Sarasota Chalk Festival -- in Venice

For the past couple of years, my friend Carolyn Hamilton has urged me to check out the Sarasota Chalk Festival.  The timing never seemed to work, though.  Happily, I finally made it this year -- and it was even easier to get there with the Festival's move to Venice.  (Confusingly, it's still called the Sarasota Chalk Festival.  Founder Denise Kowal explained that the enthusiasm of the Venice City Council for this community event was one reason for the move.The name "Sarasota Chalk Festival" was retained, however, because it's a world-recognized event, and they didn't want the Festival to lose its global audience. In addition, the Venice Art Center hosts its own--much smaller--chalk festival each year.) 

Each year the Festival has a theme, and this year it was Extinct and Endangered Species.  The main event at the Festival was an attempt (which was successful) to secure a new Guinness World Record for the largest work of pavement art.  With Venice being the shark tooth capital of the world, the centerpiece of the work was a Megaladon shark with is jaws open just waiting for lunch.  Kurt Wenner, the innovator of 3D pavement art, designed the 18,900 square foot work.  Its medium is tempera, which is semi-permanent.  More than 125 local, national and international artists spent 12 days creating the work on a runway at Venice Municipal Airport.  We were told that communication was the biggest issue in the work's creation but that "art is a universal language."  The results were pretty cool. 

I went to the Festival with my friends Susan and Steve, and the airport was our first stop.  We arrived early on the first day of the Festival and waited in line to climb the viewing tower.   We snapped some shots from the platform and then Susan and I climbed down and, after making a small donation, casually strolled into the shark's mouth for our photo opp.  (Disappointingly, the pictures are only available in hard copy, so I couldn't include our "Jaws" moment here.)  Shown here is my photo of the work.  (The small person on the left hand side of the photo will give you a sense of scale.  The work was 42' wide and 450' long.) 

From there we took a shuttle into downtown Venice where two other venues awaited us.  Because it was the first morning of the Festival, many of the artists creating more traditional 12' x12' works and smaller 3D paintings were just getting started.  It was interesting to watch the artists' different techniques for sketching their designs.  One guy had drawn his work on a piece of paper with tiny little holes in the outline.  The paper was laid on the pavement, and he transferred the design to the pavement by hitting the ground with a sock filled with blue chalk.  (I'm quite sure there's a more artful way of describing this technique, which he attributed to Michalangelo.)  Some artists drew by hand on the pavement.  Still others worked standing with chalk at the end of a long device.  (One artist shared that she had used a curtain rod for her extension.) 

Once the design was sketched, the artists got to work filling them in.  As you can see, it's dirty work, but everyone seemed to be having a great time.  One of the unique things about the Festival is that anyone who registers can create a piece of pavement art.  In fact, there were designated areas for students and kids to create art.  Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to check this out because we were there on a school day.  (Having said that, Ms. Kowal said that 90% of the world's best known chalk artists were participating in the Festival.) 

The final section of the Festival included larger 3D works and works being done on plywood.  (FYI, the plywood works would be characterized as "street art" which, Ms. Kowal explained, tends to be vertical.) These artists had gotten a head start on their work, so there was more actual art to see here.  Of course, it is difficult to appreciate 3D art when you are standing next to it.  Festival organizers have thought of everything, though, and different techniques for viewing 3D art were available. My favorite was a lens that you could swivel around to get a 360 degree view of the work. Definitely more effective than standing on tippy-toes and aiming your camera for a shot. 

There's lots more to say about chalk art in general and the Sarasota Chalk Festival specifically, but I'll save that for next year.   Thanks to Carolyn for getting the Festival on my radar screen! 

Musical Chairs

Last year Maestro Raffaele Ponti and the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra initiated a "musical chairs" program for young musicians in our community.  Local students were invited to attend a symphony rehearsal and sit with "their" instrument's section.  It's a wonderful way for kids to get an earful of what their instrument sounds like in the hands of a professional musician--and a great way to build the audience of the future.

This year the musical chairs program has been extended to adults in the community.  The best part is that non-musicians--like me--have the chance to participate.  Last month I listened attentively to a talk the Maestro gave entitled "The Psychology of Music: What Instrument are You?"  He asked us to think about the personality traits he attributed to the musicians who play particular instruments. Then he invited us to come to a rehearsal of the CSO for its first concert of the season and to sit with the musicians whose personalities most resemble our own.  Score!

Bright and early last Saturday morning, I nestled in next to the timpani in the back row of the orchestra.  In his talk, the Maestro said that percussionists spend their lives thinking about things they can bang, scrape or pluck and that they tend to be quirky, fun and patient.  While I can't say that's how I would describe myself, I often find myself smiling at the percussionists' contribution to a concert. And so percussion it was for me.  (I note that Raffaele's description does seem to fit timpanist Fred Eckler like a glove.  When I asked how he came to play percussion, he shared that he went to a performance by a sound effects guy at Radio City when he was six years old.  "I fell in love with noise," he said.) 

The first thing that struck me from my seat on the stage was how loud it was when the musicians were warming up.  Once the Maestro was ready to start, concertmaster Stewart Kitts stood and said, "Let's tune."  With that, Raffaele took his position at the podium, greeted the musicians (about half of whom were new to the CSO), and announced that the morning rehearsal would focus on Dvorak's Symphony No. 7.   He raised his arms and they were off.

What a treat it was to be able to really see the way the Maestro interacts with his musicians.  I was struck by the crispness of his arm movements and the multitude of expressions that crossed his face.  At one point he put his fingers to his lips as if shushing a small child.  Other times he almost danced. The orchestra played the piece once through without much in the way of interruption.  Then it was time to mold the performance to fit the Maestro's interpretation of the music.

Maestro Ponti commented that he wanted the opening notes to create a sense of mystery, singing the melody to make his point.  At one juncture he said to the violins, "Take your panic out of this rhythm and let it relax."  When they arrived at the third movement, he announced, "Now for a little Czech dancing."  He asked the winds for "a little more soul" and the strings to "give it a bit of air."  When they reached the rousing finale, a section that Dvorak had labeled "poco animato," Raffaele exhorted the musicians to "take the poco out."  They played fast and furiously and with the passion of people doing something they love.

During the break, Raffaele chatted with us about his approach to rehearsals.  He works first on the "architecture" of the music, then on the tempo and nuances.  He doesn't play it safe, pushing the musicians to play at the tempo he wants in the performance.  There's no time to work up to it really, with rehearsals starting on Saturday for the Sunday evening concert.  He talked about the challenge of convincing the musicians that his interpretation is best.  (A couple of times he asked the musicians to forget about the recordings of the music they had heard.) 

Then it was back to work, with the musical chairs participants now listening from the audience.  There's no doubt I have a greater appreciation of what goes into the performance having had the chance to sit amidst the musicians.   And having identified myself with the percussion section, I will now be rooting for the CSO to perform works that require lots of banging, scraping and plucking.

The CSO intends to offer more opportunities for community members to get up close and personal with the symphony in this way.  If you get an invite, jump on it.  It's an experience you won't soon forget.   

Touring South Beach's Art Deco District

I never thought I'd be one of those tourists getting off a bus and gawking at the sites around me.  And yet I found myself doing just that last week when I went with a group from the Visual Arts Center to South Beach to tour the Art Deco district.  The event was part of our 2014 Fine Arts Festival entitled "Sensuality Meets Symmetry: Art Nouveau to Art Deco."  (Art Deco being, of course, the "symmetry" part of the equation.)  It was a blast. 

The moment we rolled into town, I knew I wasn't in Kansas any more.  Latin music blared all around us.  Beautiful young people strolled the streets (many wearing swimsuits -- and we're not just talking the women).  Restaurants beckoned from every nook and cranny.  And then there was the gorgeous Art Deco architecture we were there to see.

We started at the Miami Design Preservation League's Art Deco Welcome Center right on Ocean Avenue (and just steps from the beach). Our tour guide, Maureen, gave us an overview before we started the tour proper.  I never knew that Miami Beach had no beach when it was first developed.  It was just mangroves and water.  So all of South Beach is man made (as, Maureen aptly pointed out, are many of the women's bodies!) Or that during WWII, the Army Air Corps rented the hotels on Ocean Avenue to house more than 500,000 cadets who came through the training program there. (The local golf courses were turned into landing strips for the training exercises.) 

The information came at us fast and furiously as we walked around Ocean Avenue.  Our first stop was Beach Patrol Headquarters built by Robert Taylor in 1934.  It's a terrific example of Nautical Art Deco, with porthole style windows, a captain's bridge, piped railings and curved air vents.  Before the MDPL built its headquarters between Ocean Avenue and Beach Patrol Headquarters, it apparently looked like an ocean liner that had run aground.  (I'm not sure why that was an appealing design style!)

The Congress Hotel is still in business and is now comprised of four separate buildings with different architectural styles. The original building is straight up Art Deco, with its ziggurat (step down) details and "frozen fountain" reliefs.  Other Art Deco features include "eyebrows" over its windows and many geometric patterns.

Maureen explained a bit about what it means for a building to have a historical designation.  "The facade is all," she said.  Preservationists realized early on that the Art Deco district needed to thrive economically in order to survive. And so while owners of historic buildings are required to keep the exteriors as they were originally constructed (with repairs made using authentic materials), they have the freedom to do whatever they want in the inside.  As a result, you might stand across the street admiring a perfectly restored Art Deco building and then wander in to find decor like this tropical beauty.

While South Beach is known for its Art Deco, there are other styles of architecture there as well.  This Mediterranean Revival home is the third most photographed residence in the United States (after the White House and Graceland).  But it's not the Moorish influences found in this building that create its fame.  It was here that designer Gianni Versace was gunned down in 1997.  The building was sold in 2013 for $41.5 million and made into a luxury hotel.  There are bouncers at the door to make sure you don't get any further than the entryway without a reservation.  (If you're interested in seeing some photos of the interior, check out this article from the New York Daily News.)

The Miami Design Preservation League guides did a wonderful job sharing a bit of South Beach history with our group.  I feel like I've just scratched the surface, though.  In addition to the Art Deco tour we enjoyed, MDPL offers self-guided Art Deco tours, guided MiMo tours (MiMo being Miami Modern) and even a South Beach for Foodies tour.  And of course they host the annual Art Deco week-end, which will be held next year from January 16-18.  As our favorite former governor of California would say, "I'll be back." 

Tragedy Through the Eyes of Children

There's no shortage of novels about WWII.  But trust me when I say that "All the Light You Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr is one WWII story you don't want to miss.  Once again, I listened to this book on audio.  And once again, I longed to have the book in my hands within the equivalent of the opening pages.  Doerr's writing is incredibly beautiful and poignant and captures a time when world events overtook the plans that people had for their lives.

The book begins with an introduction to our two main characters. The year is 1944.   Marie-Laure is a blind 16 year old French girl.  She is is alone in a house in Breton with Allied bombs exploding on the streets outside.  Werner is an 18 year old German boy who has been conscripted into the Reich.  He too is in Breton and is also caught in the bombing.

From there the story weaves back and forth between the two young people's lives over the previous ten years.  We learn that Marie-Laure is a motherless girl who lost her sight when she was six years old.  The bond between Marie-Laure and her father is touching beyond words as he teaches her to navigate the world around her.  He carves a miniature version of their neighborhood in Paris with details like benches and storm drains to help her learn the streets.  He encourages her curiosity and cultivates her independence.

Werner and his sister Jutta are orphans who lives in Children's House in a German village.  Their mother is long dead and their father died working in the mines.  The reader is told that, "As long as the mines have been in existence, they have made orphans."

Through a series of events, Werner learns that he has a talent for repairing radios.  He and Jutta listen to broadcasts from far away places as Jutta dreams of Paris and Werner dreams of the world of science.  His talent becomes known to those in the Nazi high command.  Although Werner is not a Hitler youth, he is faced with a choice of going to work in the mines or going to an elite school to hone his skills in service of his country.

"All the Sight We Cannot See" tells of the difficult choices people are forced to make in a time of war.  There are acts of bravery, large and small.  There are moments of happiness and moments of great sadness.  Doerr's handling of his characters and their relationships has catapulted this book to the top of my list of favorite reads.   Don't miss it.

Julie Lamana also uses a child as her narrator in the young adult book "Upside Down in the Middle of Nowhere,"  When we first meet Armani, she is on the cusp of her tenth birthday in the ninth ward of New Orleans.  Armani and her family are also on the cusp of a devastating experience:  Hurricane Katrina.

I loved the way that Lamana let us into Armani's world.  We learn that Armani "always liked the way Saturday mornings smelled" because that was the day her mother baked pies.  And that one of her favorite pastimes is "the business of swinging" on the front porch swing with her grandmother.  It's an innocent world that is about to change forever.

Once Katrina hits, both New Orleans and Armani's life becomes a free-for-all.  The family climbs into the attic to get away from the "wall of churning black water" that bears down on their home when the levee breaches.  From there Armani and her family listen as "the sound of everything we called home [was] washed away."  And that's the easy part. 

Lamana does not shelter Armani and her family from the horrors residents of New Orleans experienced during and after Katrina.  There's more death and destruction than any child should have to see.  Ultimately, though, the book has a sense of hope and optimism that reflects the resilience of New Orleans itself.