Jeri's World

The Sillies  &  Beverly George      Approaching  the brick two-story house on Sundance Lane built just three blocks from my own home in this vanishing North Texas prairie, I see an odd little lady perched on a bench outside the front door. She wears a turquoise house dress. Way too much blue eye shadow. And her "oh" shaped mouth is painted a deep red as she peers out at the neighborhood over a newsletter with the printed words "Corona Virus". Silly Nosy Rhona   spys on   her  neighbors over the  Covid  News .     My daughter once lived in this same house. My third grandchild was born in this house. I like to walk past it remembering all the happy times we had here. The cheerful laughter, the happy birthday parties, the touch of those tiny little hands and hiding Easter eggs under that frail little tree... which I now see has been trimmed into a thriving shrub. Also in this too-long-neglected front yard someone has planted a splashy group of gladiolus.       Once

Never build a car wash above a neighborhood duck pond. Learned today that building a self-serve car wash + vacuum station directly above a neighborhood duck pond is a really bad idea. And while outside I realized that this is probably the best spring ever in North Texas. It's tropical. It rains or sprinkles at least twice a week with tepid temps. Plants are growing strong and healthy without human touch. And families are growing healthier with more human touch.  E ating healthier stuff cooked at home,  spending more time together. Learning to appreciate the real basic necessities like toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Parents who didn't already know it are finally discovering that school teachers and caretakers are severely underpaid and underappreciated. Has anyone else noticed how clean the air smells ? Less cars on the roads results in fewer greenhouse gases. Emissions from c ars and trucks contribute one-fifth of the United States' total global warming p

Meet Stormie Parker. As a ceramic artist, Stormie Parker is an often overlooked small business owner who, due to the nature of her work, will receive nothing from the forthcoming stimulus package. But Parker like all entrepreneurs has a product to sell so she needs to get that product into the marketplace. Her work is not "essential" in the big scheme of things. Her market is closed until some date in the unforeseeable future. It takes Parker months to prepare for a show, her latest is a one-artist show entitled  Endangered Americas. It has been set up at the Fort Worth Stockyards' Artes de la Rosa Cultural Center for the Arts, Rose Marine Theater. And is ready for a viewing that isn't going to happen except in this video. Watch as artists Stormie Parker and Bernardo Vallarino discuss  Endangered Americas .

I open with a story... No, this is more of an experience than a story. It might take a while to share this experience. But with the COVID-19 lurking outside most of us have some extra time on our hands. I introduce you to two artists whom my husband, Kelly, and I met on the beach in Corpus Christi. Their names are Cora Rose and Jose Luis Vilchez. They are traveling 30,000 miles in a Funky painted bus labeled Art We There Yet . Because Kelly and I drove the scenic route to Corpus on Hwy 77 through Waco, Rockdale and Victoria, where the churches are almost built one atop another, I had in mind that the occupants of this odd bus were on some sort of religious pilgrimage; That they were parked on the beach passing out pamphlets and saving souls. I personally was having my own communion with Nature, on the beach in Corpus Christi, surrounded by sand, sea and so many beautiful birds all trying to get our attention. So at first site of the bus, we just walked on passed. Later bac

Jose Vilchez and Cora Rose Parked the Art We There Yet  bus on the beach in Corpus  Christi for three days in March . This is about two artists heading south in a funky old school bus, to Mexico and beyond. It sounds like another counterculture icon of the 60’s; the educated white middleclass western youth with sufficient leisure time to focus attention on social movements. But visual artist Jose Luis Vilchez and musician, songwriter Cora Rose don’t exactly fit those stereotypes. Rose is a country girl from rural Southwest Wisconsin. Vilchez is a Nicaraguan immigrate and recent U.S. Citizen. They’re both over 30, with college degrees and yes, this latest venture is a movement in the sense that they are moving southward to address conventional social norms of the 21 st century such as: increased poverty, lack of school funding, and economic inequality. The venture christened, Art We There Yet Is a four-year, 30,000 mile journey through 23 countries of North, Ce