Day 3: Kansas City

Day 3: Kansas City (NCECA)

After another night of short sleep, we awake to the alarm at 6:30 in order to be able to meet the bus at the Marriott by 8am (now there's an early start)

Breakfast at Reserve and the usual four people are there along with eight who clearly are attending the NCECA conference. We get our usual order in before the "crowd" and then stumble up to the Marriott, $27.

Many on our tour could be misidentified as residents!

THB is lucky to escape the first stop: the Epsten Gallery is part of a "retirement" center, Village Center. Fortunately they don't have a four digit code and the gallery is on the first floor. There are three large installations in a very small space, and as usual our group has added a few bodies (and hopefully they all got back on the bus).

The Nerman's house

What all the other houses in the hood look like

Our next stop is a return visit to the younger Nerman's house, a repeat visit of three years ago. Sue gives the tour and at the end lets on that house is really just a large (very large) gallery for the art, she and Lewis live in another house a few blocks away. The art is stunning (no pics allowed): Kiefer, Yayoi, Puryear, Frey, Johns, and on and on.

After a 40 minute ride, we're at the JCCC (yep, an extra 'c'); another community college with a great art collection. THB's two favorite pieces from three years ago are still in place, and still special:

THB and DB now own two by the same Chris Brown 

On to Lawrence KS and two stops on the KU campus (including an Indian veg lunch!):

The next visit is at a collector's 1880s Victorian house, complete with a fabulous Kaneko (Jun's work is pretty much everywhere around here, his huge studio is in Omaha).

John Geldersma, we have a 12' "spirit pole" by him in the loft

In town, we visit the Lawrence Art Center and see a Susan Beiner wall installation (we visited her house/studio on the Phoenix trip) and work by Jason  Walker, who is on our tour as a guest for the day.

A short jog and we're at the Free State Brewery to see some hand-made growlers with decals...some of the group manages to get down a local brewski in record time (not THB, he wants to stay awake for some reason).

Another brief stop at Bracker's Good Earth Clays; Anne Bracker, along with being a major supplier to ceramicists, has also been very active in bringing NCECA to KC.

Back to the Ambassador for a brief rest and then they shuttle us to Arthur Bryant's BBQ. THB and DB have discussed eating here for over 40 years. Either our taste in BBQ has changed (possible) or Bryant's version has slipped. Ribs, burnt ends, sausage, fries, cole slaw, two Boulevard pale ales, $40.

The shuttle takes us to the Convention Center for the keynote by Liz Lerman. Turns out to be a group training session on how to give and receive critiques. Takes THB back to his corporate bullshit days and also back to the hotel before participating in role playing.

Not Liz, she came out a bit later...THB was in the second row!