Phil Jones / Bonnie and Clyde

This is one of my favorite pieces from the Overland Park Convention Center. Quilted piece with slumped glass, I think it speaks for itself. Good old Phil Jones, one of the best fiber artists I’ve ever worked with. http://www.mixedbaggallery.com/fiber/pjones.htm

I have much more to discuss, but right now my kids are waiting for me to sit down and watch Bonnie and Clyde with them. I’ll return to the business of art and literature tomorrow. For the moment, I’m more interested in this pair of misguided Texas hillbillies–who my grandma once watched as they robbed a bank in Oklahoma. Actually Clyde did the robbing; Bonnie sat in the car. Truth is she never participated; just a bored Dallas gal looking for excitement in all the wrong ways. But in the end they blew her away just like him. I suspect that’s how she wanted to go. She was in love with a psychopath, and chose to die with him.

Of the course the movie has nearly nothing in common with the actual couple, and romanticizes a murderous lunatic, but it’s interesting to watch. We live near the locale of one their shootouts (Platte City, MO), on occasion race gocarts near another (Joplin, MO), and climb chat piles near a third (Picher, OK). For some reason, those two have been a part of my family’s lore since my granny saw that holdup. Because one of my great-uncles was a small-time criminal then, and because the others were capable of it had they been pushed the wrong way by the law, a lot of people on the Dorrell side felt a certain sympathy for Bonnie. Clyde? They just thought he was freaking nuts.

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