Mother's Day Art

For Mother's Day I got to go to Lawton for the Arts for All Festival with Jesse and a friend of hers.  It is so great having raised kids who appreciate art - especially Jesse. Bo likes art, but he is much too busy to take time to go art gazing. Jesse and I go gazing as often as we can. The AFA in Lawton is usually a good art festival. They jury the art so they don't get a lot of craft crap. Don't get me wrong. I love a good craft show, but sometimes at craft shows, there is a lot of crap. I guess at an art show there can be lots of crap art, but for some reason, I don't always want to combine my arts with crafts:)  Although I don't like craft with my art, I judge both shows similarly: I can do better than that; I can do that; That is way better than me; and Oh my gosh that art is cool!  At these kinds of shows, you get a lot of similar art. So a new category, Uniqueness, could be added.

Although I have never bought paintings at one of these shows, I have found things that I would like to have. But buying art is such a personal, expensive, investment sort of thang. I do usually buy ceramics and jewelry, which is what I bought at the AFA. The ceramics was a mug from my old art teacher Mr. Kukendall (I knew he would be at the AFA). This is the man who brought me into his art class (I was in another class) and taught me to throw on a wheel. He also taught me to mat and frame my work. Both of which he said I would need to know in college. It was very helpful knowledge. I reminded him of what he had done for me.  Then I reminded him that about 13 years ago he invited me to his studio and sat me down at a wheel, dropped some clay on it, and said "Throw a pot." I did, and it was great! That is when Toby bought me a wheel. Then I taught Jesse to throw pottery on the wheel and hand build. I told him that Jesse was now an art teacher at Hirshi High. "See what you did for us all!" He grabbed me and hugged my neck. All teachers love to hear that they made a difference in their student's lives. He certainly was influential in mine.

The jewelry that I bought was for Jesse. We kept going back to the same metals booth, which was definitely high on the unique side of art. This guy was from some place up north - like Minnesota or one of those M states. He was a young guy and a talker. Of course when you take Jesse with you, guys will stop and talk. This guy found old metal pieces - such as antique oil lamps, plane parts, ship parts, and artillery shells. Then he made jewelry, money clips, and other little things. He stamped the dates of the old pieces on the new pieces. He had some great rings made from old silverware, too. Now that may not seem unusual, but his pieces were very unique.  Here are a couple of photos of some of his work.
The first photo is of his pieces made from shell casings from the Vietnam War. He also had stuff from WWI, WWII, the Philippine War, etc. Very Cool. Jesse got a ring from a casing stamped 1940.
The second photo was some of his art from airplane parts. What also made his art fun, was his knowledge of history and his stories about how he came by the old metal. It was a good time and a good Mother's Day.