#57…Idle thoughts Illinois and Ballerinas…

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Her Grace, Illinois           ink           H.Eaton

Our balletic prairie, The State of Illinois.  Illinois, a graceful ballerina, balances; just look at the map. We are surrounded by a bunch of boxy, less lusciously graceful states, in the great fly-over land, the American midwest.

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The Great Fly-Over Land

Illinois, as a ballerina, has a hefty derriere; bounded by, and fondled by, the Father of Waters (maybe a bit inappropriate).    Illinois is somewhat flat-chested in outline and topography, but that aids the corn growing, which maintains many  derriere’s.

Illinois has a most unfortunate abbreviation…Ill, nobody wants to be in “illness”.  Ill is  the correct description of its’ unbalanced budget and politics, but not Illinoisans.  And while noise is the description of our wind in winter, traffic in the Windy City, and garbled logic from our capitol, we actually don’t pronounce the “s” at the end of Illinois.  We prefer a more subtle uninflected, even artistic, spoken language (except for Chicago, where a lot of the people live),

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Prairie Picnic       oil

The sound of “Illinois” is rather feminine and, considering the amount of feeding it does for the rest of the world, rather appropriate.   It is also births the Mother Road, old Rt. 66, which crosses the prairie in a smooth dancer’s diagonal thrust.

High above our often stormy expanse of sky are many jet contrails, temporarily marking travelers from coastal metropolis to coastal metropolis.  With no need of maps or electronic guiding voices few know what is below.  Those who might wonder often confuse Illinois with Indiana, Iowa, Idaho, Ohio, Omaha, Oklahoma, Oahu, Ottawa, Ottumwa, and Ionia (which isn’t even in North America), but the sounds are similar.

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She Wonders About Her Treasure        oil

The vasty prairie of Illinois is where the reunion of the emotive anarchists takes place. Our “rivers gently flowing” have watered a number of artists,  including ponderers and dancers of svelte, and even passionate, dimensions.

 

#57…Idle thoughts Illinois and Ballerinas…

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Our balletic prairie, The State of Illinois.  Illinois, a graceful ballerina, balances; just look at the map. We are surrounded by a bunch of boxy, less lusciously graceful states, in the great fly-over land, the American midwest.

img_0002

Illinois, as a ballerina, has a hefty derriere; bounded by, and fondled by, the Father of Waters (maybe a bit inappropriate).    Illinois is somewhat flat-chested in outline and topography, but that aids the corn growing, which maintains many  derriere’s.

Illinois has a most unfortunate abbreviation…Ill, nobody wants to be in “illness”.  Ill is  the correct description of its’ unbalanced budget and politics, but not Illinoisans.  And while noise is the description of our wind in winter, traffic in the Windy City, and garbled logic from our capitol, we actually don’t pronounce the “s” at the end of Illinois.  We prefer a more subtle uninflected, even artistic, spoken language (except for Chicago, where a lot of the people live),

img_0983

The sound of “Illinois” is rather feminine and, considering the amount of feeding it does for the rest of the world, rather appropriate.   It is also births the Mother Road, old Rt. 66, which crosses the prairie in a smooth dancer’s diagonal thrust.

High above our often stormy expanse of sky are many jet contrails, temporarily marking travelers from coastal metropolis to coastal metropolis.  With no need of maps or electronic guiding voices few know what is below.  Those who might wonder often confuse Illinois with Indiana, Iowa, Idaho, Ohio, Omaha, Oklahoma, Oahu, Ottawa, Ottumwa, and Ionia (which isn’t even in North America), but the sounds are similar.

100_4099

The vasty prairie of Illinois is where the reunion of the emotive anarchists takes place. Our “rivers gently flowing” have watered a number of artists,  including ponderers and dancers of svelte, and even passionate, dimensions.

 

#41….considering a big rock rising…

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Big Rock Rising       charcoal      H.Eaton

It is just a big rock, a really big rock, far away.  Travelers have returned reporting that it is a bit shy of gravity (and has a dark side), its’ damaged by millions of insults (serendipitous smaller rocks wheeling in from space).  It gets blamed for the behavior of were-wolves and other fugitive ideas, and ever repeating tides.  Lovely just now, though just a big big rock, showing the attractive side.  The romantic, the “dancing on moonlight” side.

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Moonbeams and Fireflys Come To Town                oil       Herb Eaton

Most likely you, the digital reader, prefers time to be marked by a blinking multi-colored electronic device, you might consider the round clock face as ancient as an hour-glass.  Here, we have found the moon, waxing, waning, gone and overwhelmingly brilliant, to be a chronological fit.  This is a very un-midwestern idea, we like to be on-time in the digital clock sense.

But turbulence among the bigger and lesser enfant terribles attendees is such that gravitational waves, seismic waves, or the winds now arriving from the arctic; seem to emanate astronomically, in order to attest to the emotive’s fated importance.  Certainly the stars and the moon would cease their influence if providence hadn’t decreed: that the attendees at our reunion of anarchists – must be – the heaven’s goal.

Could it be a celestial confluence that found this place on the prairie, so that the anachronistic could coexist with the temporal?  We are close to the native homes of the singing poet of Illinois and the guy who named our practical capitol the “hog-butcher of the world”.  And, nightly the moon still shines useful light into the cemetery on the nearby Spoon River. All are present,  just over the rise from the Mother Road.

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She Hangs The Moon     oil  H Eaton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, to light this dance of the romantic absurd; up in the dome of the tent of the incomprehensible, She ( our docent ) has hung the moon, a bit of romance in our absurdity.

A decorative reminder that present times may be out-of-joint,  but as long as the big rock keeps rising there will be anarchists and enfant terribles, and possibly a few artists.

 

And, as long as the sun keeps rising liberty will be dancing in the thickets..

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In The Thickets     oil    H.Eaton

Next Saturday, we shall consider “back-in-the-day”…join us.

 

 

 

 

#39…considering the end of a season…

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Outside of the tent we are running out of color, at least the dramatically named ones.  We are moving into the drawing, structural season.  The surface is grids, roads and the limits of property.  Grids, the gift of the ancients, are favored structures by most artists and farmers (satellite x and y’s coordinate their behemoths).   All is moving toward tumbled carved blacks, dirty and dusty whites rubbed and overlaid, linear leggy weedy gray gestures; some dull, some sharp.

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Our tent, close to the path of America’s Mother Road, is holding a gathering of venerable artistics.  The  gathering of artistic enfant terribles and the subsequent museum, is an new idea for the prairie and a type of hope for the artistics.  Some may appear a bit weird or disconcerting, like our tent out on the cornland.  But the prairie is not a strange or weird land, even stripped of its’ green, even with the behemoths (the combine harvesters) devouring endless acres of grain.  This place is visually sensible, a continuity with subtle ornamentation; old and new grain elevators developed and discarded due to technical (financial) reasons, various outbuildings and houses, and winds that blow in and blow out. Things change.

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Did you ever hear that 1920’s song, “How yeh goin’ to keep ’em down on the farm, once the’ve seen Paree?”

Bring in some art? Some dancing girls? Some champagne instead of beer?  Paint the wind turbines rouge, add some blinking lights, reopen Rt.66?   img_0002

Well, maybe, fewer people are now attached to harvesting (so no one in the houses), so Autumn Festivals are sponsored on social media to retrieve those who went to “Paree”, or even Peoria. Some steal stalks or ears for decoration (they are of paltry singular value but stealing less in town could get one shot).  However the golden ears bring up primal agrarian memories.

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A few visitors may show up at the Temporary Museum of Enfant Terrible Culture for some color, but, than again, ” How yeh gonna get um ta pay for art, once the’ve seen for free?”

Getting corn and art for free is one thing, what about power…next Saturday.