"If it's got wings or some way to get my feet off the ground, I'm happy." Jim Bolte says. "Flying is part of my life."
The exhibit Bolte has on show at the Rogers Historical Museum reflects that passion and a skill he acquired to support it. In addition to flying hot air balloons, the Rogers resident also sculpts them.
FYI
On Show
Elsewhere
Shiloh Museum
Currently on show, “Healing Waters” takes visitors to the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale back to earth — and under it.
Marie Demeroukas, the museum’s photo archivist and research librarian, curated the exhibit, which looks not just at Eureka Springs, best known of the Northwest Arkansas destinations for “taking the waters,” but also Electric Springs, Park Springs, Cherokee City and Eldorado, all in Benton County; Sulphur City in Washington County; Elixir Springs in Boone County; and St. Paul and Aurora in Madison County.
“The belief in the healing properties of mineral water has been around since ancient times,” Demeroukas writes in her exhibit notes. But in their heyday in the late 19th century, “springs were said to alleviate a host of illnesses.”
In 1879, the exhibit notes add, “tales of miracle cures at what would become Eureka Springs spread like wildfire. Eureka’s immediate fame and fast-paced prosperity caught the eye of several area communities blessed with mineral springs,” and the other resorts were born.
Their popularity was short-lived.
“The 1910s saw major advances in the science and standards of medical care, leading to the professionalism of medicine. Reliance on natural cures faded by the end of World War I.”
The “Healing Waters” exhibit will remain on view through Dec. 13. This weekend, the museum is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday. Admission is free. Information: 750-8165.
Fort Smith Museum of History
At the Fort Smith Museum of History, visitors can see the Old West through the eyes of 18th and 19th century artists such as John James Audubon, Karl Bodmer and George Catlin. “Imprinting the West: Manifest Destiny, Real and Imagined” includes 48 hand-colored lithographs and engravings portraying “the scenery and people in the American West during the period of westward European expansion and subsequent loss of Native American lands,” says Leisa Gramlich, museum director.
Curated by Randall Griffey, associate curator of modern American art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the exhibit also considers “the influence artists had on the perception of the Wild West,” a press release from ExhibitsUSA states. “Much of this imagery was created with an international or an eastern audience in mind, and it both drew from and promoted fantasies about Native Americans and the West as much as it documented reality.”
“Imprinting the West” will remain on show through Aug. 10. This weekend, the museum is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and 1-5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $2-$5. Information: 783-7841.
Hot air ballooning "becomes a lifestyle," he says, "so you start collecting everything you can." But Bolte could never find a balloon that looked like his. Then he happened on to a mold for a ceramic one.
"I didn't have an inkling how to do it," he says. "I just found a mold" and went in search of someone to pour and fire what it would produce. Instead, he became the artisan for a ceramic shop and ended up bringing home the tools he needed to make the ceramic balloons part of his full-time passion.
Bolte doesn't sell them. But if asked nicely, he'll make one for a fellow balloonist -- at no charge but the shipping.
It's one way to support a sport that Bolte fears is dying. Being one of "five people working as hard and fast as you can," as ballooning requires, doesn't seem to appeal to younger people, he worries.
It's not something Bolte will ever give up.
"There's really nothing to describe it," he says of the flight. "It's the excitement, the thrill of the chase and the thrill of being able to do it right. Your crew has to out-think the balloon. You just know basically you're going to go downwind somewhere."
To fly a balloon, Bolte earned a license just as a pilot does -- and he is also a commercial pilot, flying for United-Bilt Homes for the past 28 years. But he traces his passion for the wild blue yonder back to a great-uncle, Chuck Moon, an Air Force pilot who took him flying whenever he visited Northwest Arkansas.
"He set the stage for me to go into aviation," he says. "I started out model airplaning -- anything I could do that was airplane related."
Moon died just a few days ago, but he left Bolte one more gift -- a racing airplane he built when he was in his 70s.
"He decided to get out of flying at 80," Bolte says. "He brought it out here, handed me the keys and said, 'Have fun.'
"If there was one person that put the light in my eyes as far as aviation, it has to be him. And everybody else just helped it along."
"Up in the Air" will remain on view through Sept. 1. This weekend, the museum is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday. Admission is free. Information: 621-1154.
NAN What's Up on 07/04/2014