takes surprising effort to move.  You push until you find a wall, then turn.  It's loud.  Kids are shrieking with joy.  You push through balloons to find a person pushing toward you and both shriek with surprise!  It is cool, and not as humid as expected.  There's plenty of air, of course in all the spaces between balloons.  You breathe and fill with joy.  All other thoughts are gone.  You are IN ORANGE BALLOONS.  What else could there be?

Your five minutes are ending.  You find the windows, and then the door.  People are taking photos of you through the windows, documenting reactions.  You are pleased to emerge without letting any balloons escape.  You feel a bond with everyone who has been inside.  You may never be quite the same.  You have been on a very odd detour!

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

My red lettered days

Yesterday was an "in the red" sort of day.  The nice plumber came to solve three long-standing non-emergency aggravations:

• The cold water shutoff valve leading to the washing machine was calcified, ossified, petrified like a geologic cave formation.  This is a chicken/egg problem.  Did the shutoff become frozen when the washer cycle control went crackerdog and would only fill with hot water?  Or did the cycle control go flopbot because the shutoff valve was frozen?  Now mind you, the washing machine is about twenty years old, and the shutoff valve is probably forty.  If I bought a new washer, I would still have to replace the shutoff valves.  Plus, I had a walrus/washer problem.  Were all my clothes shrinking because the washer always filled with hot water?  Or was it that I was, ahem, outgrowing my clothes?So now I have very cute new matador shutoff valves.  They look just like the matador in The Story of Ferdinand.  I may rig my laundry room to play the overture to "Carmen" whenever I open the door, just like the restrooms at "La Madeleine" play French 101 lessons while you sit on the potty. [See visual aids A and B]

A.  Matador shutoff valves

• All my drinking glasses come out of the dishwasher all spotty. There's not enough water pressure for the kitchen sink or the dishwasher.  Sure, the dishwasher may have lingering issues from the Big Meltdown, but now everything under the sink is all pretty and the hoses don't look like macrame.

  

B.  Matador illustration, Lawson c1936

• Then there's the darn rusty bathtub/air conditioner problem Of Which We Do Not Speak, except that if the plumber is already at my condo he might as well deal with EVERYTHING! Let's just say the plumber has fixed the problem and the air conditioner should not drain rusty water into my bathtub.  I've cleaned the tub with Super Iron Out Rust Stain Remover.  We will see...

So Wednesday was a day of $$$$ condo ownership fun.  Friends took me to supper and a play last evening to cheer me up.  Now I get why geezers go out to dinner at 4:45.  If I am the youngest person at the table, none of us in the candlelit booth will have long enough arms to read the little print on the check to figure out the tip.  And the play?  A dripping blood-red very dark musical comedy written and performed by Matthew Posey in his home/theatre, Ochre House.  The Dallas Observer reviewer called it "Sweeney Todd sandwiched between elements of Greek tragedy and the Muppets".   [See  C].

C.  "The Butcher" playbill

As dark maroon as Wednesday was, Thursday was a cinnabar delight.  Meet us at 10:30 the email suggested.  Short notice.  Long day of fun.  Three old friends.  My opera buddy.  My blogging muse.  My amazing, funny, stressed, generous, thoughtful muse!  A tolerant La Madeleine restaurant staff wondering if/when we would ever leave.  Shaky after many American coffee refills.  [See strawberry rhubarb jam and Chinese chop, D-H visual aids].

D.  Chop  and strawberry rhubarb jam.

E.  Dad will love this jam!

F.  A sense of honor and validation.

G.  The gift of my chosen name.  

H.  It feels magical!

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Renwick three out of four

Wishing I could pop back in at the Renwick Gallery in D.C. before the Craft Invitational 2011 ends in July.  Cliff Lee's amazing ceramics are on my mind this morning.  His celadon and Imperial yellow glazes on  pieces inspired by lotus and melons held such serenity and attention to detail.  Other pieces appeared to be porous lava rather than ceramic.

Yesterday it was Ubaldo Vitali's crab and urchin silver candlestick from 1976.  True, his pieces are conservative, but they are objects of great beauty. So that is the one out of four.

Matthias Pliessnig creates seating made of steam-bent strips of wood based on complex computer design models used for shipbuilding.    While one review suggests this is extremely new, to me it has roots in Thonet's bentwood chairs, Eames' molded plywood, and even basketry.  Sadly, we couldn't sit on any to test for comfort.

Judith Schaechter's glass pictures were just too creepy for me, although her "flashed glass" technique created lovely kaleidoscope effects.

In the permanent collection I was struck by Texas quilter, Pamela Studstill's piece.  Works by Kiyomi Iwata were intriguing in their use of metal thread and stiffened fabric.  An enormous ceramic "Dango" by Jun Kaneko made me regret not visiting the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts during my many trips through Omaha in recent years.

And now, oh my, I have discovered that Kaneko has designed two operas, Fidelio and Madama Butterfly!  On the Kaneko website click on "Artwork" and then on "Performance" to see photos of his designs.

There are lots of links here to the Renwick, reviews, and photos of artwork.  I don't want to violate any photo copyrights, so please enjoy meandering through the links.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder