The bead poem at Bead Box in Boone, NC.

bead box

THE BEAD
alone and complete is a prayer.
A strand of beads or fringe is a reminder to pray.
The hole in the center, a negative space
is to make us aware.
It is a balance of positive and negative
that sustains our lives each day.
To know the bead
is to understand the apex of creation.
To wear the bead
is to acknowledge the gift of life.

(This poem was behind the cash register, painted as a huge mural, at a bead store in Boone, North Carolina on King Street. The store has changed hands and the mural is now gone. I’m grateful I took a picture of it when I did, so I could share it here. I do not know the author.)

Boone, part two

But wait, there’s more! At the same time that “STUFF” was going on, there was more stuff. Some of it was recycled. Some of it was really imaginative. Some of it was really weird. But most of it made me think and wonder and see the world in a different way, and that is the purpose of art.

I apologize for the fuzzy pictures. It is a smidge dark in there.

Look – a “lawn chair”.

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Closer. Astroturf on an old metal chair. I’m pretty sure nobody has ever sat on this.
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In the same area. I don’t think it does anything except look like it does something.
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This artist has taken the old family tablecloth, with its tears and stains from years of use, and highlighted the damaged parts by embroidering them.

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Closer view of the top.
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A view of the edge.
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I don’t know what this is. I like it though. People, either jumping through the floor or falling through it. They are carved wood, and larger than life size.
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Closer.
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Behind that. Something about large photographs of areas with overlays held in front of what the area looked like a hundred years ago.
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I thought this was cool. Of course it looks better without the glare from the glass. Day for night, anyone?
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A photo of a flag being put up in Antarctica, I think. But the guy on the right is familiar…
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Oh yeah, it’s Death.
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We went down a different way to get to another floor and ended up in the service area. This wasn’t part of the regular exhibit, but I like it.
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Just the head.
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In another area. It reminds me of a mandala, but not.
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Outside the gallery, down the street, is a statue sitting on a bench. While cool looking, it takes up half of the bench so it defeats the purpose of the bench. I found out later why the flowers were there – it was in honor of Earl Scruggs, who had died recently. The statue is of him. He was born in North Carolina and was a popular bluegrass musician. When we came back to this corner there were hundreds of flowers here.
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I’m a little confused because Earl Scruggs is known for banjo, not guitar, but there you go.