Big Blend Radio

Art Destinations Across America

From Arizona and New Mexico to Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina, this special episode of Big Blend Radio's WORLD OF ART Podcast with artist Victoria Chick features a panel discussion covering Art Destinations Across America.

FEATURED GUESTS & DESTINATIONS

- VICTORIA CHICK is a contemporary figurative artist and early 19th/20th century print collector based in Silver City, New Mexico. She talks about Silver City as an art destination, as well the Southwest Regional Museum of Art & Art Center. Links to Visit: https://www.southwest-art-museum.org/ and https://victoriachick.com/

- CLIFFORD GARSTANG is the author of six works of fiction and lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Hear about the art connection in his short stories and books, as well as the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. Links to Visit: https://vmfa.museum/ and https://cliffordgarstang.com/

- ROSE PALMER is an award-winning travel writer and photographer based in Pennsylvania. She is the publisher of Quiltripping.com. Hear about the art in Paducah, Kentucky and read her story about this UNESCO Creative City, here: https://quiltripping.com/pilgrimage-to-paducah-2/

- STEVE & KAREN WILSON are innkeepers and owners of The Lion & The Rose Bed & Breakfast that's located in the heart of the Montford Historic District in Asheville, North Carolina. Hear about Beer City USA's popular River Arts District. Links to Visit: https://www.riverartsdistrict.com/ and https://www.lion-rose.com/

- SHARON K. KURTZ is an award-winning travel writer and photographer based in Austin, Texas. Hear about the new Wonderspaces Austin that features an immersive and interactive art show along with a full bar serving signature cocktails. Links to Visit: https://austin.wonderspaces.com/ and https://sharonkkurtz.com/

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Duration:: 1h 25m
Broadcast on:: 20 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Welcome to Big Blend Radio's art show featuring Victoria Chick, a contemporary figurative artist and early 19th and 20th century print collector. Welcome everybody, you know every third Saturday we get to talk about art and art history with artist Victoria Chick. Victoria is a contemporary figurative artist and early 19th and 20th century print collector based in Silver City, New Mexico, that's in the southwest region. And today we thought, hey, let's talk about art destinations across the country because there's so many, like we think about New Mexico, automatically people are going to think Santa Fe, which is one of the biggest art markets in the country, if not the world. However, there are places like Silver City, which I know she's going to be talking about, and we decided let's call on some of our friends, our Big Blend Radio friends, and so we're going to chat with Victoria in a few minutes here and then head into a panel discussion. So everyone, keep up with Victoria at Victoria Chick.com, but welcome back, Victoria, how are you? Oh, thank you Lisa, this is a great day, great day, good rain, and I get to talk about art. I know, I love our time, what kind of better? I really do, I've learned so much about art over the years, and I just recorded this panel conversation about art destinations across the country, and I think it's very difficult for me, I was trying to choose one, and as you know Nancy and I travel full time, so we're seeing art everywhere, whether it's in museums or public art, you know how much we love the public art side of things, so I find that very difficult, and I wanted to talk about Central California, then I wanted to talk about Southern California, because recently, and everyone, this will come up the first Saturday of August, we did an interview with Dorland Colony, Art Colony, do you remember Dorland out in Temecula area? Well, when I was there, it hadn't quite started, but my friends started it, so yeah, I do know about it. That's wild, and then I interviewed a lady, Noreen Ring, and she is a board member there, and she used to run Brandon Gallery, which is, I think, how we met you, initially, back in the Southern. California days, we were all connected through Brandon, and she talked a little bit later about that after the airing, but that's, I mean, Fallbrook and Temecula has completely changed, and then Dorland went through a devastating fire, remember that fire in Fallbrook, the Eagle Mountain fire burned, and then they rebuilt, and they're doing workshops, they're doing all kinds of things. Fallbrook, the Brandon Gallery, I did not know, is no longer, which is sad to hear. That was amazing, yeah. That was cool. So, Fallbrook, you know, I think it was an art destination to me, when we first, that's where we started our magazine, was Encinitas Vista, Fallbrook, Oceanside, North San Diego, North and East San Diego, and I always thought that's an art destination. You know, so it's interesting to see and hear how, you know, they are resilient over there at Dorland, and it's great that artists have a place to kind of get away from everything and go create and have that time out to be able to do their art, which I think is cool. They have musicians and everything, so I have to, because we're going across the country, bring up California, and because that's how we all connected to begin with, and then you move to Silver City. And so then said Nancy and Lisa, you better come cover Silver City, it's another art community, and it is. So, I love it. I love it. So, I'll talk about that in a second, but I want to tell you who's on the show today, coming up after we talk about Silver City, you will hear author Cliff Garstang. He is a phenomenal author and writer of short stories and novels, and he talks about, in fact, he's there now as we record this Victoria, he talks about the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. And when I got on their website, I understood just how important fine art museums are and what you're doing in Silver City with you and your board and volunteers to create a fine art museum. It just, there's, it elevates everything, it just takes it from some art studios and galleries. It just, there's nothing like it, and I got stuck in there, and some of the people that we've talked about, their art is in there, George Kaitlin, he's going to go take a photo from me of George Kaitlin's art is there. And I was like, "Dude, you have to go." He says, "Okay, I'll go." He's going to see the samurai sword display and samurai warrior, you know, swords, that's amazing. They have a lot of Asian art, African art, European art, it's like everything is there. And so, anyway, so we went to Virginia, then we went to Asheville, North Carolina with our friends, Steve and Karen Wilson, who own and run the line and bed, line and rose bed and breakfast in Asheville. And they talked about the River Arts District, which runs along the river, the Broad, the French Broad, which leads into this Wannanoa River in Asheville, North Carolina, and this is an art hub for years. I mean, Thomas Wolf, the writer is there. Oh, Henry was there. Zelda Fitzgerald, she died there in a fire in the psychiatric facility where they did the brain zapping. Anyway, that's a whole other show. That's a whole other conversation. But a lot of writers, a lot of musicians come from that area. Warren Haynes comes from there, and I always bring him up. But this art district represents over 300 artists in like old warehouses and what would be an industrial area. They cleaned up and there's a conservation movement started historically by two women. And so there's this green pathway that people can cycle, walk their dog, there's dog parks, you can stop in at a brewery, go look at art, it's amazing. And I love it out there. So, and it all goes along the river and these women did it so that they wanted the connection between the river, the arts, obviously, and the community so that it's all beautified and clean. So you take care of one of the oldest rivers in the world. So I think that's pretty cool. Yeah. Absolutely. Then we also went to, so we covered Asheville. We covered Virginia. Then we went out to Paducah, Kentucky, which is a UNESCO heritage site covering art and travel writer Rose Palmer is also a quilter. She went there for a quilter. And there's more than quilts. There's a lot of murals and she just, I had no idea Paducah, Kentucky was so big into the arts. Did you? I mean, to even get it to be a UNESCO site. That's amazing. No, no, see, that's the neat thing about having programs like this is that we get all of the, when we get so focused on our own area, we're, we're, we're insular. And learning about what else is going on in the country is so broadening, so opening. And so really it's very exciting to hear about what other people are doing that are, you know, that are in sync with you. It's amazing. And then, you know, Austin, Texas, travel writer Sharon Kirk just moved there from Dallas. And Dallas has a good art scene going to. But they had just opened a new art space. And you know, we're doing this big interactive kind of art experience. Like, when you go to the event, go gallery, that experience where things are moving and they're using light and you're actually like within the painting. painting, right? They did that for free to follow Van Gogh. There's it's happening everywhere. Well, this is kind of like that. And it's in Austin. And it's kind of more like Meow Wolf. Is it meow? Meow. Meow. Meow. You got it. Meow. Meow meow. Meow meow. Meow. But it's kind of like that. And it's called Wonderspaces in Austin. So what I found interesting in this conversation is when we say destinations, I think of like what you're doing in Silver City, because it's got the galleries, like what Paducah, Kentucky, what Rose was talking about. But what is amazing to me is how like Cliff, he's going the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, that's a destination. He will drive hours to get there, you know, four hours, I think. And so that's his destination. That's the importance of a museum. Sharon Kurtz, this Wonderspaces to her, that's a destination. Yes, Austin has all kinds of art and galleries and everything. But to her, that's a destination. So it's interesting to me about that word and how people came up with what, you know, to them was a destination. I brought up Meyer Gardens, and of course had to talk about Tucson and Ted DeGrassea. Yeah. Right. But yeah, you know, it's interesting that you see about talk about destinations. I experienced that because I'm living in Silver City without a museum. I longed to go to a museum. Well, one of my very favorite artists of all time was, it was, I had a retrospective in San Antonio. And I went to San Antonio, which is a lovely town. And it has many, many, what features worthy of travel to see. But this time I went there specifically to go to the art museum. I never went to the Riverwalk. I didn't see the wonderful park. I didn't see the fabulous gardens that they've got. I just went there for this thing, and I was there for overnight. And it was a fabulous experience, but it was, it was this particular art exhibition that I just had to see. And it was a all day trip to get there. So yes, yes, art is a draw for many, many people. It is, it is. And I love that you're doing a museum. Well, you have the, in Silver City, I mean, I went on general because I know we've talked about art for years. And we've been covering Silver City. Thanks to you, Victoria. Yeah. How many artists? Because there's a, there's all these events that happen. Musical, there's, I know there isn't there a book print, a print festival, a book festival, or writing festival? Yes, there is a Southwest, Southwest festival, the written award, which is the several day festival. It's very, very important to only give it every other year because it takes so much to, to give it, pull it all together. That volunteers do. So yes, there's that one. There's a, there's the Prince Fiesta, and there's the, right, the starting next week on July 22nd, we have the Silver City Clay Festival, which is, I think, almost 12 years old now. And it goes on, it's a week long. It's exhibition, it's, it's selling pottery, like a lot of festivals do, but, but education is kind of its reason for being. And we have ceramic artists and potters and sculptures that use clay, people that build houses out of clay. We've got all kinds of people here that give workshops, which are almost all filled out now. They do, they do these things every year. So, I think the word is out. That Silver City is a good place to be for, if you're interested at all in anything related to clay. I, you know, it makes sense because you are at the, you look Cliff Dwellings National Monument, which is, it's celebrating what 100 and something years now, being a National Monument. You've got the Hila Forest National Forest, and also the Wilderness Area, one of the first wilderness areas in the country, one of the first national forests in the country. I mean, the history is deep, and you do have a lot of clay, and it's a mining community, a mining towns, very history of old mining towns, but also you have the University Museum that also shows off the pottery, right? So that would be like what you have, you have a Silver City Museum downtown that covers the history of Silver City, but then you have the actual, because you have the Mogoyan history of Native American people, including the Apaches, right? So that ties into it. Well, so most of the university specializes Mogoyan, but does include some other Pueblo-type of tribe work, but the Mogoyan memberry's pottery is this main reason for being, because that does have a fabulous collection. And of course, we're trying to start another museum, a fine art museum, because Silver City has a reputation of being a very, very good art community. And although it has lots of galleries, there are probably, I can't tell you how many artists live here. I'm guessing in a town of 9,000 people that we've probably got 200 artists living here to make their living doing art. But there's some other stuff too that's kind of interesting. I don't know, have you heard about the million-boned project? Yes, in fact, we've seen it. That's at Bear Mountain Lodge. That is fascinating. Yes. And as part of the Clay Festival this year, they are inviting people, they're providing the clay and inviting people to make additional bones to be part of this international exhibition, which has been, it's probably the most popular place instead, or the most place where it was most seen is on the mall at the Smithsonian, where it was there for quite a well. Well, then they didn't know what to do with it. So, yes, the people that own the Lodge invited, they have lots of acreage, and they invited this exhibition to be placed on this property so anybody can see it. There's a trail going up to it. It's hard to conceive what a million bones looks like, but it's very, very impressive. It's there to draw people's attention to all the genocide that's going on around the world. So, it's very moving. So, part of the Clay Festival is that anybody can participate in a project like that. Part of it, part of the Festival is draws professional artists here to attend the workshops. And so, it's a little bit of clay experience for everybody. So, I mean, it's a yearly thing. It's a week long, and it joins other kinds of festivals that are here on a regular basis. So, we have a number of yearly festivals that are really, really great. You have the studio tours. That's normally in October, right? We have a very strong art community. And they have a studio tour once a year. And then they also have a weekend. It's called Weekend at the Gallery. So, it's usually on Columbus Day weekend. And so, that's always big. So, of course, you come to Silver City, and it's kind of surprising because it takes a while to get here. We're up in the mountains. We're always about 10 to 15 degrees cooler than they are when they say what the temperature is in New Mexico. So, it's cooler up here at 6,300 feet. And always pleasant. Right now, we think it's a little more rain, but that's okay. We're expecting it. Actually, it's been pretty green. I thought, when we came through New Mexico, it looks a little greener than it has. I've seen it when it really needed rain, and it just looked a little bit greener to me. Yeah. Well, we'll have one good rain, and all the grass will turn green, and it will look like Ireland for probably until fall. So, that's good. All the trees are nice and green. So, that's pleasant. I love it. Of course, there's one thing I do want to mention is you mentioned public art earlier, and we have a lot of public art, and it is courtesy of the talent and energy of school children and adult artist mentors, and a program called Youth Bureau Project. And so, Silver City and the area around us has wonderful, wonderful murals. The kids develop the themes. They work on what should be in there. They're given a little bit of guidance by the professional mentor, and they are provided paints by business people who want a mural on their building. So, it's a great program, and one of the things that people notice about Silver City is we do not have a graffiti problem, because these murals are so great, and the kids have done them, and other kids respect what those kids have done. So, it kind of goes on. There's probably, approaching, I would say, 80 murals now. That's amazing. It really is. And it's so cool, because it's so colorful, too, to walk through down like that. Right. Some of them are ceramic murals. Some of them are painted murals. Some of them are done right on a wall, and some of them are done on campus, and then the whole canvas is applied to a wall. And of course, there's a big trick in putting a mural on, but there's an even greater trick in putting them on with materials that last. And so, they're very, very careful about that. Because so far, conservation of the murals is not a better problem, because they're just holding up so beautifully. You know, I wanted to touch on all of that, too. You've got the public art, got the event. You've got like, I think it's the biggest free blues festival in the west, or something, in Memorial Weekend Blues Festival. There's a chocolate festival. There's all these festivals like you're saying. It just goes on and on. But the artist, but the culinary arts is also pretty high up on the list when you talk about Silver City. The restaurants are phenomenal. And so, it just keeps going on and on and on. There's been breakfast you can stay in. It's just such a special, special place to go. But I want you to just circle back around about the museum, because I know that this is such a big project to do, and to get everybody on the same page, get the community involved. And it has severely expanded since you had the idea, right? And it's gone into education. You're working on fundraising for an actual building, but you have all this arts that is donated. It's pretty amazing what is happening. So, tell everybody about what you are doing with the museum, what the goals are. And, you know, I think people may, you know, donate. Come on, people. Well, thank you for your opening, Lisa, but yes, we do need, we do need donations. Oh, financial donations. We have received a lot of art gifts for which we are very grateful. But now we need a place to actually house our museum collections. And so, we are barking on a fundraising project which hoping to raise $1,200,000 to purchase a building and rehabilitate it up to museum standards or to purchase a piece of property and start from scratch. We're not sure yet what we're going to do. We'd like to be closer into town just because everybody knows where town is, rather than too far out in the outskirts. But the important thing is the programming of the museum and the kind of art we've got, we, when I donated my collection of several hundred pieces of art I collected in the last 47 years, I taught art history. But when you're young and out of college, you can't afford a Michelangelo. So, I restricted my collecting to American art. And often, I would not know anything about the artist whose work I saw. I would just be really attracted to the image of what it was. I was collecting prints at the time, graphics, etchings, lithographs and so forth that were signed. And when I retired from teaching, I started researching these things I had collected. And I realized that many of them, many of the artists that did them, were very popular in the day that they were working. Really early, of course, there were very, there were few museums. In early years, early hundred years of the United States, there were no museums. So, things were passed down from families. And but as the 19th century came about, museums were gifted to communities, usually by somebody who was well off. Our museum is a grassroots museum. And everybody in town contributes. But we want to be farther than town. We want to benefit the whole selfless quadrant of New Mexico. That's a lot. It is. There is no art museum between the Rio Grande, which is in central, right up the central spine of New Mexico, down to or over to Tucson, Arizona. And that's like going on 300 miles. So, people in our yard, kids in our area, don't have the opportunity that people say in Santa Fe do, kids in Santa Fe, or kids in a larger town. So, we're trying to remedy that by having the museum number one, which is for everybody of every age. And we're also then, once the museum is done, or our programming will be in the museum. And we will also have a little program in a part of the museum was called an art center, where is it actually art making portion of the museum complex. And yeah, so we're trying to give everybody of every age and in an entire geographic area more of a chance to participate in art and to learn from art to learn to solve problems through making art and so forth. So, it's a big undertaking and we're going to be doing it incrementally, because there's no way we can do it all at one time. That's why I was laughing. I mean, I remember when you first mentioned it, and then all of a sudden it's like, well, now we're going into education too. Now, this plan just grew. And yeah, but you have help. I think that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, we think of education as having to occur in school. And that's not true. I mean, it does occur there, of course, but there's so much more that you can do to expand educational opportunity through a variety of other endeavors, like art museums, like any kind of museum. So, so. And it's good. Oh, sure it is. Sure it is. We'd love to have tourists visit us. Yeah, that's that's the other part, the economic benefit of this. And it's inviting the right people to your community too. It's it's it's responsible tourism and it's transformative tourism because someone may see something matter their age and go home and then go, hey, you know what? I'm going to take up pottery. I'm going to take up painting or maybe I'm going to start traveling to more museums and read about it. You know, it's it can change people's lives going to museum. And what one of the things that we we foresee doing in the future is as far as tourism goes is that we would like to have it a an art experience for tourists through the museum because lots of people come here and I mean you you know as well as I do how beautiful the area is and how historic some of the buildings are and so forth. So, so we would like to have people come to a program where they can use use art. We would provide materials, art materials and so forth if they could sign up for a day or a week at a fee for an art experience in Silver City. So, they've got more than more than just memories that are that are kind of a federal. They've got a concrete thing that they could take home with them. So and we and we can if somebody is an artist who is interested in a particular type of art who would like to connect with other artists, we can we can connect them with local artists who are doing the same type of work. Yeah, see that's really cool. I mean just how it grows and grows and grows and that's the beauty of grassroots and museums and the people that the you know that are curators and caretakers of the arts interpreter of the arts and it's something that's so crucial to everyone and I like I was saying on the show with the panel that we're going to air next everyone. You know art the arts is often what gets cut out of school. It's the first thing in budget cuts and so that's where the nonprofits pick up and like we're talking about all the museums and destinations I think just about all of them if it's it's either a small business or a nonprofit when it comes to the arts and and you know you're always supporting those and you know artists have to go out on a limb literally to make a living. You know you have to spend time creating and then you have to put a marketing cap on what you don't want to do most of the time. It's like no just let me create somebody else go sell it. That's not how it works. It just it's hard work. So the art destinations when there's an actual growing movement of a destination it's a very cool thing. Her friend Mary Rush you remember Mary Grebel from Silver City the artist she did abstract art. She moved to Camp Verde and she kept trying to leave Camp Verde going this isn't working for me there's not I don't see any art opportunities here. She kept trying to leave and every time she tried to leave things fell through. So she was like well she said you know God basically told her you need to fix this. So she did. She went around and found all the artists in Camp Verde and created an art community an art group. And they've already had like one exhibit in the library seems to be the own like it's different than Silver City right in regards to what you can do. Not many galleries but there's a few but she's just like we need to get together and from that all the artists are like I didn't know you were here I didn't know you're here so it's at the very very beginning and I think that's what it takes is people like you people like her that go hey we need to we need to stand up and you know really tout the arts and I just you know admire you all doing it and whatever we can always do to support you know we will because we know it helps people's quality of life it helps the community's quality of life and it helps visitors and travelers to have some quality in their travel life as well. So very cool Victoria this is fun let's do another one. Well thank you Lisa and thank you thank you for what you're doing to help people all around the country because artists tend to be quiet and shy and not good business people so so having people like you to to talk for us make us talk for ourselves is a good thing and it is appreciated. Well I do have a big mouth I'm supposedly an introvert did you know that? I didn't I did not say that. Well thank you so much Victoria everyone Victoria Chick.com good or website and they also can learn more about the museum there read our articles see some of the collections and also keep up with her on our big blend radio.com site she is here every third Saturday and we're off to hear about all these art destinations across the country from Texas and Kentucky to North Carolina and Virginia so enjoy thanks so much Victoria. You're welcome so now it's time to talk about art across America we've got some great guests joining us to have a little discussion about some of our finest places and when it comes to art it can be anything really when you think about it but I think today we're going to be covering mostly maybe a visual art some textile art that kind of thing and we've got four well five special guests joining us we've got author Cliff Garstang he's been on our show over the years talking about his books and somehow art always sneaks into his books I think right Cliff is that right you you add art exactly right that that's exactly why I wanted to participate in this because a visual art always has some influence on my writing exactly and Cliff is based out of the Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia and he's going to be covering the Virginia Museum of Fine Art so everybody's websites are in the episode notes of the podcast but you can go to cliffordgarstang.com to learn more about Cliff but we'll get to the destination in the section second but I want to bring everybody on but I have to say Cliff that is a very um I went on the website for Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and then I got I like I had to pull myself out it that is a very dangerous place like you could spend probably a week in that museum I think and never be done I that is amazing that museum really amazing so I can't wait to hear more about it we also have okay so Cliff is in I've got to do this by region okay so Cliff is in Virginia so let's go to Pennsylvania that makes sense right so we're going to bring travel writer Rose Palmer on the show she's been on the show over the years usually talking about unique cruises and barge cruises going down the Mekong river you never know but her website is quilttripping.com because Rose also loves quilts and likes to quilt she's going to be covering Paducah Kentucky and I've got a link to her article about it and man I had no idea about Paducah Kentucky being such an art destination welcome back Rose how are you I'm very good thank you it's nice to talk for a change about one of my other passions usually as you mentioned it's travel and and cruising but today I actually get to talk about quilting that's cool that is really cool and you know um for Kentucky we've done a lot of barn barn quilt tours yeah you've seen that where a lot of barns have the quotes on them they're all every state has them it's a it's addictive because you call these treasure hunts and they're like can I really pull over here is the farmer gonna shoot me? Well no I got chased serious this is so true we were going to Arkansas we were in Arkansas um it was really early morning and this is kind of when covid was slowly waking up but most parks were kind of closed or they were open without facilities and we were just outside of Texarana on our way to hot springs and to meet our friend Tiffany and Bob who owned and run Tiffany's bed and breakfast out near there and um anyway there is all these swampy parks right with alligators and everything so of course Nancy and I want to go and we found this little we were on our way to a park and it is one of those areas where you could get shot and I mean it was just that beginning of the morning light and there was this beautiful heron and there was like the farmer out there doing his blonde mowing and everybody if you go to the east I'm serious Louisiana on up this is not a normal area to mow by hand like you need to have one of those little tractor style things right and he's out there with his dachshund and two kids doing that so we wave and everything's fine but then Nancy's and stop stop and in this pond in this farm and just the lighting it was that beginning of dawn right that just first early morning light here's the silhouette of this giant heron it was beautiful so I take the photo and next thing I know the farmer goes off man what are you doing what are you photographing what are you doing I'm like dude what's in that barn like so I start driving and he started chasing me on his lawn mower tractor thing on the back roads of Texarkana somewhere in a swampy land so all I know is you know you got to be careful where you go so um anyway I don't know Rose I might have to start cruising like you right I highly recommend it yeah so be careful on those barn quilt tours I'm just saying be careful be careful well speaking of that region of the southeast we're also going to go to Asheville North Carolina our friend Stephen Karen Wilson our on our show every first Tuesday with their adventures in Asheville podcast and they own and run the lion and the rose in the historic monkford district of Asheville and Asheville is definitely an art town and cliff it's an author's town too you know Thomas wolf oh henry um the Fitzgerald's hung out there so um yeah did you find any of that history at the billboard when you went cliff to Asheville oh absolutely I was fascinated by the history and and the art too I mean it's basically an art museum in addition to everything else plus Asheville has one of the greatest bookstores in the country with Malaprops so that's definitely a stop when you visit Asheville uh that is you know then then there's pals in Portland Oregon just saying that's dangerous it's a very dangerous place where you can just hand over your entire bank account and just say that's fine fill the car it's all good it's all good um so everyone lion dash rose dot com is a place and so Karen you guys are going to be talking about the river arts district right yes absolutely that is our biggest arts district we have plenty of other art but that's the big one okay and so you know being in keepers you also you know you are in the culinary arts and Karen makes killer brownies because she puts wine in them is that the secret ingredient that is it is and and that makes killer breakfast but he also brews his own beer which i think we should bring up because it's art i'm just saying it is art it is an art bomb sure yeah it can't be yeah i mean listen that chocolate stout was off the hook incredible i'll never forget that when you put pepper that didn't wouldn't you say that's one of the best batches of did you say batches i mean what do you say kegs they have done yeah i think that's one of the best you've done yeah with you had a little pepper a little peppery back end on that that was good even nancy was into it you know so that was good yeah nancy's been converted to beer thanks to steve you know so all right so now we're going to go to the southwest and we have travel writer Sharon Kurtz and she's on our show every second Wednesday talking about you know wonder the world with Sharon because truly even this year she went what machu pichu we just recorded her Vienna interview today she has been to Slovenia Canada i mean come on Sharon welcome back how are you thank you nice thank you very much i'm happy to be here yeah it's good to have you and you're going to represent Austin your new city and everyone can follow Sharon at Sharon K Kurtz dot com now rose and Sharon i met them both through the international food wine travel writers association that we do shows with them every second tuesday friday and third monday rose have you heard of Sharon or met Sharon at all of course i have yes rose and i were on a trip together we went to jordan together yes we did yes we had a blast wow and you wrote camels i know you did yes we wrote camels we saw all of jordan in a wonderful ten-day trip highly recommend it wow so that was not a cruising experience for you nancy or you're sailing it's just of the desert yeah no i do other i do other trips as well i love to travel in all its forms but recently i've been working with a lot of cruising brands which is why i end up talking about them more than anything else well i think the one that you did down the mikon river i think has to be a major highlight and then the barge cruise too but there when we talk about art i know we're talking about art in america but that cruise ship itself looked like a piece of art to me yes yes so that we're talking about cruising with panda and i just came back in march i was cruising with them again um um three different itineraries in india oh wow wow so you know at some point if you want to hear more about that i'm always happy to share well we're going to be talking with her soon i know we're going to be recording another interview with you uh this week so well this is interesting because all of you on this show are world travelers so cliff um does the mikon river ring any bells for you oh absolutely i mean i spent an awful lot of time in vietnam for work but um also louse and kambodia and so the rivers in that area are always fun to explore hmm steven karen did you guys ever go to asia at all in your travels i know you've done what over 50 countries and africa a lot of africa you've you've gone to like tonga and all kinds of places but have you gone to the to asia at all yeah we've done a few places highland more than anything okay yeah we're cool yeah our experience i think one time right yeah river quai we did that historic area and then um our experience we didn't go get to do the mikong river but we we went fishing for some uh the mikong catfish so that was quite an experience oh wow wow they are always traveling either for music or wildlife that's the reality of it and so they are known as mr and mrs wild sharon what about you have you been to asia yes i've been to tailand and hong kong and china wow this is cool i like it that you guys are all world travelers and then we get to talk about america today and i think that's what's really fascinating when you think about of course we've got our indigenous people of america and then everybody else that came here either by force or you know wanted to have some freedom some maybe religious freedom or whatever they came out here but through travel is how art also cultivates in different communities i believe so we start to learn from each other and if you think about the history of american art it really comes from different uh you know other than the indigenous people as i was saying different cultures that come over here and i find it fascinating how people congregate like you know they'll go up into the new york side of and then next you know they're moving down to the southwest and the southwest you know because of the open skies and it has to do with lighting i think a lot of times how artists have moved around but today let's talk about some destinations and i started off with you cliff talking about the virginia museum of fine arts and everyone the website for that is v m f a dot museum and again the links will be in the show notes but um is this a place because i know you love music too right so the arts i know artists i'm sorry but art as art no matter what whether it's writing music or film or visual arts right um but this is a place it sounds like that you've been to more than once um definitely it's in richmond virginia which is um about a hundred miles from where i live and i've been a member of the museum for for quite a while even though i can only get down there a couple of times a year but there is also always a special exhibit going on there in addition to the regular collection this uh which also rotate because they have a huge collection and and um not an infinite amount of space to display it in so the particular exhibit that's happening right now and the reason i wanted to talk about it was because on thursday i'm going down to richmond to um to see this exhibit of samurai armaments and you know as you know i've spent a lot of time in asia and i've been to japanese castles and um and i've always been somewhat fascinated by by samurai warriors so this is an amazing exhibit that we're going to have a group of us are going to have a private tour of on thursday and um i can't wait to see it but normally when i go uh to the museum i had right to the asian art wing which has a little bit of japanese art a little bit of korean art a little bit of tinese art all of which i've studied over the years and so that's where i start but there's everything in the museum a great european painting collection lots of american art of course sculpture photography you name it it's amazing on their website they say they explore nearly 50 000 works of art spanning 6 000 years of world history and general admission is always free that's um amazing and they're open 365 days a year that's pretty unique and i mean i was looking at it just the art is yeah i need to go i need to go that's all i have to say is because i got stuck in there and i didn't have time to be stuck in there but i i got stuck in there and i got in trouble time wise today because of it and you know they also do education um obviously a museum an art museum is is you know educational but it seems that they do classes as well for folks of all ages which is cool you know they absolutely do and um although it admissions of the general museum is free uh there are ticketed exhibits like the samurai exhibit but that's the advantage of having a membership because i don't have to pay for those tickets so that's great um and and it is unbelievable that it's open a year round because because that requires a lot of staffing money to run a museum like that one of the things i really love about the museum is that it is manageable yes they have a huge collection it's a very big building but it's not like going to the Met in New York i mean the Met requires days and days to to see it all but the MFA is um manageable in a shorter amount of time plus there's parking which a lot of museums in in big cities you can't get to because of parking so it's really great and they also have um joint programs with other arts organizations in the state and also with um literary organizations so they have i've been involved with the library of Virginia over the years and there there is an annual um award that is jointly presented by the library of Virginia and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts for arts writing which i think is a very cool um thing that they do in one other special thing that they do around the state they have this big semi i guess it's not a bus it's some truck i guess and so they bring art to the further reaches of Virginia so that communities that are at some distance from from Richmond who don't really have access to to fine arts uh can visit that traveling exhibit and see some of the collection from Richmond which i think is such an important bit of outreach to share that beauty with everybody exactly that's a huge thing i mean the arts are often closed off to people that may not have the financial ways to do it um and just even the ways to get to another city right that might be completely especially for parents to take their kids right it's it could be really a difficult thing to do so having that you know those traveling exhibits traveling museums traveling libraries oh my gosh the traveling libraries are huge um it can change a kid's life immediately right it could you never know what can come from that um and the arts get cut down out of school budgets immediately the arts you know sports gets to stay but the arts sorry no music for you but we can make money off of sports tickets so that gets to stay i'm not knocking sports i'm just saying this is what happens and so um talking about these destinations you know some things you know it's why i'm a huge huge fan of public art it's it's huge because it helps the artists they actually get paid for it most of the time it's really good for a community and it betters a community it uh it beautifies a community often tells the history and story of a community and it's free for patrons and you how many times as travelers we all travel get to a city maybe late or you just want to take a walk around and you're not ready to do the tourist thing quite yet and you can just take a walk where you are and maybe in a historic downtown or downtown city and there's public art right there and it starts to you start to ease into the community through public art i believe and if there's a pandemic you can still see it so it's a good activity for pandemics so yeah these kind of mobile projects you know cliff are huge you know like the libraries yeah for sure for sure that's amazing they can do that too by the way i think that's cool what's richmond like to visit too just as like you're saying you can park there you can do all things like is a good lodging nearby it looks like they have a restaurant on site maybe and they have a gift shop but it's see oh they've got a couple restaurants so you can eat while you're there just don't take it near the paintings i have to say that one of my favorite things to do when i go to that museum or any museum is to eat in the dining room have a glass of wine just relax and enjoy what i've seen or what i'm about to see it's really one of my favorite things to do and that museum has three restaurants including a tea room which is new and i haven't yet visited that one but richmond is quite a cultural city it has two symphonies it has other museums besides the art museum it has amazing restaurants it's really quite a foodie city and there are hotels all over the place when i was i did uh you know my book came out in february and i did a reading at one of the historic bookstores in richmond right afterward and so i drove down there and i stayed at this fantastic historic hotel in an area called shocko bottom which is dripping with history and when that was fantastic and then found a great restaurant afterward to to relax after my reading and it's a very cool city that's now everyone that's the last bird of paradise tell everybody about the book because you bring in art so i just gotta i gotta do this i know it's we're jumping outside the country with this but um well you have america in there too yeah it starts in america so uh the book is about an american lawyer a woman from new york who after 9/11 moves to singapore with her husband who has taken a job in a bank there and singapore is relevant because i live there for for 10 years so i'm quite familiar with the city and one of the things she does when she gets there is by three paintings and the three paintings were done in 1914 or 15 by an english artist who also moved to singapore that was right at the beginning of world war one and she was sort of exiled there for safety reasons and other reasons and so the book is really about art those paintings and some contemporary painter that befriends this new york lawyer and the the connection really for me is that the the main character of this new york lawyer looks at the art and the paintings come alive for her because she really believes in the narrative um power of the arts and so she looks at a painting and it's telling her a story and in the case of these old paintings the story that's being told is the history of colonialism in in singapore so um yeah art is definitely wrapped up in in that novel yeah it is that's cool cliff is an awesome author i'm just going to tell you all like you know get on it cliffordgarstang.com just saying um i'm going to go over to rose and before we go there we're going to talk about richmond virginia anyone on the podcast here that has been there and wants to add anything about it okay rose was that you no have not been it was was it you steve that says yes you want to i'm not saying y'all have the same voice i just heard like my family that lives up in that area actually from the lt and right outside of there and my uncle took karen and i down there to to see the confederate statues while they were still there and then there's a fort i think at the end of it rode that was really wow yeah he was telling us about the history wow yeah richmond when you talk about history is it's complex like it's deep complex and wow wow Sharon have you been there no i have not well i hope you go now i think we should all be going there for sure so yeah i want to let's go to you Sharon let's go to austin tell us about wonder spaces well wonder spaces is a new museum for austin it's an interactive art museum and it offers visitors a unique and immersive experience it combines art technology and interactive installations so there are it is in a 28 000 square foot building and they have 14 exhibits so you can pitch your mind maybe meow wolf which is an interactive museum and an experiential but our museum are temporary exhibits that rotate and meow wolf are probably bigger installations and those are permanent but this is the really cool thing i think you can drink at this museum they occasionally offer classes and experiences that incorporate bar drinks as part of the overall experience so you can just imagine a first date you know a couple going to the interactive museum or you know but they take families go and kids can run around and it's just really a fun colorful place that's well because even when you go on on their website too it looks i think it's it's perfect for austin because and everyone to go to wonders if you can go austin.org and type in wonder spaces it comes up and the website itself let me go right to their site itself is austin.wonderspaces.com again in the episode notes but it's interactive with color and everything but austin is it's like the silicon valley of texas really yeah we embrace that is the perfect place for this museum because we embrace anything unusual and we embrace live music and any any art expressive art is welcome in austin. keep austin weird i'm serious you need to so many housing development so like i think that threatens ashville too a little bit is so many people moving in so fast it's like you want to keep the integrity the quirky the weird the historic you've got to keep it all and not you know just don't sell out man you know i think that's so important in destinations is to not just just be who you are yeah authentic yeah keep your authentic character you know for sure but yeah when you go on the site austin.wonderspaces.com it's like did you go on the if it rose in and Sharon did you go on the international foodline travel writers association conference last year on the princess cruise where they had that yes i was i was yeah okay so you did did you do the captain's dinner thing where was that 360 experience oh yeah oh yeah okay that's what i think this kind of looks like where like can you explain that dinner because this is a unique thing for art it's a multi sensory experience that involves all of your senses um so you're in a circular room and they project a story uh a video movie on the screen it's a storyline and with each course um it ties into the story and then um they also project there's projections onto the table so the take the look of the table changes in terms of you know like think of it as a digital tablecloth um and then you know digital plates underneath your real plate smells or um odors are wafted in that go like lavender like lavender or lemon yeah um it's it's i don't want to give too much away for people who have not experienced it but it was one it's one of the most memorable meals and um interactive experiences i've ever done yeah it's cool let me tell you about one of the exhibits here at Wonder Spaces so let's see where did my notes go hold on here we go it's called it's gonna be a cocktail right maybe you count in your hand but it's called submergence by a art insta art company called Squid Soup and it's an immersive installation featuring 8,064 individual points of light visitors walk through it and the lights continually change colors in correspondence to the music so it's interactive and experiential and so when you move it moves with you right yeah that changes or yeah that's wild that's wild that gets mathematical see how that's mathematical when you think about the arts and what it does for our brains you know it does a music you know math and music go hand in hand and the same with the arts understanding depth perception all of that but then that's getting technical on top of it right yeah um the arts are important for our brains just saying to say just want to keep the arts funded i'm serious about it i'm deeply serious about it it's so important and these experiences when they're so it's out of this world with these interactive ones right i know we can whine about AI and carry on but part of it is AI when they put it together i think when they they put this i remember contributing um national park footage and film that we've done for the philadelphia flower show and it was the centennial of the national park service and at the flower show in the evening they were doing like this video it was it was like it's it's different not it's not interactive but it was going up on the sides of all these buildings of national parks all this footage put together and i just wish i could be there because i was the only person with the working cactus national monument for them to be able to use it but it was like this whole artistic thing at the i don't know if anyone's been to the flower show in philadelphia but it's one of the best and oldest you have oh yeah far from philadelphia oh i think i've got almost every year since we moved here it's amazing they have we did a show on them i'm going to say a few years ago about maybe seven years ago they were on the podcast and this was before the national i don't know national park centennial i don't know but they said their their flower show at that time was also going into abandoned houses they went in and decorated abandoned houses with flowers so people could walk through these old abandoned homes in philadelphia and find the beauty of in these historic homes and hopefully somebody would buy them and fix them you know um that's cool yeah i mean abandoned homes are kind of cool cliff don't you think an abandoned home is a good setting for novels oh that would be a great setting sure yeah very very mysterious in fact i just read a novel by a friend of mine that involved rebuilding an abandoned home and then finding something mysterious in the walls so that would be very cool it is cool like everybody i know who has historic homes they find stuff and they were calling him ghost houses steven karen know what it's like to have a historic home i mean you've got a victorian mansion on your hands how's how does that feel uh it's a lot of work yeah steve how much work is it it's like when one thing goes more than i want to think about yeah i know i don't bring bring that up to you but it is your home is one thing and then something else comes up yeah one thing these but there's nothing like a historic nothing like historic home but you want to make a way to find more i mean that says how old is it how old is is is your b&b like from ours is 1898 wow and the month for historic district is it 600 historic homes yep and you're by the cemetery the cemetery behind their end like it's a few blocks away that's where thomas wolf is buried oh henry and all of that and then down the road from them is a sanatorium where elif it's jerel died in that fire and they say when you go on the trams tram the gray line they tell you what they have a ghost and mystery tour historical mystery tour uh that they take you on the gray line and they'll tell you at certain times at night you will smell burnt hair from zelda fits jerel's oh right by the sanatorium yeah i was back in the day where they zapped people but the zapping is coming back it's i've talked to psychologists really yes the zapping thing when they zapped people in the brain anyway this is so far off of art destinations um so since we talked about the monford historic district let's not talk about burnt hair unless you want to put it in a mural um let's go to you guys in in ashville uh steve karen uh tell us about the river arts district it's 300 artists there or something right yeah it's now over 300 artists it's unbelievable it's over spread over a couple of miles along the french broad river so it's a nice setting um small artist galleries big artists in like the old industrial warehouses so you have several artists anything and everything you can imagine from pottery to jewelry to paintings you name it you'll find it it's such a cool spot and breweries in between yeah we have to bring that up since you're beer city usa and so where we were and the other day with you and we went on that walking the green pathway the walnut dikeman greenway yep um which really can it goes along the french broad river which i found out is one of the oldest rivers in the world is in ashville yep and they there are all these amazing women that help clean up the river and teach the you know the community to keep it clean um but there's like a green pathway so you can walk your dog and then go and see a gallery i mean it's it's pretty cool to see like health be connected to the arts in a ribbon setting and so you've got a lot of murals too in ashville we can touch on that like that's a there's a lot of murals yeah there's a lot in the river arts district and they now have a south flope area mural trail so that's the the south flope area is where the breweries are basically but a lot of them have um added murals on their buildings and now they have a new trail where you can walk well think about it you can hop in a brewery and grab a beer and then go see the next mural at the next brewery and then well you had you had um there was mural tours too yeah the lady on their podcast yeah a few months ago talking about mural tours in and outside of ashville yeah exactly because west ashville is another spot we have art everywhere around i mean it's just overwhelming a lot of creativity around here that's it's cool so ashville everyone land ashwells.com go there check it out i've got the links on everything and uh riverside arts district just go to riverside arts district.com i want to go over to you rose in regards to paduke and we've got the link to your article on this this is like a unesco creative city right yes it is and i think many people don't realize that unesco has this category we all are aware of unesco's designations for cultural sites like machu pichu or um you know all these other places there's over a thousand of them all over the world but they also have a this category of creative creativity cities in seven different creative fields and one of them for which paduke is recognized is the crafts and folk art category we have uh last i read we have nine creativity cities in the u.s including tusan and even and where it's it's uh culinary arts and austin for its music heritage so it's you know that shouldn't surprise people but paduka is known for its craft and folk art heritage specifically for its contributions to the the quilt making and the quilting heritage across the united states and um it's called quilt city it's that's its nickname um so there's a couple of reasons um so it was designated at creativity city in 2013 uh white a few years before that the largest quilt museum uh was established in paduka the national quilt museum and um most of you probably when you think of quilts you probably think of you know your grandma's log cabin quilt um if you go to the quilt museum i think you'd be blown away by some of the more modern quilts that are displayed there because they are truly pieces of art they're they do have they their collection is over 650 pieces that they've collected over the years and uh you will have see some traditional pieces um so their display rotates and pulls out quilts from their collection but uh so you will see some of the traditional quilts that would have been done in you know in in in america's history and maybe from the 1800s early 1900s um or even you know into the 1970s um you know you might see a quilt made with um polyester you might recognize some of the the fabrics right but if you look at the the today's quilts you you will see pieces of art and many of the quilts that are that go into the collection today are as a result of uh one of the major quilt competitions and uh conventions that goes on in peduca every spring it's called quilt week it's put on by the american quilt society and um besides displaying quilts that people submit for that week they also have a lot of classes and then um all the quilts that are displayed during quilt week um there's um it's essentially it's a competition and the best ones in each category end up in the museum and uh the winners get reunited for um having to give up you know hundreds of hours of of work making one of these quilts because they don't get it back if they if if they're the winner of one of the major categories but they truly are major pieces of art yeah it you know we interviewed an artist uh Nancy Hershberger by the way from pennsylvania and um she she does quilt painting like it's all it's a whole different style of you know we always think needlepoint with quilts but she does quilt painting and that's a whole yeah it's so you she you they go up she uses ink oil acrylic paint fabric and thread and they go up on a wall like a painting so they're like art quilts really fascinating yeah i'll send you links uh to that but i wanted to ask you if you looked at have you ever seen the documentary with ken berms and all these quilts no oh my gosh you need to see that yeah that is like the collector yep he is like avid about quilts and they all tell a story don't the each design means something there's symbology of families like almost like clans in scotland the quilts have different symbols that mean different things depending like if it's older right if it's and then now people are doing the painting i suppose and each each region kind of has its characteristic styles and each era has its characteristic styles as you might imagine because you know as traditionally quilts were functional now we oftentimes tend to use them as pieces of art but they certainly started out as as function as a way of of recycling fabrics and making them into um something warm mm-hmm i love quilts i mean they're amazing and you know it's bed and breakfast have quilts but quilts are they are yeah you guys do i mean it is pretty amazing when you think about how much time goes into it and luckily sewing machines have evolved now too for folks to make them you know this is incredible this panel discussion of so many different forms of art you know um Tucson you mentioned Tucson so we became a UNESCO city and that's where we are right now and this is our home this is where our storage unit is so that's our home i suppose but um Tucson uh became a UNESCO heritage site for gastronomy and the food culture here which is incredible um it's really we love Mexican food but it's different when you come here just saying it is just such a diverse blend of cultures Native American you got Mexican Spanish colonial sides of things too but the art districts there's what's called the turquoise trail downtown that you can follow it's a you know you can go into the barrio district and then you if you go to the you got to go get barrio bread um there's museums art the art museum in the history museum here's the state museum is incredible there's also a tejaguarzio we do a podcast on one artist think of it um every fourth sunday and tejaguarzio uh it was just uh one of he's the most reproduced artist in the world and he his gallery he built his gallery by hand with the tohana odomes and uh also just other tribes too and in mexican the eucos too i'm saying it wrong i got it wrong i'm not saying it correctly but uh the kishans and also the very the yakis the yakis that's it um and also the mexican people's everywhere he would befriend it and they built his gallery and it's an adobe style he also built a mission and also he has a small gallery in his residence all adobe and when you go in the front is a replica the gate into the actual gallery itself it's it's a ten acre national historic site the gate itself into the adobe part of the gallery is formed after the yuma territorial prison in yuma arizona which was one of the wildest prisons uh you know that in the west and so that was formed after that but you go in and the floors are made out of choya cactus it's crazy and it's all polished off and everything so they have all these uh displays that are permanent exhibitions and then they go in their archives and rotate uh new exhibits all the time and you know he's a very prolific southwest artist became very famous for his art he he knew he was a capitalist he loved chevas regal and uh there's lots of stories with him and celebrities like even when paul mccartney showed up at his door he said were closed because he was it was closing time was time for him to have his chevas regal so he closed the door but he used to drink with lee marvin all kinds of people out here because we also had the film studios so all the creatives Tucson is a hub of creativity and also a lot of art deco buildings we have a modernism week that happens every fall but de gracia gallery architecturally is phenomenal and his art really depicts the southwest he also wrote and he was really interested in father kino padre kino um and who all just all the missions that were put together here we have san zavia del bok which is the most um prolific it is the most preserved piece of spanish architecture we have in the country um architectural interest um it is incredible it's known as the white dove of the desert so he painted the people he painted the rodeos he painted the culture and he got to know the people he was a salt of the earth human being and he was uh he went and apprenticed with diaego Rivera and hose rosco down in mexico but he came from a tiny little mining camp in morrency uh arizona what lived in edley his family's italian came back he's a musician he also created this huge thesis became famous of painting and color and how it connects with music and each color like represents music so anyway it's crazy there's always a new story i mean we've been covering this gallery and this artist for i can't even say at least 15 years or something crazy 10 15 years i don't know but there's always a new story but twoson itself has a huge mural program huge public art there's a warehouse district full of art and artists kind of like the river uh arts district in ashville but in the desert so you know i was gonna cover somewhere else but now i suppose i had to do twoson thanks ros but it's awesome it is i mean you know the southwest really brings people here because of the big open skies you know the colors of the desert the clouds it it is and driving we just wrote from steven carons in ashville to hear and the change as soon as you cross over the border in oklahoma you're like wow okay that's that we're now in the southwest boom you are there at that you know it is open the skies are different both have their beauty but artists went back and forth over it in history so it's it's really cool so i want to go in closing here um to each of you and asked an art destination that you have not been to that you want to go for art purposes so um i'm gonna start with you karen where would you like to go next that you haven't been that you know there's art hmm that's a good question i'm not sure i would say somewhere yeah that does sound that definitely sounds interesting um i would say somewhere like paris or italy um just because same thing that european would be a different style and we haven't explored a lot of that so it would just be different to see all the statues all the different galleries hmm that would be my choice paris or italy what about you steve i don't know maybe the metropolitan of new york or something like that remember you're going to pay for parking cliff said so take a different different mode of transport cliff yeah you're an attack see that's it you know you you have to uh cliff cliff what about you uh you know i was i'm trying to think of an american art destination other than the ones that we've been talking about today that i have not been to but i'm having trouble coming up with one so i'm going to say for the british museum i've been to london but i didn't i was there for work and i didn't get to see museums so so i'm going to london to check out the art oh and you've got to go to the castles because you'll see the the portraiture is insane right yeah it is it is insane um so what about you Sharon i think i would go to brooklyn i've been to new york quite a bit i've been to the met but i have heard really good things about the brooklyn museum of art and you know you've all created people up there and i would just like to go check that out other than other than the venice bianali i've always wanted to do that that's the big big art show there's one in my ami beach there's one in venice it's like i don't know once every four years i'm not quite sure but those two places that sounds cool now what about you rose so well first of all i'm answer to uh Sharon's uh location brooklyn also has a very popular and well-known mural neighborhood so if you're going to brooklyn you make sure you check that out all right but um i would like to go to portugal i have um not been to portugal and i have to imagine that they must have some very interesting art yeah i bet i bet and speaking of murals pajuca has murals too that that was another part of it they have murals they do they do so be they're flood wall because it's it's on um on the river um they decided to decorate their flood wall they've got over 50 murals that depict the history of pajuca um really really pretty cool cool i love that i love that and kentucky really the art you know um we went through louisville and they have a whole arts district too just recently and they have a giant sculpt golden sculpture of david in all his glory he's a giant glorified david so if you get downtown louisville go look for david you will not be disappointed he's glorious i'm just this hey everyone should do that i do you know our country really does have a lot of places and um you know we do a lot of small town you know destinations with our parks travel and like you know i was going to talk about the sequoia region king's canyon sequoia national parks um the communities surrounding that have gazillions of murals these small agricultural towns uh public art the you know really showcases that history so you know our sometimes they're not quite the destination yet but it starts with that public art so that's one of those places but i cannot not say this on our tour i mean we've been pretty much everywhere in this country not all the way done we're never done but mire gardens in grand rapids michigan was a jaw-dropping experience here is a botanical garden some of the world's finest horticultural displays it's a sculpture park it is ranked among the most visited art museums worldwide and named the best sculpture park in united states and there's over 200 sculptures i mean everyone's in their Picasso de Rodin you name it and then they have um exhibits that come in and out they have a japanese tea garden uh and garden um they have it it was i don't it that was incredible to be able to walk among the sculptures and you can take a tram around because it is a big garden it was summer to get a little hot out there but i you just it is like art history on display in a glorious garden and it was all started by fredrick mire who ran grocery stores out there so they even had like a little farm area talking about the history of the grocery stores and the farms so it's um grand rapids michigan who would know but it was definitely a place to put on your list if you're an art lover that blows your mind but we've been i don't know i i think we're gonna have to revisit our map now and start adding because you all want to go overseas i'm telling you that stuff here but they all come from people overseas so there it is now there's a lot of a great american artist too and george katelyn is in your museum when you go to virginia museum of fine arts please go go see him for me george katelyn an amazing american artist that has done so much so please cliff go see him for me and say hi i'll take a picture send please do please do i mean that's the story of him is incredible so everyone thank you so much for joining us again share and curts go to share and take curts.com quilttripping.com that's two one tea not two quilttripping.com for rose pomer and then lion dash rose.com for steven karen's bed and breakfast and clifford garstein.com again all the links are the in the episode notes thank you all for joining us thank you thank you thank you that's great thank you for listening to big blend radio you can view victoria cheques artwork at victoria cheque.com keep up with us at big blend radio.com