The third installation of art panels was unveiled this past Saturday in the parking lot on North Main known as the Artery. The four by eight foot painted and sculpted pieces are works rendered by Arkansas artists. The panels, 27 in number, cover an unsightly concrete wall turning the parking lot into an impressive outdoor gallery. The works will hang for one year, are available for purchase, and can be hung indoors or outside.

The theme for the third annual collaboration is «Icons from soup to saints.» Artists from as far away as Monticello, nearby Washington and Benton counties, and homeys from Eureka Springs interpreted the theme with vastly different views.

The images depict actual saints, pretend saints, favorite artists, pop icons, and the «I'll have to think about that one?» pieces.

Letting the artists loosely interpret the theme gave them creative flexibility while given to us an insight into the creative direction of each participant.

Local sculptor Eric Scheunemann created one of the few three dimensional works. His panel portrays hope for the future using icons that when viewed from top to bottom take us from images of oil dependency moving upward to finely crafted metal works depicting alternative fuel sources.

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Visitors and new residents often ask, «How can I meet people in Eureka's GLBT community?» It's so easy that we forgot explain it. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Attend what is informally (and jokingly) known as the, «Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting.»Wednesday night, starting about 6:30 p.m., is nominally gay night at Eureka Live. The turnout varies from 20 to 35. The music is kept at a low volume and we--singles, couples, triples and straight friends--pull the tables together as the crowd grows and actually talk to each other.It's a very good way to get to know people and socialize in a low-pressure, non-cruisy atmosphere.We're often joined by gay and lesbian (and straight) tourists who happen to be in town. The drinks are half price and there's a buffet for $3 or $4. It's a very good way to meet and get to know people.

   So, as a starting point, think about coming to a Wednesday night gathering at Eureka Live. Just walk up to the string of tables and introduce yourself to one person. He or she will then introduce you to everyone else and you'll feel conspicuous and self-conscious for all of five minutes.

   Eureka Live is located at 35 1/2 North Main Street (lower level). Phone: 479-253-7020.

2. If you're looking for a real prayer meeting, check out the Metropolitan Community Church of the Living Spring. The loving, diverse and welcoming communion of Eureka's MCC is now celebrating its 20th year.Worship time is Sunday evening, 6:00 p.m., 17 Elk Street in Eureka Springs. Contact information for Pastor Steve Urie, the church, and the praise and prayer request group is available on the MCC's web site.
3. Get to know us from a distance. Let your fingers do the walking... so to speak.Eureka's literal and virtual community (gay, straight and friendly to all) meets and greets at Eureka Pride. Join the conversation, make new friends, and invite them to join you at the prayer meeting of your choice.

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I've been thinking about aging a lot lately. Mainly because I'm, well, aging. I started losing my hair in my early 40's. Now that 60 is knocking at my door, and I have a very obvious bald spot, I've WILLED it to stop falling out.

Some people think male-pattern baldness is sexy, but I'll tell you what; I've NEVER met a man with thinning hair who is happy about it. Of course, a lot of them say it doesn't bother them. (Of course they're lying. Why? Because I say so, that's why.) Ok, maybe it doesn't really bother them, but it bugs the shit out of me.

When I was in junior high school, there was a girl named Jan up the street that I sometimes spent time with. Her mother would say to me, «You have such a wonderful hairline!» (She really did.) I wonder what she'd say if she saw me now. Back then I had a flat stomach and an ass like polished granite, too. Now everything is sliding south and I have more hair in my ears than on my head. So it goes. If I could go back in time, I WOULDN'T. I'm SO glad those days are over. But, please, the next time you see me, tell me my hair looks nice.

All three of them.

Thank you.

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»What separates artists from ex-artists is that those who challenge their fears continue; those who don't, quit,» David Bayles.

I am reading the book «Art and Fear» by David Bayles and Ted Orland. It has opened up examination of my self-doubt as an artist that can at times enter the realm of fear.

We all have fear of course and in some cases that fear can protect us from danger. It is best to fear dark alleyways or murky waters. As children we had fears that many times were not reality based (true for adults as well).

Ironically childhood fears could be fun. Happily we listened to scary stories around campfires or ventured into the darkness of a Halloween night.

Halloween in the Delta, 1952, I'm 2nd goblin from the right

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Let's see…where were we? Oh yes, we're on the Greyhound bus speeding toward Hays, Kansas with the Skinny Cowboy, Mr. Foot and Miss Texas.A couple of hours after leaving Colby, and several phone calls from Mr. Foot to everyone in the known universe, we pull into Hays. Miss Texas lets everyone on the bus know that she has GOT to get to the ladies room, FAST! Mr. Foot tells her – and everyone else – that men are superior, because they just learn to hold it without complaint. As the bus comes to a stop I'm wondering how bladder size makes one person better than another.

Everyone exits the bus to smoke cigarettes and visit the restrooms, with Miss Texas leading the way. The «operator» has told us his replacement will be here shortly, and that we have 15 minutes to explore.

«The bus will leave in EXACTLY 15 minutes. Be on board or be left behind!»

I'm lighting up beside the bus. A black man wearing an orange suit and white patent leather shoes asks me for a light. It's windy (it's always windy in Kansas) but we get his cigarette lit.

«You travel by bus often?» he asks.

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With a sense of color that rivals any painter's palette, Mark Hughes creates haute couture from his shop Regalia located at 128 Spring Street.

Hughes formerly was a costume designer for Little Rock theater. His current clothing line may be toned down from those days but he still maintains an element of subdued drama in his approach to fashion.

Selecting carefully dyed fabrics, Mark is able to combine eye pleasing tonal combinations that range from earthy creations, to clothing with hints of the 1940s, or flashbacks to '60s color trends, all the while looking ever so modern.

With the purchase of just a few pieces, patrons will discover that a large wardrobe evolves. The items are mix 'n match and can morph into several looks when combined that are easy on the eye as well as the budget.

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After Fred's family farm was destroyed by a tornado this past spring, we've made several trips to Northwest Kansas to help his parents try to piece things back together, clean up, and relocate. We've been out there for a few days on this trip, and I have to get back to work in Kansas City. We've decided I will take the Greyhound back to Kansas City, Fred will stay on at the farm to help with the (massive) cleanup for another week or so.

I have a brother in K.C. who will pick me up at the bus station when I get in, about 9:00 in the evening. The station is located in a particularly seedy part of K.C., but my brother is a life member of the NRA, always packs heat, and has no problem meeting me among the winos, hookers and street urchins. I decided it would be better to inconvenience my brother than my elderly father to pick me up, as my dad would be passing out cigarettes, sharing sips of bad liquor in paper bags and making new friends with the homeless while waiting for my bus. My brother would just shoot them.

The bus station closest to the farm is an hour's drive away in Colby, Kansas. As it turns out, the «bus station» is in a McDonald's restaurant. At the counter I ordered my ticket to Kansas City along with a Big Mac. I'm one of the last passengers to board the bus. The only seat left is directly behind the driver, beside a kind of skinny guy wearing a straw cowboy hat. He's eating something from McDonald's also. Half of the bus seems to have picked up something from McDonald's. (It's good the bus station wasn't located in a furniture store.) I plop in the seat and say hello to Skinny Cowboy. He smiles and says hi.

The bus pulls out onto Interstate 70, and the driver announces over the loud speaker that he'll be our «operator» to Hays, Kansas, when we will get a new «operator». Thankfully, Skinny Cowboy isn't in a talking mood. I can't think of anything worse than trying to make meaningless conversation with someone I don't know for the next 4 hours. We eat our McDonald's in silence as we zoom down the highway.

Immediately across the aisle from me and Cowboy are a man and a woman traveling together. He looks to be in his 50's, she's about 23. I figure they're a father and daughter team. His left foot is malformed somehow. He's wearing a shoe that is obviously special-made for his foot. She's wearing a pink tee shirt that reads «Don't Mess With Texas» in rhinestones across the front, and low-rise jeans that probably would have looked cute if she had been a few years younger and a few pounds – quite a few pounds – lighter.

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Metropolitan Community Church of the Living Spring is celebrating twenty years of Christian service to the greater Eureka Springs, AR area.

Join us at 4:30 PM for a reception and Hors D'oeuvre

6:00 PM Worship Service

7:30 PM Fellowship & Dinner at Myrtie Mae's (Dinner is Dutch Treat)

MCC of the Living Spring is located at 17 Elk Street in Eureka Springs.

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September 12, 2007

Blog Numero Uno got so much attention--I've been swamped with positive feedback from people all over the country and lots of townspeople here in Eureka Springs, where it got picked up by the local website gaynewsbureau.com--that I find myself already cranking out my second blog just two weeks later. Notice how comfortable I already am using that insufferable term «blog.» If anybody out there knows how to get rich with a blog, let me know. I did send it to Arianna Huffington.

Today is the last day of my thirties! I turn the big 4-Oh! in a matter of hours now and am inviting the whole town of Eureka Springs to help me celebrate! I will be holding court at New Delhi (name another American town of 2,000 people with a fabulous Indian restaurant!) tomorrow (Thursday) night from six until nine, and then it will be on to the terrace atop the Crescent Hotel, the very grand limestone «castle in the wilderness» built in 1886, for a toast.

Television is verboten here at the writers' colony, which is quite a challenge for a CNN junky like me, so for occasional entertainment, I have been watching old episodes of «Absolutely Fabulous» on a British website I found (tv-links.co.uk). I love the «Birthday» episode, written by the brilliant Jennifer Saunders, who also plays Edina. When the bookish daughter Saffie wakes her mother up on her 40th birthday, Edina says, «I couldn't sleep. I could feel the forty-ness coming upon me in the night, dahling. Have a look out the window. Are the buzzards circling, sweetie?»

But I am embracing the occasion and have already been celebrating. As a gift to myself, I hopped in the Honda and raced down to Texas, listening to Hillary Clinton on CD reading her very presidential «Living History» the whole way, for Friday's dedication of the Ann Richards Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin. It was so wonderful to see some of my favorite people in the world--the characters I met working for Ann. As I wrote in my first blog, Ann died on my 39th birthday, so it will be the one-year anniversary of her death on my big day.

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Okay, I didn't see fire but I certainly saw rain at this past weekend's Pinnacle Hills Promenade Art Festival in Rogers, AR. Approximately 100 artists set up displays on the streets of the walking mall with high hopes of encountering waves of art lovers with purchasing on their minds. A large percentage of the artists were from Eureka Springs brought on board by co-producer Steve Schmidt of eurekaspringsartists.com.

Instead of waves of art lovers, we were visited by wave after wave of rainstorms. The first one hit about one hour after the show opened and it lasted for one hour. We all scrambled to close sidewalls on our canopies, throw tarps over fragile merchandise, and literally hang onto our tent shelters as the wind howled. Lucky that I had my friend John Rankine by my side. He volunteered to help me with the show and was a real trooper offering valuable assistance.

Most displays survived but not all. Some participants immediately called it quits after suffering water damage to their wares or destruction of their canopies. The rest of us endured the wet day until 9 p.m. while suffering through approximately 10 more bands of storms that moved through every 30 to 60 minutes. The day was not a total bust as visitors would emerge from the protection of nearby stores to make purchases.

There was a fun-filled party on Friday night to kick-off the event and a picture perfect day on Sunday that included brisk sales. However as strange as it might seem, Saturday was the most rewarding day for me. Through adverse conditions we, the artists, shared a day that brought us closer together.

My neighbor in the location next to me was Eureka Springs' potter Mark Radamacher and across the street was jeweler L.J. Smole also from Eureka Springs. Both artists are veterans of many shows but neither had experienced quite a long and stormy show day as happened last Saturday.

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