By Fits and Starts: We Celebrate Arts

Ah, a happy marriage is a thing of beauty ... Happy Anniversary you two love birds!!

and speaking of things of beauty, we experienced many such delights this week.  Let us share them with you.

It may seem like a let down with a beginning like that, but in reality, no matter how much beauty there is in the world, there's a lot of  the mundane in between, and this week was no different in that regard.  Here Dad and Elder Child fill one of the water buffaloes on Monday at Mosida.

and here is an aerial view of Mosida, just for fun. The winding trails are the trek routes, but I am sure you figured that out already.

But the clouds back-lite by the sunrise on Tuesday, were certainly a natural form of art.

Here are Ron Crump and his wife LaVern, as they do a vignette of Edward Martin and Elizabeth Horrocks Jackson.  Some of the missionaries are a little more dramatic in their portrayals.  In fact I thought LaVern's portrayal here was very nicely done.

Most of the Stake Treks have each 'family' do a flag to represent them.  I thought this was one of the nicest I've seen. Definitely a work of art.

This lady was their nurse.  She is also one of the three ward Young Woman's Presidents, on the trek of three wards who meet from one building in Cedar City.  She was amazing.  She got up whenever the mike was available at vignettes to ask things like ... 'Do you have any hot spots on your feet?' and 'You should all be sweating like a pig, if you are not, you need to come talk to me.'  Someone bent the rules to allow her to bring her two under 12 boys on the trek, because she had no one to care for them.  They were so cute to have along.  The seven year old walked up at the 'river crossing', and boldly stated, "That's not even a real river, we didn't really have to cross it!"  He was pretty funny, and tired by then as he finished up the three day trek.

On Wednesday I wore my antique sun bonnet from the 1930's, dust bowl era ... its funny to think they were still wearing them.  Its super faded, and has some small rust spots.  I am sure the other gals thought I was clueless, but I loved the feeling that I was wearing a sun bonnet worn by some kind of a real pioneer.

Emily sent me this shot.  It made me smile, because this is the Christmas Gift episode of the Big Bang Theory, which is my favorite.  I might even say, its a work of art.

And when it comes to artistic movement, we have some real stars in our family, like Charlie, 

and Hanna and friends.

I like to think of the vignettes I set up at the shop as being artistic as well.  This is my patriotic display that I did on Thursday.

... and look who came into work on Thursday.  This is Kirk Houle, whose brother coached Trevor's cross country team the year they made National Champions!!  Now that's obviously a work of art.  Kirk is shown with his granddaughter.  Her mother, who was a champion runner at Mountainview, who married one of the best runners out of Bingham, their biggest competitors, and this little Adi (Yep, just like ours) is already showing star quality in running.  Kirk and his Wife will be starting a mission in Missouri this fall, and Dad and I are thrilled to be connected to hear all about it. I think they will be amazing.

and how about this work of art ... hahaha .... yep new posters for our upcoming sale.

On Friday I went junking, first some garage sales and then DI, where I saw an indication, that giant wall clocks may no longer be 'the thing'.

After shopping at Macey's I hung a fleaology sign on their community board.

Then went on a ministering visit where I saw that Tina's grandsons have gone through a growing spurt.  I hardly recognized them.  Their family moved their records to another ward in the stake, three months ago, but seriously, Tina is  just a couple of inches shorter than me and these boys are respectively 13 and 12.

A friend had told me about a new store in the old Toys R Us building in Orem.  I was pretty disappointed as it was mostly boutiquish, but this booth, by a former fleaology dealer, was a work of art.  I always thought these girls were artists, and here's more proof.  One of them is the costumer for Hale Center Theater, and their mother, who also contributes, used to be their scenery artist.

I think there name is so fun, their last name is Fitt.  How entirely clever.

Friday evening we went to a beautiful home in Indian Hills for a flute and harp concert Friday night.  One of our missionaries from our first mission is one of two flautists.  This is Dad greeting her grandmother, who was his mission mom, Faye Wade.

The grounds were astonishingly lovely, a work of art that reminded me of the grounds in the movie Sabrina. 

    Here they are performing ...

The performance with the warm wind, sunset and beautiful views so ignited my creativity that I actually got out my phone and wrote a poem.  I will share it here.

A Quixotic Trio

Ah, sweetesh plinking harp strings quiver,

joined by

singing tones of silver speaking flutes

and dancing willow fronds whispering

whose graceful waves 

invite

the quaking asp into a rushing swell.

Oh sweet delight, the breeze of warmth 

and setting sun o're looking blissful scene,

silvering

 wisps of clouds ...

thus crowning such a perfect evening's fairy trio

in this expanse of garden magic.

Here is Brenn's Uncle and brother.

And us with Faye.

On Saturday morning, I was so pleased to find a top that matches these fun socks ... yep my silly inner artist.

We met up with Edi and Tom Mitko and decided to walk around the campus of the U, for our little 'hike'.  We're shown in front of the Museum of Natural History on the U circle.  She worked here in 1966-67 when she was a student here, it was a library then and she worked at the reference desk.  I worked in this building in 1972-73 when I was a student there, though the library had been moved to the new building to the east, and I worked in the back area of the museum in rooms that had once been part of the closed stack system of the library.  I worked as a lab assistant to Dr. Legler.  Still kind of fun.

And I loved this art deco stone carved panel from above the main entrance.  It was built in 1933-34, so it would have been new when my father went to the U of U.   It reminds me a bit of Mary Engelbreit's art work.  But then she loved the 1930's art and much of her work is in a similar style.

This mimosa is just stunning, speaking of works of art.

Edie was amused by my excitement, when I took the picture above.

and speaking of art.  This piece was made by assembling drift wood, and then doing a casting of it, so that the statue is actually metal.  

I thought this book sculpture outside the library was very clever ... they actually took a real book, and then ...

attached stacks of old line type onto it, and made a mold of it, and cast it in copper ... the verdigris does much to define the letters themselves.  Love it, people are so clever.

Even the walls marking the entrance to the community garden is done in mosaic. And the building behind is the business building where Dad spent so much time in the 80's finishing up his accounting degree.

We stopped by the 'closed' bookstore in honor of our grandson Scott who works here.

and here we are, four U of U grads, graduating in the 1960s, 70's and 80's ...

Yep Scott U Rock!

Here we are walking onto the library plaza, the glassed-in stair case reminds me of the Louvre's glass pyramid a bit.

While at the Art Museum on campus we picked up a program of George Dibble's drawings.  Dad looked him up and he was his second cousin twice removed, and had been an art instructor on campus.  Then Edi told of a favorite instructor of hers, in anthropology, name Charles Dibble.  The two were first cousins born to the sons of Philo's first wife's son.  Of course she had passed away before Philo met and married Hannah Ann DuBois, from whom Dad descends. That was a fun, and artistic connection for us.  BTW, my father who attended the U as an undergrad at the same time as Charles, always said if he had really understood the sciences better before getting his degree he would have gone for an anthropology degree instead of a sociology degree. I wonder if the two have made friends on the otherside.  If your interested you find on line by googling that Charles Dibble became quite famous for his work with the Inca (I think) society, in digs, etc in South America.

Afterwards we all went down to Mika's pick up at the Square Kitchen, to get our Honey Tea Hive Tea Party Boxes.

So, so much yum ... we love these outings.  It helps a young entrepreneur, and gives us an excuse to hang out with two of our favorite people.  Of course her food is always so aesthetically pleasing, as well as tasty.  (At Tom's suggestion we hit an Estate Sale too, where I got a stunning Art Nouveau tile.) 

We got home in time to go to Payson's Senior Center to help Doug Lamb celebrate his 90th birthday. 

Here is Dad with Clark and Ruth Clayson too.

I knew Doug had built miniature railroads, and had gone to his shows at Peteeneet for years, but had no idea he had also done miniature rooms, 

As well as portraits of all our presidents.  What an artist ... sort of a before his times sort of renaissance man. 

I took a picture of my rice bowl to remember the veggies I'd eaten for my food diary entry later, but I thought it was pretty too.

and speaking of Art, we can't leave out old movies. The Ten Commandments was a favorite of Emily's and she often watched it on Sundays (Only religious movies were allowed when she was a kid, on Sundays)  So Dad's been watching it a bit at a time ... I always loved Charleton Heston.  Anyway, we finished it Saturday night.

Here are a couple of vignettes that I have put together for our fleaology adds.  

We had a nice quiet Sunday.  The early schedule is always my favorite, except that on Fast Sunday, it gives you a lot of hours of not eating ... we get done at 10:30 ... alas ... we had a lovely stir fry with noodles for dinner around 4:30.

Ashley was doing something different, however, she was out winning the women's division at the Disk Golf Tournament of her choice ... way to go girl!!

... and what better way is there to end the week of the celebrations of the arts, than listening to the Payson City Band at memorial park for its first concert of the summer.