kabloona47

I like just about everything and every subject in whatever media. Including -

WHAT I LIKE -

Any Zetti art/theme

Tribal

Wild animals and safari animals

Horses, Vintage and otherwise (but not My Little Pony)

Gear for horses, saddles, bridles, misc. tack

Tools of all types for whatever purpose

Earth colors and neutral, faded colors.

Old barn red

Vintage dogs, toads and frogs

Fairies and fairy tales

Magic and Chemistry, Alchemy

Numbers and calculations

Tarot

American Indians and the gear, clothes, etc

Buggies and anthing that is pulled by man or animals

Exotic Birds

Funny looking birds

Bowls and pottery

Abstract art

Art that is done - In the style of _________(Picasso or other artist or designer)

Masks

Tatoo art

People charactors

THESE I DON'T LIKE -

Japanese manga and anima

Holiday themes

Too cute - like Teddy Bears, Little Children, and Babies, Baby animals

Hero art - like Superman, etc and most comic characters

Postcard beautiful - like sunrises and sunsets on a tropical island with the well known single palm tree - ugh!

No Barbie, unless evil

Wow - Where to start, you will be sure to beg for mercy before it is all over.

THE SHORT BACK STORY

IN THE BEGINNING

My mother and father grew up together in Oxford, MS and were childhood sweethearts. My mother’s father was a state senator and the bursar for Ole Miss. My father’s father was a pharmacist, but died when my father was only three, so my father’s mother took the appointment of Dean of Women at Ole Miss. My mother attended Ole Miss while my father went on to West Point and later Harvard. While at West Point, my father made the second string for a number of Olympic events. They were married in New York in "The Little Church Around the Corner", right after my father graduated from West Point and they would enjoy a happy marriage well into their 80's when they passed away within 2 years of each other.

MARRIAGE

My first husband, Frank Windham, worked in the Engineering Department at the University of Mississippi, in the Computer Center and taught classes. Frank was killed in 1969 in a small plane crash coming back from a job for the University, at LSU. I had been working for and continued to work at Pinedale, Jerry Gafford’s farm West of Oxford. I was the manager for the property where horses were boarded and I gave riding lessons, until Calvin L Johnson (who farmed and trained race horses) and I married in August of 1970 (I was 23 and Calvin was 45).

APPLE HILL ARABIANS

We built up our Apple Hill Arabian horse farm on the ranch that Calvin had purchased following his service in WWII. The farm was located near the Panola county line in Lafayette county in the Orwood Community. The old church and school were still there and a few of the older homes. Next door to us was the Jackson House where the only doctor for miles around lived at the time of the Yellow Fever Epidemic, circa 1850s/60s (and his relatives continued to live on there, but there are none are left there now). Our home which had already been built well prior to that, probably around the 1830s, had had a detached kitchen, which the doctor used as a hospital site during the time of the Yellow Fever epidemic. The kitchen was later burned down. A log smoke house constructed in 1809 was right outside our back door. Elsewhere on the farm there was also a log corn crib from those early years.

SOME EARLY DAYS

Calvin’s mother died in 1970 in the rest home in Oxford. She was Tennessee Missouri Johnson and had had 11 children of which Calvin was the second youngest. At the time that we were first married, there was only one faucet for cold water in the house, in the kitchen. There were no indoor bathroom facilities as Calvin and his mother had not wanted them, so the outhouse served it's usual purpose, you made hot water on the gas stove, and the shower was a garden hose on a nail in the well house (that well water was wonderful to drink!). Calvin did drag an old watering trough up on the back porch where I could use it to bath, but Calvin’s friends would drive up around the house and get a surprise. I don’t remember when Calvin built the bathroom on the back porch, but after that it would be a very long time before we would ever turn our attention back to any domestic improvements. All our efforts would be toward collecting good breeding stock and building barns, etc.

THE BEST HORSES

After looking at horses and researching bloodlines for the type of Arabians we wanted for a breeding program, we found our once in a lifetime opportunity through the Straight Egyptian stallion Ansata El Nisr. We first saw him at age three. We collected related mares and were finally able to purchase him after two years of breeding to him and building a relationship with the Alexanders who had purchased him as a weanling from the breeders, Don and Judith Forbis.

ANSATA EL NISR

Ansata El Nisr put our breeding program on the fast track to breeding Champion Halter and Performance horses and provided us with the “look” in our stock that attracted buyers both, on a personal level to our horses and vision, and as an investment to people who wanted a way into the show ring, as well as breeders and trainers. In the beginning Calvin and I were able to travel to horse shows together, as we had a neighbor who was willing and able to care for the horses while we were gone. Many potential customers responded to the fact that we bred, trained and showed our own horses. When they came to the farm they also saw that it was a two person operation and that meant something to them also. When we lost the neighbor that would keep body and soul together for the farm when we traveled to a show, we had to show with just one of us off the farm at a time.

ANSATA EL NISR - NATIONAL TOP TEN

I had been following a lifelong study of Dressage Riding (which had started in Germany when our family was stationed there with the US Army) with some of my other stallions in the seventies and eighties, but when Ansata El Nisr won National Top Ten in 1978 in Kentucky, my focus for us had to remain on him and our breeding program. We pushed our breeding lines into some nearly forgotten breeding programs with the most excellent results. But we still did not have a Straight Egyptian mare of our very own. We were finally able to buy the mare Sarita RSI at about two years of age. And with other owners of Straight Egyptian mares that were being bred to Ansata El Nisr, his blood was getting more secure within the Straight Egyptian breeding programs. To reach a better geological position from which he (Ansata El Niser) would have more access to other breeders he went on lease to Tobruk Farm in TN. Over the years Ansata El Nisr’s stud fee had risen from $500 dollars, to $1,500, to $5,000 and finally to $10,000 dollars per mare.

APPLE HILL AZAL

While Ansata El Nisr was the corner stone of the farm breeding program our other stallions contributed too. Apple Hill Azal, was my personal High School and Dressage stallion. He and I often performed for the public and he was also busy producing daughters that were a great cross for Ansata El Nisr. Azal, who had a following of his own, was winning Halter Championships and was shown in Western pleasure. He was also the father to excellent performance horses that were especially beloved by their owners. We did well in the Arabian Horse business. We finally got our Pure Egyptian mare for $15,000 and were selling our own colts for $10,000, fillies for $20.000, and mature horses for as high as $70,000. Our bloodlines are still notable in Arabian Horse Breeding programs.

FINE HORSES OF THE PAST

Some times I forget - that long before I could afford fine Purbred Arabian Horses, I had many honest and talented horses that served as great mounts. There was Little Man and July Black-Out, bred by Jerre Hoar. On these horses I, with women my age who were a little horse crazy too, acted out various horse adventures and dreams. My Appy stud, Pokerchip, and a 5-gaited Half-Arab mare, Temejin - what a smooth ride! And there were others.

ODDS AND ENDS

We had built first a stallion barn, then a mare barn and finally an indoor riding arena, most of these long before we looked to our own household needs. The horses always came first. In the beginning I used an old electric and hand crank wringer washer to do the laundry. And hung the wash on a clothes line between two trees. One day I put down my foot and declared that all the laundry was going to the laundry mat in town. Sometime in the later seventies we inherited a used washer and dryer from my parents. Finally as the years passed the old house was clad in vinyl siding and central heat and air replaced first a window fan and then a single window air conditioner. The horses, their care and housing continued to come first. Occasionally, during those years, I did animal pastel portraits (I had studied the pastel media and animal portraits in Germany), usually for around $250 to $350. My heart was beginning to want more art in my life. Art was a gift from my mother, as she was an art teacher and a student of art all her life.

CHINESE SHAR-PEI

In the 80s, I saw my first Chinese Shar-Pei dog at a horse show and nothing would hold me back, I just had to have some. So rare and highly priced were these dogs that I had to trade some Arabian horses to a breeder in Texas for a few of these dogs. I was off and running and for the next 12 or so years I also bred, trained, showed and sold Chinese Shar-Pei. Most of my dog activities I shared with a good dog friend and breeder, Cathy Elmore in TN. We traveled to look at dogs, to breed to certain stud dogs and went to dog shows together. My first two years of breeding and sales paid in one lump sum for a new van. My dogs were successful in the show ring.

ART - PRINTMAKING

I went into the art program at Ole Miss about 1985 for a BFA in Printmaking. So all under one roof, I had University classes, dog, and horse duties and expenses all trying to dip into whatever time and funds were there. Once I started in the MFA graduate program, I taught printmaking, perspective drawing, basic design and intro to art as graduate teacher. Graduate student teachers are not directed in any way in their teaching. You get to pick your own books and come up with your own curricula, but on the flip side you have to buy your own chalk and buy or make your own props! I thought I wanted to teach and went to one interview at the Community college that I had attended in the 1960s. I was not comfortable with the students, in fact I was glad to get out of there alive! (They very wisely hired a hardened High School teacher.) So, I decided not to teach below the University level – but I also knew that would mean no teaching - as you have to have a sterling show, publication, and project filled resume to get a University appointment. I had a good show record including a number of one person shows, invitational, and juried shows, including group shows in Canada and Australia.

UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI EMPLOYMENT LAW SCHOOL/LAW LIBRARY

I went to work at the UM Law Library in 1992/93 (while I finished my MFA thesis), as a night clerk, where I stayed in that position until one year later when the assistant to the director of the Law Library died one weekend and he asked me to become the assistant. I didn’t want to, but he gave me more money, a big new office and new paint and said that I could create my own job. That was OK and I started making brochures, creating library displays for the big glass display cases in the Law Library and the entry to the Law School and I also began teaching myself html code. I was the “go to” person for anything about art and the web. I designed and ran the Law School web site and was the second person to be named Web Master at the University. After somewhat of a little scuffle with the University my title was changed to Web Master, Graphic Designer, and Assistant to the Director of the Law Library. What a hoot! I have to say, it was rather a scandal when it was all said and done. In 1996 Anne M. Klingen (with a Law Degree and Library Masters) came to work at the Law Library as a new Librarian. We both had a taste for all things computer. She left the Law Library and moved on to work under the Director of Outreach and became the Director of Ole Miss Online and Independent Study in 2001.

OLE MISS ONLINE

Anne brought me on into Ole Miss Online as a Technology Specialist and Course Designer. Another big office, furniture that I picked out, new paint, a new computer that I ordered, color printer, a thousand dollar chair, and almost triple my salary. I stayed there for the next approximately 11 years until I retired Jan. 31, 2010. Moving from a totally self employed person (Arabian horse farm), to a free flying artist, to a confined employee in a system was something that would take a final toll on me. I did it for 17 + years and it came to a stopping point when I felt that I was not at peak performance for a full 8 hour day. My health suffered

SPECIAL DOGS

I had a cur dog while we lived in Japan, but his name escapes me. My greatest dog loves were Kelly, my first dog just for me, a terrier/beagle mix who went from Indiana to Germany and Europe and back to the USA with us (15 years), Baby Guppie, our Pit Bull who traveled all over the horse country with me and was like a child to both Calvin and me ( she lived to 16) and then there was Ching (Chinese Shar-Pei), who won numerous championships, who I called Tiny who got bloat, and then finally Cavity (Chinese Shar-Pei). I trained him in obedience and agility, but he liked agility best as well as the show ring and left me far too soon with mass cell cancer. He won Championships and his offspring were ribbon winners at a young age. I have tons of dog photos and horse photos and film (all by my 35mm camera, the old way, plus Super 8 and VHS) but for the most part I have very little idea of who is who in those photos. I could kick myself for not labeling them.

GENEALOGY

And because I am now involved with the family genealogy studies, which my parents had started, I would like to kick my long gone relatives who failed to label all the old photos that I have to sift through. My mother was D.A.R. – Daughters of the American Revolution and because she belonged, I am legal too, but I have not joined yet. Both of my parents belonged to many historical societies. We also decend from Charlemagne and the Prophet Muhammad, and many other greats. Hey, don't we all, because we all come from somewhere, from some people. Still it is a very interesting journey to dig back into the generations.

THE RISE OF THE TOADS

As of our sale of the farm in Orwood and the move to Bruce in 2006. we have no horses or dogs. All I have now are two Toads and one Tree Frog. Two toads, Buffo Guttatas, males, appx.6 years old. They are Wally and The Beaver – from the old TV show, “Leave it to Beaver”. Plus, I have one tree frog named Pipett. I have about 5,000 digital photos of my various frogs and toads. I got my first frog, “Pipi”, an African Clawed Frog, about 1997. Clawed Frogs live in the water but breathe air. My collection grew to about 13 individuals of seven or so “breeds”. I love my toads like nothing else. They are amazing. My first toads were the pair Jake and Elwood (the Blues Brothers) and before Elwood passed away I got Wally and the Beaver. I can’t begin to tell you how cute and sweet they are. How intelligent and trainable they are. All I have left now are Wally and the Beaver – I could write volumes on them, but I will hold back. Plus, I just bought a tree frog, Pipett. A pretty bright blue/green “Dumpy Tree Frog” ( common name) that I have already trained to open her mouth to take supplements.

PEN AND INK

I have written a number of things, including a children’s (but also adult) book, “Judge Elwood (one of my toads) and the Case of the Blue Caterpillars”. The book itself is all written, it is the drawings that I am working on now. There is another general audience book called “Crone” it is a kind of a Harry Potter thing – I am about 6 or 7 chapters into it. I also have a short 12 scene (four sections to a page) comic, called My Toady.

STUFF I LIKE

My favorite fiction book of all time is A Confederacy of Dunces and non-fiction is The Drowned and the Saved (about the WWII concentration camps, which was also my BFA thesis) by Primo Levi. My MFA thesis was titled Kabloona (which means White Man) about Eskimos and their life with ice. Movies, “Bridge over the River Kwai”, “Far North”, "The Big Blue", Charley Chan and other old blk/whites, Sherlock Holmes. etc. Others – have to add more later.