Monday Musings

So how was your weekend? I spent most of mine at the Art Fest, which is an annual event here in Sherman.  Every year, the Sherman Art League has a program connected to the festival in which there is a juried art show. I’d never participated in that type of show before, and one of the things that I really appreciated the most, besides all of the beautiful paintings and photographs, was the program offered by the judge at the reception the night before the show opened on Friday.

He commented about each picture that had received an award, telling the audience what he saw in the picture that he thought was highly creative and made that particular picture stand out from the others. He talked a lot about the use of contrast and color; and he also pointed out that what connects most viewers to a piece of visual art is the story that that a viewer can find in the images. I’d never thought of art quite that way before, but it makes perfect sense. Not that we all see the same story, but there is something there to which we connect, just like there is something in each book that speaks to us.

On Saturday, lots of people came through the ballroom at the Municipal Building to see the art, and I’m sure to enjoy the air conditioning. I met a lot of very nice folks, including this young boy. His mother had just bought one of my books, and he wanted his picture taken, too. He was quite impressed with someone who could write books, and I was quite impressed with the intelligent questions he asked about writing.

Okay here we go again. In 2016 it was Hillary, Trump, and the Russians. Today it’s Biden, Trump, and the Ukraine. In each case, there were smear campaigns on both sides trying to implicate the other in some nefarious activity that might even be illegal.

I don’t know about the rest of America but I’m very tired of all of the ugly rumors that surface, all the attacks, the response by the media, as well as the response by defenders of whichever wronged party they support. Rudy Giuliani acted like a bully last Thursday when he appeared on television and was interviewed by Chris Coumo. Giuliani started yelling and Coumo started yelling, and when I heard a clip of the interview, I just shook my head. These are supposed to be mature men?

You can read a story in the New York Times that has more details about that CNN interview.

Then today Trump spoke out at the United Nations, defending his phone call to the Ukraine and the content of that call. This was reported in The Washington Post:

Talking to reporters Monday morning at the United Nations, Trump suggested that there would be nothing wrong with him withholding funding to a country such as Ukraine if it refused to root out “corruption” — hypothetically speaking, of course.

“We’re supporting a country; we want to make sure that country is honest,” Trump said. “It’s very important to talk about corruption. If you don’t talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt? . . . So it’s very important that, on occasion, you speak to somebody about corruption.”

That’s enough about that whole mess. I need to change my focus to something else, so I think I’ll go color for a while. Here is a picture that I have waiting for me and my colored pencils.

I hope you have a wonderful, productive, and fun week. Be safe. Be happy.