The Fall of the Wall

Sections of Berlin Wall, the Churchill Museum, and at far right, Churchill's statue, Fulton, Mo.

Twenty-five years ago, the Berlin Wall fell, the chisels and hammers and noise sending shock waves around the world. I know this was the anniversary because of Google's home page graphic showing video. Sections of the wall are now located all over the world, monuments to the desire for freedom. The video shows many of those. 
But it does not show the ones in Fulton, Missouri, at the Churchill Museum, commemorating his "Iron Curtain" speech. I took this photo when visiting my son and family there a few years ago. 
I'm not only old enough to remember the wall coming down, I remember when the Soviet Union started putting it up in 1961, sending shock waves of a different sort across the free world . We then wondered if WWIII was going to start. The U.S. didn't send in tanks, and we survived that crisis. 
It seems to me the lessons of history are clear--our current crises will also pass, and we have no idea nor guarantee how they'll turn out or if we'll like the results. I do know one thing. Regardless of politicians, political parties and movements, revolutions and dictators and extremists, the fight for freedom, and the existence of tyranny,  will never end until homo sapiens becomes extinct. 
That's what the Berlin Wall symbolizes.

'I've never had a geography course'

"I've never had a geography course."
So said a senior in my International Media class this week, after I gave them a blank map quiz on Asia, and posted another of Southeast Asia for next week...mistakenly putting it on this blog, instead of the class blog, ClarkInternational.
We started with the Mideast, then South America, Europe and then to Asia. Next on tap will be Africa.
One student said he'd last had geography in eighth grade. I don't understand. I'll admit, with the breakup of the Soviet union and independence of many African Nations, I don't know all the countries, but I sure know most of them, and especially all those who are in the news.
It tells me something about our education and politics that students no longer know basic geography--we are becoming more isolated  and provincial as we are being more affected by the rest of the world.
I'll admit, filling in a map doesn't make you less provincial and ethnocentric. Only travel will do that, but still, howcab to function in this world without some grasp of "Where"?

"How can you function in this world without some grasp of 'Where'?"

One of the students quipped, asking for a map of the United States. I shot back, "Ok, and also name all the capitals." They balked.
I learned all that stuff in seventh or eighth grade when it mattered a whole less than it does now. Come to think of it, I think I'll give the students a blank map of the U.S., without state borders, and make them draw them, label them and name the capitals.
I'll admit, I also grew up in a home with National Geographic maps on the walls, and have been fascinated with maps ever since. They hint of places I can only dream of, of places I want to go, of faraway places and peoples and stories.
You don't get that perspective of a big world with a GPS system or a computer...especially if you don't know where countries are in relation to each other.
I know, I'm a dinosaur, and the students probably get amused and talk about me, when I start telling them about why Korea split, or Vietnam and a brick from the Hanoi Hilton that is in Oklahoma City (few know what the Hanoi Hilton was). But that is precisely why I incorporate these map quizzes in my International Media class. Thus the map of Southeast Asia.

And where is your cabin?

The cabin, 5 by 7 watercolor, last light of day on the west wall.

In my imagination, I thought, when asked this years ago.
And today, after posting a black and white photo of the Clark cabin in the Manzano Mountains of New Mexico, I knew. Friend Joyce Carney of Eakly/Hinton said she wanted a painting, any color.Thanks to Joyce for inspiring me to paint today.
It's hard to give color to concrete brick, so it became an adobe cabin, and while it's not good enough to give, it captures the spirits of my brother, my Dad and me.

Christmas card and cabin season nears

Our cabin, 8 by 10 photo

I found this copy of one of our family's Christmas cards recently. Dad always sent out Christmas cards, usually like this--a photo of our cabin in the Manzano Mountains southeast of Albuquerque, or one of his pieces of artwork, like the scratchboard snow scene of a Rock Island locomotive taking on water in Fort Worth.
 After a few early years when the kids were young, we didn't send out many.  But now that I've started painting, this photo explains why I was thinking about needing to get started. I realize where that primal urge to send out a few personal cards comes from. And my attraction to cabins, in my paintings and just generally in writing and dreams. 
 It's November, and I've already got the blank cards ready to paint, and the checklist of friends and family.
Now if I just had a cabin in the mountains to retreat to, put wood in the stove, look out that big north-facing picture window, a little adult beverage, and start painting.

Art that matters

(Hint, click on the links for more information later, they're important, but not as important as my story of an artist who matters.)

"Everyone wants to matter, to be important," I've said many times, talking with colleagues about students.
I'm a slow learner, but know we're all on the same journey.
As I was reading some old short stories by Ray Bradbury, "Golden Apples of the Sun," and have read some poetry and two other books in the last week, I kept thinking to myself, "I want to write something that matters."

"Changing Seasons" by Bud Caldwell--art that matters

Last week we attended the Open Minds art show for the Colby Foundation, to benefit people with mental illness, thanks to friend Ted Streuli, editor of the Journal Record, for whom the subject is intensely personal, having lost an adopted son. Read the links later.
It was downtown Oklahoma City, with more than 50 works of art by 28 artists in the juried show. We wandered in and out, visiting with journalism friends, drinking wine and enjoying the violin music and food.
The foundation and one of the show's benefactors, the National Alliance on Mental Illness emphasizes mental illnesses are like all others...diseases of the body, and not a stigma.
The artwork was mesmerizing. Beside or underneath each piece was the name of the art, the name of the artist, and the mental illnesses the artist endured or suffered.
I soon realized it didn't matter if it said "schizophrenic,""bipolar," "depressive," or whatever, it didn't matter. These were incredibly talented PEOPLE. I have a "frozen shoulder" that is being worked on. My wife has a kidney stone scheduled for lithotripsy. So? What is the difference? None.
I found one piece that aroused my interest as an artist, and was in my price range. "Changing Seasons" by Bud Caldwell. It was an 8" by 10"abstract acrylic. Not emotionally per se, but as an artist, I could see it in our house. It tells me art matters, emotionally for eternity.

So I bought it, and shortly afterward, this gentleman with a trimmed gray beard came up and said he'd painted it, and this was one of his first in a juried show. I was honored to meet him, got his card, and we chatted, about his technique and art.  
Bud Caldwell, whose card for "Selective Arts" advertises "Contemporary, Abstract and Native American Art," was a discovery of someone who matters. If you need artwork, contact him at blc317@att.net. I'm envious of his talent. His work reminded me that people with these various disorders are just like the rest of us...various illnesses, but people with incredible talent.

Artist Bud, me and his painting, and Ted

I want to paint something that matters, that withstands and outlives me--I guess I have, but I've found something else that matters--meeting a new talented artist, perhaps his first juried show, and being able to share in his vision.

Then, Ted wrote this sentence in his column yesterday about one piece he bought.
Art that matters, and writing that matters:

"I wouldn't say it spoke to me; it was more like it shoved a hand into my chest, grabbed my heart, and squeezed until it cried."