I found the artist who painted the rug!

His name is Antonio Santín @antoniosantin_

I’m sure it would be no surprise to learn that his paintings are labor intensive & time consuming!

As mentioned earlier, this was displayed in the museum cafe, Oil on Linen, which recently opened.

I have seen, and possibly shared, work by Sanford Biggers before… because how could I not? I’d love to see an entire show of his work.

There are a few other pieces from our museum visit that I’ll share in the next day or two.

I had a lovely day of rest(-ish) yesterday, and now it’s time to catch up with everything!!

After visiting the Kemper on Sunday morning, Kate & I drove out to Lawrence, KS, to visit The Yarn Barn of Kansas. It’s not actually in a barn. It’s right on Main Street in downtown Lawrence — a really cute downtown, even more special with all the holiday lights & decorations.

I had a couple of yarn shops in the KC area on my radar, but I am starting to feel anxious about the size of my stash and don’t feel good about buying yarn just because. They had a little offering from local dyers, but otherwise it was pretty “regular” yarn… and there wasn’t quite as much as I’d expected.

Kate found some, though, for a cowl that she wants to knit. So YAY!

If you’re a weaver or a spinner, though… WOW, this is the place for you!! I’ve never seen so many looms & wheels in one place before in my life, not to mention the materials.

We’re home! It was about 12 hours door-to-door today — a lovely day for a drive.

That’s the view from an interesting rest area in Iowa — somewhere between Des Moines & Dubuque.

We visited the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art today. They’re celebrating their 30th anniversary. We saw some amazing art, most of which I will share later…

We almost always enjoy stopping at a museum cafe (and gift shop), and Oil on Linen at the Kemper did not disappoint. The cafe staff & service were great (we enjoyed a cocktail, eggplant dip, smoked fish rillette, and a frittata (half of which we’ll be enjoying for breakfast tomorrow). And we each found a little something at the gift shop.

For most of the work exhibited in the museum, there were cards indicating the artist, title, medium, etc.

This work, in the cafe, didn’t have obvious information. Fine, I thought, I’ll just use Google Image Search (as I’ve been doing for a number of things lately, including the IOOF gravesite markers) to find out what it’s called & who the artist is.

But this piece, about the size of an actual rug (8×10 of so) turned up nothing but actual rugs! It’s really incredible. I’ll track it down & share it again when I post the rest.

Meanwhile, we’re packing up and departing for home early tomorrow morning — after a lovely frittata breakfast.

We did some shopping today, but the real highlight was barbecue for lunch! Jack Stack Barbecue was amazing… we could tell it was going to be good just watching the steady stream of people arriving. We started with burnt ends (pork & beef), I carried on with chicken, and Kate had baby back ribs. We didn’t need it, of course, but we shared some carrot cake for dessert — we’re on a little vacation, after all.

I didn’t take any photos today, so here are a few from yesterday’s cemetery visits.

I am familiar with the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) marker, found at the grave of Isaac Wall Graham (though I’m not certain it’s his).

There were a couple of markers at the grave of C.B. & Mary E. (Graham) Sutton that were unfamiliar to me.

F.L.T. = Freedom, Love, and Truth, which is what the three links stand for at the top of the marker. It denotes association with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF).

I thought this one was quite lovely. It denotes a member of The Rebekahs — an organization that began as the women’s auxiliary of the IOOF. I believe that both men & women can now be Odd Fellows.