Creative Play

The afternoon at the Haxton's home was hot, fun, entertaining, and carried on the tradition of the Concert on the Grass in great form. Music by way of instruments and voices, poetry, dance and art shared by all. Colorful costumes from Scotland to Mexico to South America filled the stage. I stopped counting at 175 people, who braved 101 degree heat, covering the grassy knoll of the Haxton's yard, picnic baskets, bottles of wine, snacks of every kind, blankets and picnic chairs spread out, young children swaying and dancing to the music. One the amazing details is the parking arrangement with the Walker's, neighbors. You park on their property and then a shuttle van drives you to the Concert site. It is one of the small details that makes this event so successful, every detail worked out to look so simple, and yet, we all know isn't. Thanks to Sara Shena, Ken Elias, Ann Haxton and Bill Haxton, along with the entertainers and artists from the Arts Alliance of Three Rivers,...

Today is the Concert on the Grass. My first guest from Shell Beach arrived yesterday. The art work is on display, set up yesterday. The Haxton's, Ken and Sarah are set to host another wonderful afternoon. It will be hot, but under the trees, on the grassy knoll, a breeze usually washes over the crowd as we listen to the wonderful entertainment, a day I look forward to, and hope we have a large crowd. A new pond was built this past year and if we are lucky the breezes will be cooled by the water. This propellor will be on display. It won a Blue Ribbon in this years Tulare County Fair. I call it Starry Night. Bill Haxton told me he thought it might be from a wooden small boat from the 1950's. It is part of the recycled art collection I have been making of late. I'll also have displayed Clay Mono-prints, a 16x20 framed photograph, matted photos and gift cards. More guests from Fresno, and Visalia will meet us at the Concert. Dinner at my house for some of them this evening. Ot...

"Run" by Ann Patchett is a treat to read. About the mixing and matching of race and class in Boston. It so reminded me of my family, not in the details of the book, but in the essence. My Stepfather introduced a view to family in a new way to me. Family is blood, but it can be more. What does blood have to do with love? Not much. Actions say loudly what love really is, day by day, filling in details, so that at the end of his life I had no doubts that my Stepfather loved me and my siblings deeply (whole, stepped, and adopted), and in a way that meant there is always room for one more. Love has no boundaries. It framed the life I was to choose, two sons I birthed (brown skins), a daughter of the heart, white, looks more like me than my birth sons, and a stepdaughter, Mayan ancestry who was adopted into my present husbands life and lucky me, I received her into mine. Like my Pop I have four children who came to me in different ways, and are so different from one another, and ye...