I went to the Party to honor a great man. My two good friends of Project InSECT fame would meet me at the Party. Jessa and James were married at the Leedy- Voulkos Art Center in Kansas City and it was at the art center the Party for Jim Leedy's retirement was to be held.
Of course no artist ever really retires but Jim Leedy who I believe is the heart and soul of Kansas City Missouri is entering a new phase of his life. In his youth he ran with a pack of great artists, Jackson Pollack just to name one of the artist he knew. He was the first or one of the first to do abstract expressionism in ceramics.
I had a bad feeling about the Party and I felt along with all good energy for Jim Leedy their would be negative energy. I didn't understand the feeling and thought some that negative energy would be directed at me. I thought maybe a member of the Kemper family (a rich banking family in Kansas City) would be at the party. I had once got into a yelling match with Mike Kemper the boss of my boss at Science City at Union Station. The last thing I wanted was confrontation at Jim Leedy's Party.
I had nothing to worry about as the Party had no members of the so called upper class in attendance. Then James and Jessa showed up and I noticed one artist giving the artistic team of two a mean stare. As the night worn on I saw more and more artists giving the two friends of mine dirty looks. James and Jessa work outside the gallery system and are successful.
Maybe some people are just jealousy. I only know any, negative energy wasn't directed at me.
I took some pictures of James and Jessa with Jim Leedy and took the time to thank him for inviting me to his house years ago.
A nice party for a great man.
6 comments:
Glad the party went well. Its your sensitivy that noticed the 'stares of jealousy'. Hopefully your two successful friends did not notice a negative thing. Didnt realise you knew such elite people of the artworld. !!!
Jim Leedy would be a national living treasure if he was born in Japan.
I still stand by my prediction that Jessa will be the most famous artist of the first half of the 21st century. James has a future in television but he doesn't know it yet.
Jim Leedy believe everyone is an artist and I agree with him.
i didn't know about jim leedy- i'm going to check it out ;)
i like expressionism much and expr. in sculpture/plastics is a most interesting field.
as you know i'm so happy about everything new- thanx a lot, robert
:)
I'm going to write a post about Jim Leedy being one of my heroes.
My favorite Jim Leedy art is his giant kites.
fascinating man..
but its really hard to find some stuff about him (e.g. didn't find a picture of the giant kites you've mentioned)- at least here in europe.
i've read wide awake films's producing a documentary about him and his work (profile on myspace)
would be nice to see you on myspace, too. here's the link to my profile which is still under construction but you can already have a look at some other works of mine.
To Rosalie
I use to have a myspace page but deleted it. It was a culture shock thing.
I just started a new myspace page after you gave me the push.
http://www.myspace.com/1958rav
I haven't got anything on the page yet and plan to work on it tonight.
I liked what I saw of your work.
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