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Part the first of Christopher Currie’s interview with Wells Tower can be found here.
In other interviews, you’ve talked about your stories having a ‘moral pendulum’ swinging between characters, and the importance of putting the reader slightly off-balance at the end of a story. Do think that’s more of a modern feature of a short story—the idea that the story doesn’t have to exist in a neat little world?
I suppose. Although with someone like Chekhov, he would write stories that would end at an uncertain moment. On the other side, you’ve got somebody like Roald Dahl or Somerset Maugham, where the stories are very carefully plotted out. I really enjoy reading those guys, but I have a hard time believing that everything is tidied up so neatly, without it feeling contrived. I think in the ending of a short story, the reader should be rocking back on their heels a bit. That said, a story should give a suggestion of how its inhabitants are going to wind up, where the momentum of their lives is heading at the end of the story.
I like the uncertain moment. A lot of Raymond Carver’s short stories were like that. I really like the freeze-frame, where the crockery is up in the air, and you’re waiting for something to fall. I don’t really know where I stole that impulse. I’m sure I lifted it from somebody. It never really occurred to me that I was doing something weird with my stories until people started telling me. I think my stories do have sort of “lights out” endings, where a master switch gets thrown.
The one ending in the collection that seemed different to me was in the final story [the title story, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned], those final paragraphs that talk about the balance between love and fear in a family. It was lovely, and it felt more like a summing up.
Yeah, it’s a nice bit. I like those paragraphs too. That was a pretty early story for me. It’s funny how it all felt like such simple carpentry back then. I’d written this quite grotesque story, and then I thought I’d better come up with some sort of counterweight to that so I’ll have this more heart-swollen conclusion. I just kind of riveted it on the end, but I think it kind of works.
One of the most impressive things about the book, and what has been attributed to it in other places, is this sense of it being ‘old-fashioned’ writing. I suppose what I see this as is that while you have very lean prose, you’re still not afraid of a confident simile or considered word picture.
Yes, I think my impulse is much more toward baroque sentence-craft. When I’m writing, often the first drafts are really antic, and just playing with language a lot, but then I go back and try to pare it down. I do think that with good writing, you feel the pulse of it in every sentence. There should be something exciting, gleeful, or artful in every sentence. I think when writing is too spare, it’s tedious. When you start to write like that, as a writer you stop paying attention. I think when you’re writing, you have to be incredibly invested in every word and every line of what you’re doing. When I’m writing well, I can find some sort of pleasure in every line of a story, but if I can’t, it needs work.
Sometimes I read work by writers, and you can see they’re not really thinking about how they’re putting sentences together, and I think that’s unforgivable. How can you possibly expect anybody to read your work if you’re not obsessively labouring over every word you put down? When I read work that doesn’t reflect that degree of intensity I get kind of angry.
A lot of the stories in your collection have appeared previously in other magazines and journals. Is it ever a problem working with more than one editor, say one editor at Harper’s Magazine, or The New Yorker, and another editor at your publishing house?
It really isn’t. It’s rare to find an editor at a journal or a magazine who will beat up your fiction the way they will if it is nonfiction. A piece of nonfiction gets heavily edited—the editor has his handprints on every single bit of it. A magazine’s identity is decided very much by how its features are assembled. They want a kind of continuity of product. Whereas with fiction— I’m not sure if it’s a dismissive view of fiction on the part of magazine editors, or whether it’s a case of this is a piece of art, and we need to be more respectful of the artist. I don’t intend to get anywhere near the same kind of sweeping edits with fiction that I get with nonfiction, but it’s kind of a relief when I do.
Eli Horowitz at McSweeney’s [another guest of MWF] is very meddlesome editor, in the best possible way, in that he’ll really look at a story and think what is this story about? and how can we re-arrange it? We really go through a lot of drafts, and he’s really a lot of fun to work for, even though I think every story I’ve ever done with him, I get to a point where I just think there’s no way of making this story good, so can we please just not do this. For me, the more editing the better. I really relish it.
The first story of yours I read, ‘Retreat’, was in McSweeney’s 30. It was, as I found out, the second version of the story to appear there. I was fascinated by the essay in that issue where you talked about rewriting the story from the point of view of a different character. How did that come about?
One of my big commandments in my stories is no good guys and no bad guys. The story is about two brothers who don’t get along, and they get together and go hunting. The first version of the story was told from the point of view of the younger brother, and he’s going to visit his older brother, who’s kind of a blowhard, a bit of an asshole. The younger brother shows up, and the older brother is obnoxious, and continues to be obnoxious, and at the end of it, eats a bit of rotten meat. When I went back to edit it for the short story collection, it just seemed to me like a moral and an emotional monotone: here’s this guy who’s an asshole, and who’s punished for being an asshole. I thought it would be a much more morally complicated story to tell it from the point of view of the older brother, and try to curry the reader’s sympathy for the more despicable character. It just seemed like a more interesting assignment to give myself, and a much more honest one.
So, a novel is next?
Yeah, I’ve started on that.
Have you attempted longer pieces before?
I have, but not in years. I started writing some semblance of this novel back in 2001. It’ll be exciting to do it.
How much planning are you allowing yourself to do?
I’ve got a loose plan. It’ll be a family book. I’ve got a sense of where the tensions are in this family and how things may wind up. But really, I’m going to have to just write my way into it.
Then Wells started to ask about my novel, and I switched off the tape.
To read more about Wells Tower at MWF, you can read Estelle Tang’s review of the book; Thuy Linh Nguyen’s review of Wells’ short fiction workshop; and Jabberwocky’s overview of the In Conversation session.
Christopher Currie is a writer and bookseller. You can read his thoughts and writing at www.furioushorses.com. His first novel will be published by Text Publishing in 2011.
Illustration by Chris Somerville.


The Concept-A for real, but sadly these shots prove that the production Tiguan will not get the 'suicide' rear-hinged doors seen on the concept. It also looks as if the mini-Touareg will have a fairly conventional rear end, in place of the Concept A's pick-up tailgate. The Tiguan (a name chosen by a panel of car-mag readers) is built on the Golf/Jetta/Eos platform, and is distinct from the upcoming Golf Freestyle/CrossGolf. That's going to be a Golf Plus with 4WD and raised suspension; the Tiguan will be much more of an off-roader and stand-alone model. Volkswagen intends for it to take on the Land Rover Freelander, Toyota RAV4, Nissan X-Trail and so forth. The Concept-A showcased the supercharged and turbocharged 1.4 TSI engine; besides this, higher-powered engines including the 2.0 TFSI and 2.0 TDI PD will be offered, with the choice of manual, Tiptronic and DSG transmissions plus standard 4Motion four-wheel drive. Wolkswagen is expected to launch the Tiguan at the Geneva Motor Show next spring, with right-hand drive sales starting in early 2008. Production will be at Wolfsburg, Germany.


Causes of Political Changes in India
Why is it necessary to have peace, contentment, unity and diversity in a social system? I am talking about the political system in the country named India. The political world is under a great threat by the enormously educated and enthusiastic people in the society when they realized that there is no truth and purity in the management. A revolution on fire is seen in today’s circumstances. The society is tremendously affected by the political world and hence there arise many reasons for certain changes in the political system in India.
Poverty is a great cause which has significantly shaken the political system in the society. Globally, India falls below poverty line category, which is $1.25 per person per day income. Poverty line means that they cannot meet the conditions of basic requirement of food, clothing and shelter. Their income level is so low that they cannot afford to eat on a regular basis and suffer from malnutrition. India has the second largest population in the world. Among 1.2 billion people, half belongs to poorer section of the society. The ratio of tolerable standard of living is going higher every individual year and no action has been taken by the government since long. However, economically India is doing well, but the government people are not allowing the poor people to participate in the growth. Welfare organizations run by some political leaders have never taken positive steps toward the poor people in the society. The poor people are becoming poorer and the rich people are becoming richer. The government organizes international events, spending lots of money but they never organize any kind of event for the below poverty line people to promote them in the society. Hence, these kinds of activities gradually developed an outrageous step by the young generations against the political system.
Corruption is another aspect that common people are tired of facing. It is very common in school these...
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EU leaders offered to put Brexit on hold for five years and negotiate 'new deal for Europe' - May’s effective deputy claims
EU leaders made a secret offer to put Brexit on hold for five years and negotiate a ‘new deal for Europe’ in order to try walk back Brexit, it has been claimed.
Theresa May’s effective deputy makes the claim in a BBC Panorama programme tonight which also reveals the outgoing Prime Minister’s fears that Brexit will lead to a united Ireland.
Mrs May is set to cede power to either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt next week, both of whom insist they are prepared to crash out of the EU unless changes to the Withdrawal Agreement.
But the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier says the deal, including the Irish backstop, cannot be renegotiated ahead of the next Brexit deadline of October 31.
Asked by the BBC’s Nick Robinson what would happen if the UK ‘just tore up the membership card’, Mr Barnier replied: “The UK will have to face the consequences.”
The Frenchman says Mrs May and British ministers “never” suggested they might go for a No Deal Brexit during negotiations.
When asked if she or her ministers ever said or threatened a No Deal scenario Mr Barnier said: “No, no I never listened to such a sentence. Never.”
He added: “I think that the UK side, which is well informed and competent and knows the way we work on the EU side, knew from the very beginning that we’ve never been impressed by such a threat. It’s not useful to use it”.
Mr Barnier said that the Withdrawal Agreement “is the only way to leave the EU in an orderly manner”.
“We have put in the document [the Withdrawal Agreement] with the UK - not against the UK, with the UK - the legal answers to each and every point of uncertainty created by Brexit. That is the point.”
The Secretary General of the European Commission Martin Selmayr told the same programme that he is “very certain” the UK was unprepared to leave without a deal in March 2019.
“We have seen what has been prepared on our side of the border for a hard Brexit. We don’t see the same level of preparation on the other side of the border,” he said.
Martin Selmayr also revealed that in the summer of 2018 European leaders would have welcomed a decision by the UK to reverse Brexit.
This view is backed up by David Lidington, Theresa May’s effective deputy, who says a previously unreported offer was made during a private lunch with Mr Selmayr last year.
Mr Lidington said: “Martin sort of said ‘look, why don’t we have a deal whereby we just put all this on ice for five years… Let’s see how things go, let’s get the UK involved with France and Germany, let’s see how the dust settles and let’s talk about whether we can come to a new deal for Europe’.”
When asked if he was tempted to explore the offer further, Mr Lidington said: “I said, ‘look we’ve had a referendum. Practically all of us in Parliament said we were going to accept the result of that referendum whether it went our way or not… and that matters in British democratic politics and I don’t think there can be going back on that”.
Mrs May’s Chief of Staff Gavin Barwell said that the Prime Minister was fearful that a No Deal Brexit could have precipitated the break-up of the United Kingdom, leading to a united Ireland and potentially an independent Scotland.
He spoke of a meeting in Northern Ireland in February 2019 with worried community leaders which had “a profound impression” on Mrs May.
“They all spoke incredibly powerfully about the combination of the lack of devolved government and the fear of a No Deal Brexit.
“And the two things combined and the attitudes that they were seeing in their communities and what they felt was a growing support for a change in the status of Northern Ireland which they felt would be hugely accelerated if the UK left without a deal.”
He continued: “As a unionist, that made a profound impression on the Prime Minister and I think she also feels that if that developed momentum in Northern Ireland, there could be a knock on effect then to Scotland as well.”


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Frozen Food Packages Recalled After Pesticides Found Inside
Maruha Nichiro Holdings is recalling all 90 products produced at its Aqli Foods Co. plant in Tokyo’s Gunma prefecture. The foods range from frozen pizzas to corn cream croquettes. Some samples sent back by customers contained malathion, an insecticide.
Forty-four of the products were sold at retail outlets and the company supplied the other 46 to restaurants. The amount of product being recalled is equivalent to the plant’s monthly output, the newspaper says.
There are no reports of serious illness.
Energy Manager News
- Embracing New Tech Is Key to Greater Energy Savings, Say Experts
- Johnson Controls, Hitachi Appliances Launch AC JV
- Walmart Saving Money While Driving Efficiency
- Solutions to Help Reach Building Energy Management Goals
- Advanced Fans Cut Datacenter Energy Requirements
- Renew Financial Acquires FL PACE-Lender EcoCity Partners
- Solar Canopies in Maryland, California
- Increased Demand for EVs Driving Global Battery Management System Market

domain: food


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The Diane Rehm Show (WAMU)
U.S. Policy in Iraq as Death Toll Hits 1000
As the death toll in Iraq exceeds 1000, President Bush defended his decision to go to war saying, "it was right for America then and it is right for America now." However, the rising number of casualties, including the death of 18 servicemen this week, underscore the physicaland some say politicalrisk of U.S. policy in Iraq. Ivo Daalder, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and David Frum, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, discussed the situation in Iraq and its importance in the presidential campaign.
Listen to the complete interview at wamu.org

domain: news


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BACKGROUND: High quality human biosamples with associated high quality clinical data are essential for successful translational research. Despite this, the traditional approach is for the surgeon to act as a technician in the tissue collection act. Biomarker research presents multiple challenges and the field is littered with failures. Tissue quality, poor clinical information, small sample numbers and lack of validation cohorts are just a few reasons for failure. It is clear that the surgeon involved in tissue acquisition must be fully engaged in the process of biosampling for a specific condition, as this will negate many of the issues for translational research failure due to an inadequate bioresource.
APPROACH: In this Matter for Debate paper, the Scottish Collaboration On Translational Research into Renal Cell Cancer (SCOTRRCC) is discussed as an example of a urological surgery lead bioresource which has resulted in a National collection of renal cancer tissue and blood (from over 900 patients to date), negating all of the traditional issues with biobanks because of close enagagement and acknowledgement of urologists and uropathologists from seven centres around Scotland. SCOTRRCC has leveraged renal cancer research in Scotland resulting in several high impact publications and providing a springboard for future research in this disease in Scotland and beyond.
CONCLUSIONS: The SCOTRRCC model presented here can be transferred to other surgical disciplines for success in translational research.
|Number of pages||5|
|Early online date||30 Apr 2015|
|Publication status||Published - Aug 2015|

domain: medical


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At South African homeschooling provider, Impaq, we saw our learner numbers jump by almost 60% during 2020 and 2021 as lockdowns forced many families to live, work and learn from home. Today, we have over 30,000 registered learners.
Now that we’re shifting to a ‘new normal’, the demand for homeschooling is naturally changing, especially with all schools returning to full timetables.
However, this period has fundamentally reshaped the homeschooling landscape in three ways, which I’ll outline below.
Prior to the pandemic, the perceptions of homeschooling were that it was an ‘outlier’ in our education landscape, typically for families who go against the grain of conventional schooling.
The reality, though, has always been more complicated. Homeschooling has always been a good fit for those living in far-flung areas, for children who pursue professional sports or even families who travel a lot. Historically, homeschooling has also appealed to those looking for more individualised attention.
When the pandemic hit, all families had to become familiar with homeschooling. As a result, perceptions changed with many realising that homeschooling works for them.
As a result, the pre-pandemic stereotypes of homeschooling don’t hold sway any longer, and more South Africans are open to the concept of this form of education.
Greater regulation and legislation of both the homeschooling and online schooling spaces in South Africa is another factor that could spur on growth. This is because increased oversight will result in more trust.
In this regard, there are two areas to watch: the Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Bill and the government’s online or virtual schooling draft framework.
The BELA Bill is set to place higher expectations on how homeschooling operates in South Africa by placing a greater emphasis, for example, on the need for learners to follow a curriculum equivalent to the national curriculum. Other requirements of the BELA Bill include that parents will need to submit proof of end-of-phase results (for Grades 3,6 and 9), and that these results must be signed off by a competent assessor.
Amid these changes, we can expect more providers to emerge who will need to meet these requirements.
With the draft framework for online schooling in the works, this is also expected to place requirements on online school providers to be registered with the Department of Basic Education. Again, this will engender greater trust and transparency.
During the pandemic, we also saw the rise of a number of local online schools in South Africa, marking an evolution in the homeschooling space.
It’s important to note that even though both online schooling and homeschooling fall within the distance learning realm, the methods of teaching can be quite different.
Homeschooling is more self-directed, with parents or guardians taking on the role of teaching subjects to their children, allowing learners the flexibility to study at their own time, at their own pace.
Online schooling is different insofar as it is like a traditional school, but in a virtual sense. Your child is placed in a ‘class’ where they interact with the same children and teachers, just in a virtual setting. Timetables are fixed and qualified teachers guide learners through their work. The teachers ensure that learners are on track and give regular feedback to parents. There is also collaboration among learners as they do group work.
Online schooling is in its early phases, but with advances in technology, we can expect it to grow and, in turn, provide a spotlight on homeschooling as well.
All in all, these three trends could be the key drivers for homeschooling and online education in a post-pandemic world.
There’s no doubt that education has irrevocably been changed for the better during this time, as it’s adapted and advanced in ways we could only have dreamed of before.


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BCCT plans to write a summary on cordyceps mushroom, one of several medicinal mushrooms. While our summary is in development, you can visit About Herbs: Cordyceps
In his Moss Reports (purchase required), Ralph Moss, PhD. discusses sources of cordyceps: Select from the list of cancers down the left side of the page for a report describing uses of conventional, complementary, alternative and integrative therapies related to that cancer. Ralph Moss is among the most knowledgeable and balanced researchers of integrative cancer therapies. The cost of his Moss Reports is not negligible, but many patients find them of considerable value. Moss is also available for consultations.
The About Herbs summary for cordyceps reports that in an animal study, this mushroom was associated with growth of progenitor red blood cells. Therefore, cordyceps shouldn’t be used in myelogenous types of cancers, such as myelogenous leukemia. Cordyceps is, however, used with other types of leukemia.
Cordyceps has additive effects with hypoglycemics/insulin as well as anticoagulant/antiplatelet drugs. Consult with your physician and pharmacist before taking cordyceps.
BCCT does not recommend therapies or doses, but only provides information for patients and providers to consider as part of a complete treatment plan. Patients should discuss therapies with their physicians, as contraindications, interactions and side effects must be evaluated.
Dosage recommendations are available from these sources:
- Your Health Solution: Leukemia Supplement Recommendations
- Natural Medicines Database (requires purchase)
Integrative Programs, Protocols and Medical Systems
|For more information about programs and protocols, see our Integrative Programs and Protocols page.|
- Programs and protocols
- Block program: core diet plan: using cordyceps extract as a supplement1
- Lemole, Mehta & McKee protocols: leukemia2
- Traditional systems
Paul Stamets advises using mushroom products that contain both the water and alcohol extractions, since each contain different medicinally important compounds.3
Integrative oncologist Keith Block, MD, advises using extracts (rather than eating whole mushrooms) that are blends of several different medicinal mushrooms, including maitake (Grifola frondosa), agaricus (Agaricus blazeii), shiitake (Lentinula or Lentinus edodes), reishi (Ganoderma lucidum), turkey tail (Trametes or Coriolus versicolor), and caterpillar fungus or cordyceps (Cordyceps sinensis).4
- Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center: About Herbs, Botanicals and Other Products
- Keith I. Block, MD: Life over Cancer: The Block Center Program for Integrative Cancer Treatment
- Editors: Iris F. F. Benzie and Sissi Wachtel-Galor: Herbal Medicine, 2nd Edition: Biomolecular and Clinical Aspects
- Lone Star Medical Group: Natural Alternative Treatments
- Therapeutic Research Center: Natural Medicines Database


Hong Kong is to pay new parents more than $2,500 for having a baby in a bid to boost its flagging birth rate, but many residents in the notoriously expensive city say it’s barely enough to cover a month’s rent.
Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu announced the move during his annual policy address on Wednesday, saying there would be a handout of HK$20,000 ($2,556) to the parents of each baby born from now until 2026 in an effort to lift the city’s “persistently low birth rate” – which has plunged to a record low of 0.9 births per woman, well below the 2.1 needed to ensure a stable population.
“Childbearing is a major life decision involving many considerations,” Lee said as he unveiled a series of financial measures that also included a move to slash home buyers’ stamp duty from 15% to 7.5%.
The handout comes on top of existing tax incentives for new parents, who receive annual tax deductions for each child, with an extra deduction for newborns.
While the handout might seem generous, it falls short of some of the incentives on offer in other countries in East Asia also struggling with low birth rates.
Singapore (birth rate: 1.05) offers a $8,036 handout for both the first and second child and $9,497 for the third child, alongside four weeks of paternity leave (up to 16 weeks for maternity), unpaid infant care leave and tax relief for working mothers.
South Korea (birth rate 0.78) currently hands out $518 per month until the child reaches one year old, with that figure expected to rise to $740 next year.
In Japan (birth rate 1.3), parents get a monthly allowance of $107 dollars for each newborn until two years of age. For each child between three years old and senior high, parents get $66.7 per month.
1 month’s rent, 3 months’ nursery
“It can’t even cover one month of my mortgage, as well as the gas and electricity bills,” said Ken Lau, a father of one who is contemplating a second child, shortly after the measure was announced.
“How about one handout per year?” said Kristy Chan, a mother with one daughter who said the move would do little to change her mind about having a second child.
According to Midland Realty, a real estate agency in Hong Kong, the average monthly rent for a 500-square-foot flat with two bedrooms in the city is about $2,253 this year, which would gobble up more than 90% of the cash the government is going to hand out.
With home prices among the most expensive in the world (a flat of similar size can easily fetch up to $1.3 million), high interest rates and rising living expenses for products like infant formula and diapers, many couples feel too burdened to contemplate having babies.
“For those who know how to do the maths, they know this is not working,” Lau said.
Full-time mother Kim Yeung, who has made up her mind not to have a second child, says the handout would cover roughly three months’ nursery fees for her 2-year-old son, based on the average cost of $766. Top nurseries can cost more than double that, she added.
Hong Kong subsidizes education from kindergarten to senior high, but nursery, the year or two before kindergarten, is not usually covered.
In Hong Kong and other Chinese cities it is also common to hire a confinement nanny (or “pui yuet”) for the first month to cook meals and do chores while the new mother is recovering from giving birth. Again, the government payout wouldn’t go far.
“Hiring a confinement nanny would have already cost the entirety of $2,556,” Yeung said.
The bigger picture
Professor Paul Yip Siu-fai, who studies population health at the University of Hong Kong, said a one-off cash handout wouldn’t address parents’ longer term financial concerns.
“There are three parts to consider when giving birth to a child, that is, the actual part of giving birth, then raising them, and then educating them,” he said.
He said Hong Kong needed to do more to help parents in the second two stages, such as encouraging parent-friendly office environments that, for instance, offer flexible shift patterns.
“Childbirth should not just be a matter for the parents. It should be a responsibility shared by society,” Yip said.
Sze Lai-shan, deputy director of the Society for Community Organization, a NGO that serves some of the city’s poorest, said many people on lower incomes faced an impossible choice as they could not afford childcare but also could not afford to take time off work to look after their child.
The Hong Kong government also pledged to speed up access to public housing for families with children and bump up the capacity of public child care services, though Sze said this was not enough.
She called on the government to provide housing allowances as well as subsidies for nurseries to make daytime childcare services more accessible.
Lau, the father of one, agreed, urging the government also to extend paternity and maternity leave.
“For those who want to give birth, they are not doing it because of HK$20,000. And for those who see financial conditions as a hurdle, they are not going to change their mind just because of HK$20,000,” he said.
“The government should be thinking about how to convince [us] that Hong Kong is conducive to child-raising,” Lau said.


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I think it was in 2014, 2013 maybe, that I joined the Muleshoe Art Association. I don’t paint, but photography is considered an art form these days, so I joined and also entered their annual spring art show. This year that show will be held the week of April 9th at AimBank, so this seemed like a good time to look at the 61-year history of the organization.
Unfortunately, the people who were instrumental in getting the group established are gone now, but I have pieced together a little bit of history, one of the main facts being that the club was organized in 1957 by Blanche Lenderson. I was told she was the driving force that got things started. It was her desire that the association promote creative arts in Muleshoe and the surrounding area by means of exhibitions, lectures, and classes in art and other crafts, and to elevate the level of art appreciation in the community.
Because of her dedication to the cause, it is thought that she served as the first president of the group and probably held that position for more than one year, but that detail has been lost. The first yearbook was compiled for the 1964-65 membership period, and Kitty Moss was listed as serving as president at that time.
in 1961 the association had the pleasure of hosting/sponsoring an art class in Muleshoe once a week for a school semester taught by Dr. Emilio Caballero who was an art professor at the time at West Texas State University (now West Texas A&M University) in Canyon. This no doubt generated more interest in art in general and gave credibility to the value of the association as Muleshoe historically has been home to many talented artists who also chose to be members of the association. Women like founding members or members of long standing like Blanche Lenderson, Kitty Moss, Marie Lenau, Dana Arnold, Mildred Williams, Inez Bobo, Arline Phelps, Olabelle Rennels, Vere Fox, Matilda Slemmons, Melzine Elliott, Marie White, Cecile Foster. Frances Stegall, Velma Davis, and perhaps others whose names I was not able to find.
In the early days, the group held meetings once a month at 2 p.m., just like now. The meeting place hopped around a bit, bouncing from the Muleshoe State Bank meeting room to Bailey County Electric, members’ homes, the Girl Scout Hut when Nelda Merriott was a member, eventually landing in the meeting room of the Muleshoe Public Library where they now hold their monthly meetings on the first Tuesday of every month at, yes, 2 p.m..
Over the years the art association has been blessed with programs and demonstrations from a wide variety of artists not only from Muleshoe but also from Lubbock, Amarillo, Canyon, Olton, Hereford, Friona, Sudan, Levelland, Plainview, Morton, as well as from Taos and Clovis, New Mexico. Artists from those same towns have also joined as members and even entered the Muleshoe juried art show like the one coming up April 9th.
An example of the diversity of programs the association offers came from Kate Holt from Cannon AFB, Clovis, NM, pictured below, who gave the program on March 7, 2017, and treated members to an interesting and different look at photography by manipulating shutter speed, aperture, and use of color to create unusual effects in photographic images.
Membership in the art association has had its ups and downs throughout the years since its inception, but interest and participation in any club or group tends to experience highs and lows over time. Membership now, in 2018, stands at 30, but just like the first president, Blanche Lenderson, current president Martha Hunnicutt is on a mission to stimulate interest and appreciation in art in Muleshoe and in the process perhaps gain new members. Under her leadership, the club is now offering a scholarship to a graduating Muleshoe senior interested in pursuing a career in fine arts, graphic art, art education, anything connected to artistic endeavors. Also under her leadership, the association is now a registered non-profit organization and created a Friends of Muleshoe Art Association which allows the group to pursue other ways to promote artistic projects and offer opportunities for involvement in art in the Muleshoe area.
If you enjoy seeing fine art or would like to enter a piece of your work, come to the spring art show the week of April 9th. You don’t have to be a member to enter, and just about all mediums are accepted: oil, acrylic, watercolor, drawing, photography, even something that might come under the heading of miscellaneous. There is also a category for student art.
So if you are an artist or just appreciate good art or would like to learn more about art, consider a visit to one of the meetings and see if you might like to get involved as a member. An organization with a 61-year history must surely have something to offer.
Thanks to Sandra Chancey, Magann Rennels, Marilyn Riley, and Ann Johnson for helping me ferret out the information for this article.

domain: hobby


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Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust has integrated GP Connect with its EPR, improving access to patient records for authorised health and care professionals.
A pilot from Person Centred Software, OneLondon and NHS London Region Digital Social Care is connecting care homes to the London Care Record.
Our latest roundup features Wellola’s patient communication platform going live in Birmingham and The Christie NHS Foundation Trust deploying CardMedic.
Warrington and Halton has integrated its Dedalus EPR with GP Connect to make sharing information easier and give clinical staff access to GP data.
GP Connect enables clinicians in community, mental health and acute trusts to access primary care data on their patients.
The winning project at the Summer Schools NHS Hack Day demonstrated how a tool for accessing GP records can be replaced with a free NHS alternative.
In the second part of a two-part look ahead to 2017, Digital Health News asked some UK digital health leaders for their predictions for the year to come.
Company says the sign-off will open the door to more digital tools for patients.