\nDana and I traveled to Marion County on Saturday for my orientation to the Maker\u2019s Mark project. Sixty Kentucky artists were selected to create works inspired by a visit to the historical distillery, and we couldn\u2019t have had a more pleasant day to be guests at the rural complex. I enjoyed having the freedom to roam the facility for hours and learn more about how the hand-crafted product is made. Because my mixed media collage relies heavily on found material, I arrived with the hope of gaining access to lots of \u201cingredients.\u201d No such luck. The operation is a model of \u201cgreen\u201d best practices, so the kind of detritus on which I\u2019d set my heart simply doesn\u2019t exist. It was one of the tidiest work environments I\u2019ve ever seen, and everything unused is totally recycled, including all the byproducts of bourbon-making. Afterwards: downtown Bardstown for a delicious dinner at a sidewalk table to process the day\u2019s sensory load.<\/p>\n
Touch of a Woman \/ Voice of a Mother<\/strong> Things have been a bit interesting since my birthday. If this is what being on the other side of the speed limit is like, I\u2019d better keep my wits about me. A couple examples… It\u2019s the water, it\u2019s the corn, it\u2019s the wood. Dana and I traveled to Marion County on Saturday for my orientation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,71,12,18,8,70,37,40,25,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSarah shared her traditional holiday message at the cabin yesterday morning, \u201cafter silence,\u201d although it was far from a quiet meditation. Wind gusts dominated the 30-minute ritual. After she began, the ancient tree just outside the north window cracked under the punishment and came down, striking the power line, but missing the startled humans only a few yards away. Her talk was entitled \u201cA Woman’s Touch.\u201d Mother Nature had decided to reach out and touch our gathering spot\u2014without mishap to us, fortunately.
After spending the rest of the day completing my poster design for this year\u2019s Brass Band Festival, I reached out to my own mother and conveyed my fond greetings on her annual day. As usual, I was the last of her children to call. I think she might\u2019ve had a nicer observance, were it not for all the ongoing doctor and dentist complications. The endless appointments, procedures, and prescriptions seem to be dragging down her quality of life. Her inclination is to chuck it all and do without, but, obviously, that\u2019s not something she considers a realistic option, so, just like our Mombo, she keeps plugging and hangs on for the next period of well-being. (She deserves it. That\u2019s my prayer and I\u2019m sticking to it.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"