Benton House and Studio Museum

Though situated in a labyrinthine moneyed neighborhood with too many switchbakcs, the Benton House and Studio is worth the twenty extra minutes of driving around in circles. The guided tour lasts a solid forty-five minutes (more if you have lots of questions) and is worth every penny, possibly more, of the $2.50 in entrance fee.

I love finding good small museums. I never expect too much so that I won't be disappointed. Therefore, I'm often not disappointed. But small museums are usually extremely appealing, even if you don't know or care very much about a subject. While the "exhibits" might not be flashy, since budgets are usually pretty tight, tour guides tend to be very well informed about their subject. Maybe it's a script, maybe it's their life's dream, but almost invariably they have a passion about the area they supervise.

No matter how interesting a subject may be to you, without a knowledgable guide nothing would make sense. Conversly, an informative guide can make a blank subject come alive and take on a personal meaning with an individually. Fortunately, the Benton House and Studio Historic Museum staffs the latter.

Our guide was Michael. He is a historian by trade, not an artist and that made his presentation more interesting, focusing on the family side of Benton (as it was, indeed, the family home) and the history of the world goings on in general, than on the artistic side. He pointed out details, such as the daughter's paintings on the windows of the foyer, as well as her "rehearsal" works on the bedroom window. Or that the house was one of the first to have electricity, as the original owner was on the board of the newly formed KCP&L.

The house itself is in the state left when Benton and his wife, Rita, died. They were the third and last owners, and when they passed the property was turned over to the Parks and Recreation Dept. to become a museum, a testament to the great art and bond of the Benton's. I was struck by how up to date the kitchen was (up to 1975, anyway), but you wouldn't necessarily associate the creator of WPA era murals with microwaves and fancy dinner parties. The studio, according to Michael, is in much better state than it was left. The studio, half of a carriage-house-turned-garage, is where Benton created much of his work and also were he died in 1975. The entire area was in a state of deliberate chaos, but has been organized considerably for the sake of the museum. It houses some of his record collection, including Harmonica Virtuosi, as well as a display of some of Benton's transcriptions of Classical music for harmonica, using his own notation system. It also displays Benton's thrifty nature and creativity, with coffee cans full of paint brushes and sketches, models, and dioramas used in creating the vast works that made and retained Benton's reputation.

It is that sort of thing, that bit of trivia that won't come up in the galleries or art history classes, which make visiting small, local museums so rewarding. They can make a person and time period come to life, more fully formed than in a book, with more depth than simply viewing the works themselves.

I took this picture last night, walking home in the dusk. I was actually amazed that it come out so well, as my camera doesn't like to not use it's flash. But last night was a perfect night for being out and about with no real destination (besides eventually home).

You can really focus on your thoughts when you walk. Whenever I drive, and try to think about lots of different things - what happened at work, what needs to happen at home, errands to run, letters to mail - I miss important traffic cues, like red lights, turns, other cars. It is very dangerous for me to think and drive.

But if I'm walking...well, a) I'm more aware of my surroundings because I can use my ears and my eyes to sense what is going on, b)I go more slowly so I have time to notice and retain any visual or aural stimulus, and c)time to spin out thoughts without thinking "other car, yellow light, will I make it, better stop, turn signal, more cars, red light red light red light, green, go, look both ways, no turn on red, dang it," etc., etc. Instead, I walk for a while and I think, and usually my feet continue on whether I babysit them or not.

Good night.

A flock of geese flew under the bridge. As they flew along the creek the formation spread out, creating a wider vee. The tightly formed group moved across the water, honking in counterpoint. It is one sound of fall.

It is always a shock how busy a time this is. Birds are flocking, squirrels gathering nuts, insects buzz and flit and scurry. Even with the declining temperatures, there are still many, many instincts to fulfill before winter.

The honey locust are starting to turn their brilliant golden shade, the color that gives them their name. They are one of the first to turn. When the late afternoon sun hits the branches they seem to glow, to exude this same sunlight that has been their nourishment the past months. These young brethren (I always think of them as young, though they are far older then myself, my mother, or my grandmother) are then followed by the elm, the oak, ginko, maple, red bud, birch - all the colors hidden by the overwhelming verdant shade of summer. And that's not to forget the showiest sister of them all. The gum tree, with her ever changing display, her reds, plums, and oranges, who protects her beauty with her spiky seed. With her, each leaf colors of its own accord, with little regard for its neighbor. She is the drag queen of the woods. She is tall and strong, but alluring and sensitive, afraid to be delicate, but more afraid to not be noticed for her strength and her beauty.

The sky puts the trees, the flowers, the birds to shame. After the rains, the first cold breathes of winter, the sky is clear. There is no sky blue on these days. The only blue is the sky, the only blue you see, the only blue that you can conceive. There is no blue to compare to the Midwest sky in October. It is cloudless. It is flawless.

It is this sky that I want to look to. I want to look through the sun dappled leaves, beyond the wispy clouds, and loose my conscienceness to the sky. If you lie on your back in the middle of a field and look at the sky, it seems to come near you. The same thing happens at night. The stars will come closer. They'll swirl around you, dance for you, wink at you. The stars are coquettes, too far away to be touched, but near enough to flirt with their admirerers, to engage their attention without making promises to the lowly watcher. They become more mysterious and more beautiful the longer you look. And then, as the world turns, our star emerges and puts the others to shame. The entire planet erupts in a firey glow, deep violets and fingers of pink stretch across the sky. The mighty glowing mass that glowers on the horizon, jealous of the attention paid to her lessor cousins, softens as respect is paid to her majesty. It is then that I awake, in my bedroom painted white, to the dappled, glittering sunlight as it creeps across my pillow and plays amongst the cracks on the walls.