It took two and a half hours to drive to Kansas City from Springfield, MO.  Being an Easterner, I find myself marveling at the space between cities out here.  New York City is  only an hour and half away from Philly on a good day.

My destination was the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art.  IT WAS FABULOUS!  Outside I was greeted by this shuttlecock sculpture by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen.  Apparently there are four around the grounds.  These are the largest shuttlecocks in the world according to Atlas Obscura.

Inside, galleries surrounded a courtyard.

So many beautiful works of art to engage with….I’ll post a few that caught my attention.

The figure on the left was painted and exhibited in a Paris Salon in 1905 by Kees van Dongen.  A shocked critic labelled van Dongen and like painters such as Matisse– “Les Fauves” which translates to “the wild beasts.” Thus the movement of painting was named Fauvism.

The one on the right, The Record Player,  was painted in 1939 by german painter, Karl Hofer.  Two years prior, Hitler called modern painters degenerates. Hofer’s paintings were taken; he lost his teaching job and was told he could no longer paint.  But this painting shows, he painted anyway.

Two American artists painted the above in the 1950’s. Richard Diebenkorn (left) mixes realism with abstraction finding striking light in Interior with a Book.  Yasuo Kuniyoshi (right) titled his painting, My Fate is in Your Hands.  I love his color, shapes and fantasy.

After visiting the museum, I drove 270 miles west to Hays, Kansas.  I stopped at Salina to walk their main drag.  The temperature was in the high 90’s so not too many folk were out.  I stopped for handmade ice cream to cool me off.

Mostly I enjoyed the change of the landscape as I drove.  Subtle.  Farms of various kinds for miles.  Prairie and undulating hills changed to windfarms and small oil pumps.  Then flat flat flat and big open sky.

Finally, the hotel.  Time to stop this motion for the night.