The prevalent hair color was silver among the crowd gathered in the second-floor auditorium of the Veterans Medical Center in Fayetteville last Friday afternoon.
The two-story building on the park-like campus sits just behind the marble monument dedicated to those who gave their lives in the U.S. Navy submarine service.
Dozens of men and women milled in the expansive room filled with 82 examples of various artwork created by veterans in the VA’s annual gallery show. Blue, red and white ribbons had been draped on 32 categories of created items ranging from oil paintings to woodcarvings, glasswork and even writing.
All in all, the show for me provided its own artistic impression of how creativity within the human spirit simply will not be quelled even within those who once served as warriors preserving our freedoms.
I headed off to stroll with others amid all the handiwork done by veterans from across the region. Works with first-place blue ribbons included a long-knife leather sheath embossed and stitched by Ronald Lessard Sr., and a drawing by Billy Taylor of an Ozarks stream that reminded me of Crooked Creek.
Louis Sabo had a drawing of a country “Jot ’Em Down Store” that reminded me of the little roadside groceries where my grandfather and I (as a 10-year-old) in his early model red pickup would stop on hot summer’s days for a Grape Nehi soda pop. Sabo touched my nostalgia with another winning drawing called Days Gone by of an aged barn in an overgrown Arkansas field.
Bridget Craig was a winner in color photography with her magnificently verdant shot of a wooden walkway over a marsh winding in the forest. She appropriately titled it Green Serenity because that’s exactly what it was.
James Perkin, a Vietnam Army veteran from Branson, won the blue ribbon in applied art for his swirled, colored-glass kaleidoscope etched in rope-like solder. It was a magnificent example of artwork that he said he’d created in the five days leading up to the show. “I’ve been doing this about seven years in a room off my garage,” he said, adding that he creates for the enjoyment rather than to sell his handiwork.
Michael Barnett, a 71-year-old Vietnam-era veteran and practicing barber in Siloam Springs, earned a blue ribbon for his incredibly lifelike woodcarving of a smallmouth bass hovering beneath a stump. It looked exactly like a taxidermied piece until he explained how he had meticulously carved each tiny scale on the fish’s body with his tools. He said he lost track of the hours he’d invested on this prize-winning work. “Yep, just started with a plain ol’ block of wood,” he said.
John Keary and Lyle Muetzel were among blue-ribbon winners in their respective patriotic writing categories. In his essay, Muetzel wrote: “Somehow we have lost the ability to honor the warriors without honoring the war.”
The best-of-show Judge’s Choice Award went to a large and colorful oil painting by Edward Blouin Jr. called Yellow Hand. The framed canvas depicted dozens of Native Americans celebrating in a pueblo courtyard. It also was my favorite work in a show filled with so many impressive pieces of creativity from our veterans. Oddly enough to me, in light of being the show’s overall Judge’s Choice, this astounding piece was awarded a red second-place ribbon in its category.Oh well, some mysteries of life can’t be explained.
The top award in fine arts did go to a beautiful and equally colorful painting by Billy Taylor of an Ozarks pond in autumn. Billy is obviously talented and prolific.
The blue-ribbon winners now go on to compete in the VA’s national competition held in Milwaukee. I left feeling as if I was a winner by simply experiencing so much talent and beauty.
National acclaim
I see Bella Vista was selected in one national survey as the 11th safest community in a list of the top 100. With the exception of the town’s former policeman shooting an unarmed civilian one winter’s night a few years back and the headline-grabbing municipal strife there over the years, I’d have to agree that Bella Vista indeed is a safe place to both live and retire.
In other positive news for Northwest Arkansas, Fortune magazine has named three Fortune 500 businesses as among “The World’s Most Admired Companies,” according to a release from the Northwest Arkansas Council. Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods and J.B. Hunt Transportation Services each made the magazine’s latest list of honorees.
What do you suppose it is about the nature of the people and their business practices in this little corner of America that makes their efforts so admired and celebrated? I think of others from this region (like the late Sheridan Garrison and his American Freightways and the Cavender family of Greek seasoning fame, also from Harrison) who grew their dreams into national prominence. Certainly their successes must involve a blend of diligence, integrity and powerful desire to reach for the stars within the competitive free-enterprise system, doncha imagine?
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Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected]. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.
Editorial, Pages 15 on 03/11/2014