pnArt

As both an artist and buyer of art, few activities are more delightful to me than a good open studios or art walk.  Throw in live music and a nice June afternoon and I’m the happiest camper you ever met.

Sunday my wife and I attended the annual Beacon Hill Art Walk in Boston.  It had everything: art, music, sun, June.  Plus Porta-Potties -  no art event is complete without bathrooms.

In preparing for this blog entry I wanted to research similar events throughout New England.   But it’s impossible because there are so many of them!  

Boston alone hosts at least a dozen such events including this one along with open studios in the South End, Jamaica Plain, Fort Point, East Boston, and others throughout the calendar year.   In Cambridge, Somerville, Newton, Brookline, and on outward blossom countless more.   In Lowell we’ve had open studio and similar events for years, thanks to the efforts of some now defunct local arts magazines, artists’ groups such as the Arts League of Lowell and the Western Ave Studios, and various local civic organizations.

When my wife and I travel to Vermont and Maine in the summer and fall most years we seldom manage to get back home without spending some time at some local open studios we pass on the way.   This cottage industry seems to be growing so fast it makes Web 2.0 look pokey.

The Beacon Hill Art Walk has been going for 19 years.  It’s just on the Boston Side of the Salt and Pepper bridge over the Charles River.    The artwork, and the artists, are tucked into all the little alleys and courtyards and interior gardens that surprise and deflight visitors who, from a distance, only see solid brick residencies in that neighborhood.   And for artists who couldn’t claim a garden or courtyard for their work, tents and stalls were set up on sidewalks, in the Vilna Shul, and even under the elevated Red Line tracks.

The sheer artistic eclecticism of the Art Walk was amazing.  I think I saw every medium and style I’ve ever heard of, not to mention a few new ones.   The artists were all happy to describe their methods and techniques and I took notes in case I get the itch to try a few new things myself.    The quality was variable, but generally high.  Some of the artists were clearly professional and others were talented amateurs.    The prices were lower than what I would have expected at a show of this caliber.

One thing that sets the Beacon Hill Art Walk apart from others of its ilk is the music.   -  5 chamber ensembles - 2 string quartets, a string trio, a flute ensemble, and a string quintet.  Plus two klezmer bands, fiddle music, guitar music, Armenian music, Greek music, and native American flute!    This is due to the efforts of Ivy Turner, the Art Walk’s music coordinator and the very talented musicians who donate their time.   Musical art and visual art go together so well that I don’t know why all such events don’t do this.

(Disclaimer:  I’m not in an artist’s co-op and I have no position on House 3686 – “AN ACT RELATIVE TO ELIGIBILITY FOR COOPERATIVE HOUSING CORPORATIONS” )

Recently Arts League of Lowell members received a missive from Artists Under The Dome (AUD) regarding a piece of state legislation deemed by them to be a threat to artists’ co-ops, exhorting Massachusetts artists to take a stand against this legislation. But the message didn’t explain what the threat was; instead it provided a link to the bill. I read the bill but couldn’t figure out the issue so I emailed AUD.

I told them they should have spelled it out for those of us not following this topic or who are not skilled at reading legislative language. I suggested that they should have had the message reviewed by someone familiar with communicating with the general public.

I received a response from the organization assuring me that it had been reviewed by their lawyer and political advisor. I pointed out that those people were, no doubt, familiar with the issue and with reading legislatese so they were not good choices for assessing whether the rest of us could “get it”.

In response the AUD contact said the most remarkable thing I’ve ever heard in a political discussion: “Again thank you for taking the time to email - if you gave me your phone number I would tell you WHY we sent out what we did due to legal reasons- which can not be put in writing.”

Now, silly me, I was under the impression that one reason why we have free speech in the US is so we can discuss political matters. And that opinions about the merits or lack thereof of legislation is not only protected speech, but encouraged. Yet here we have an organization allegedly representing Massachusetts artists in the rough and tumble world of Beacon Hill politics that doesn’t even have the courage of their convictions to put in writing why they object to a bill! They say they’re going to bat for us but apparently their attorney has advised them to take a base on balls because if they swing the bat they might hit something!

Imagine if historical figures felt that way -   “We don’t like the Stamp Act but on the advice of our attorneys we can’t say why” or “Slavery doesn’t agree with me but my lawyer says I shouldn’t get too specific about it”.

The Cowardly Lion reflected:

What makes a King out of a slave?

What makes the flag on the mast to wave?

What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist or the dusky dusk?

What makes the muskrat guard his musk?

. . . Good questions. Just don’t ask Artists Under The Dome.

Classical music in America has been getting grayer and grayer.     Although my wife and I are in our 50’s we sometimes feel like the youth brigade at traditional classical concerts in Greater Boston.   Audiences are moving away to retirement destinations, or just plain dying off and the old composers are not attracting enough young listeners.

The Boston Chamber Music Society, which we’ve subscribed to for many years, was recently forced to end its Friday evening concerts at Jordan Hall and fall back on a single Sunday evening concert at the Sanders Theater.   A few years ago, sensing their decline, the BCMS issued a questionnaire to their subscribers asking for advice.   My wife and I suggested expanding their program material to include more modern and living composers and composers from broader cultural traditions.

Apparently we were out-voted because the program didn’t change.  In the years we’ve attended their concerts we’ve heard every major piece written by Brahms, Dvořák, Beethoven, et al.   Many times.   The BCMS ensemble is second-to-none in their skill and command of this repertoire, and the music is beautiful, but really, enough is enough.

And yet . . . and yet, even as old listeners are dying off, young people are being drawn to the richness and subtlety of this music and are redrawing the map of the music to include the whole world.   The New England Conservatory and NPR produce a weekly radio program, From The Top, featuring jaw-dropping talent from teenagers across the US performing both traditional and contemporary classical music.   The host of the show, Christopher O’Riley, also gives solo piano concerts, and we attended one in West Palm Beach recently where he interspersed 19th century classical works with his own arrangements of songs by RadioHead.

And around the world small ensembles are gaining audiences and acclaim by widening the box.  One of our favorites is the Boston trio, Triple Helix who gave a marvelous concert recently in Groton featuring works by Shostakovich, Bright Sheng, and Piazzolla.

Last night we attended a concert by the Chameleon Arts Ensemble at the Goethe Institut in Boston.   The building is in a residential neighborhood on Beacon Street and the auditorium there is a long narrow hall apparently carved out of several living rooms or dining rooms in a row.  It features intricate rococo plaster reliefs on all the walls and ceilings, and the floor is flat so only the front rows have a good view.

And it was sweatingly hot.   But the reason why it was hot was because it was packed.   The seats were filled and more people were seated or standing on the sides or in the doorways.   And for the first time in years of classical concerts, my wife and I were among the older people in the room.  I never thought it would feel so good to feel old!

The concert was excellent and eclectic.   Starting with Schumann’s opus 73 fantasy, it included Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel, the world premiere of Zhikr: Songs of Longing by Shirish Korde, (featuring soprano Elizabeth Keusch), Takemitsu’s Rain Spell, and Faure’s opus 45 piano quartet.

In terms of sheer technical virtuosity Chameleon is very good but not quite on the same plane as the BCMS.   But they make up for this by not being on the same plain as BCMS either -  the program and their performance of it was fresh, exciting and courageous.  On Spiegel im Spiegel, which has become a minor hit recently in the classical world, the instruments are left naked and exposed, especially the clarinet, so they have to be perfect.  Were they?  No, but somehow it didn’t matter and I was completely absorbed by the music.

The hit of the evening was the Korde, and the composer was there to receive the warm, enthusiastic response from the audience.   The piece uses 7 instrumentalists and a singer, and features extensive percussion plus a harp.   It’s a fresh and engaging work with African, Indian, and western flavors reflecting Korde’s own personal background.  When I got home I tried to find him on Rhapsody; I failed but any composer who makes me want to hear more has succeeded at something.

So classical music has a future after all, and I’ve found it in a long, hot, narrow room in Boston.

Drawing down the moon is an exercise always fraught.  Urban sophisticates in city parks with their schematic designs never know how close to the other world they may tread on spring evenings when the rumble of thunder and the strike of lightning are all it takes to awaken the sleeping spirit in the art.

My wife and I arrived at Harmony Park shortly before 8 this evening.  The Revolving Museum in Lowell Massachusetts had advertised a “Full Moon Celebration” in the “Harmonic Center of the Universe”, which this evening was located in this old industrial city northwest of Boston.  Food, music, and a 30-foot lighted sculpture by artists Chris Harvey, Olivia Robinson, and Jesse Stiles were on offer.

When we arrived we saw a softly glowing orb elevated on a tripod in a small urban park.  Below it the acolytes and supplicants, worshipers and mere visitors quietly milled about.   There was conversation and laughter, and food for sale at tables set up nearby.  A chorus was about to take the stage in a corner of the park.

But something was wrong.  A drop of rain on my cheek.   A flash of light in the sky.  A boom of thunder – and then another.    The chorus stood on stage.  They sang briefly.  This was just the magic the elements had been waiting for.   The deluge was instant.  The air itself became water – everyone ran for the nearest cover; food vendors desperately tried to protect their wares, umbrellas popped open and were quickly caught by the wind; shouts mingled with thunder and the roar of pelting raindrops -  my wife and I found shelter in an apartment doorway with a dozen other refugees -  looking around the park we saw under every tree and in every doorway huddled masses yearning to be dry.

And then it happened.   The orb came to life.   Some animus, some libido, some creature spirit had been awakened by the tempest.    The soft glowing electric lights that illuminated it before had been dashed to blackness by the storm, but now something new, or perhaps very old, was energizing it.  The orb rose and changed shape; it thrashed and tore at its tethers, it became a beast, a tentacled creature, some sort of jellyfish or octopus at home in this suddenly aquatic world that had driven away the humans.

It roared and danced and postured and threatened us from atop its tripod, trying to break free while sodden knots of people cowered under their trees or in their tiny alcoves.

After some time of this the violence of  the storm gave way to a light rain.   We emerged from our shelter to bid goodbye to some of the others before heading to our car.    As we did we glanced at the creature on the tripod.  It was limp now, but every so often we saw a ripple or a gesture to remind us that it wasn’t dead -  only resting.

(Orb schematic copyright Revolving Museum and respective artists; storm image copyright Peter Nelson)

It’s been preternaturally warm this fall.    Today is in the 80’s and at my house we haven’t seen any temperature below 40F.

“Preternaturally warm” is one of those hackneyed quasi-literary phrases that’s supposed to mark me as an educated writer, and inform you that you’re reading something of substance.  More often it just signifies that the author has spent too much time with genre horror fiction.

But I like “preternaturally”.  It’s derived from the Latin -  “praeter naturam“ meaning “beyond or exceeding natural”, and it comes from a respectable family:  in theological law, especially among Catholic scholars, “praeter” finds several other uses.

Praeter intentionem - “outside the moral intention” - doing something harmful in the course of doing something morally neutral or good.

Praeter legem - outside the law  - not regulated or specified by the law  (not to be confused with contra legem - “against the law”)

Praeter ordinem - outside the normal order of things.

As a gardener I’ve watched the growing season grow over the last 40 years.   I can reliably plant crops now that would have died of frostbite before yielding any fruit when I was a teenager.   Yet I have far less time in the fall and winter to work on my fences and terraces and chop trees in my woods without worrying about ticks, because we have such a late freeze and early thaw.

Watching this trend over decades of gardening convinces me that this is not just Al Gore blowing hot air.   Studies at UMass and UNH confirm my personal observations that this is a real warming pattern and not some brief meterological condition.  When I was born the atmosphere had 300 ppm of carbon dioxide; in Ben Franklin’s time it had 276 ppm; today it has 385 ppm and the best scientific evidence points to man’s role in this.   So is it  praeter intentionem,  praeter legem, or praeter ordinem?  Or is it all three?

I cooked several gallons of butternut squash soup this weekend.   Some was consumed by musicians visiting us and most of the rest was frozen for future lunches.   On Saturday the AMC Mountains and Music committee descended on our house to throw a party honoring my wife who just finished her tenure as committee chair.  They brought all the food, drink, and desserts, and even supplied real dishes, glasses and silverware.   My wife is a little embarrassed at the attention but I enjoy any opportunity to party with musicians.

I’m in Rock City – that’s Rock City the bookstore and café, in Rockland Maine. Last year it was called the Second Read, but nothing else has changed. It’s still the classic used bookstore and coffeehouse with little tables upfront where all the local bohemians and a few out-of-state ones such as yours truly, sit and write, sipping fair traded Nicaraguan coffee and espresso and munching cakes and pies and brownies. Latter-day Hemingways prefer caffeine and a sugar high to wine, and laptops to pen and paper, but little else has changed. Glancing around at people’s LCD screens I can see the four line stanzas and double-spaced text that reveals poems and stories in progress.

My own project is postcard poetry. I’ve signed up to write poems on postcards – one a week – and to send each poem to someone on a list of other poets sharing this project. There are over a hundred of us signed up.

I first heard about this from Brent Allard, the exalted leader of Poets Unbound, my poetry group in Nashua. Brent had the inspiration of making his own postcards from photos he took. I take photos – see some at my other website, pnArt.com. So I’ve gathered together a selection of photos that I think will work as 4×6 postcards, and don’t have so much nudity that I’ll get arrested by the Postal authorities.

This is fun but lately I’ve wondered if I should be aiming higher. One of our friends just won a MacArthur “genius” grant for his work in helping veterans overcome the trauma of war. There’s nothing like this to make you ask yourself what the hell you’ve been doing with your life.

And why am I in Maine, just now? My wife is attending a chamber music workshop sponsored by the Bay Area Chamber Concerts in Rockport, and I’m tagging along. They spend the day getting coached and practicing and I sit at Rock City, writing, or visiting galleries and museums along the coast. In the evenings I socialize with them. I love hanging out with the chamber musicians. I remain convinced that there is no better company – no category or class of people more convivial, stimulating, interesting, and just plain nice, than chamber musicians. I have no idea why this seems to be true. Does it have something to do with so many of them being doctors? Like so many other chamber music gatherings, this weekend’s workshop could pass as an AMA convention. (and by the way, the McArthur genius mentioned above is usually part of this crowd, and he’s a doctor!)

We’ve had our first class. Major Jackson runs a tight ship – an economic but effective few minutes of lecture and then a well-structured sequence of readings of each student’s work, followed by a carefully-timed period of discussion. He doesn’t like us to say anything about the poem before reading it so several discussions devolved into speculation about what the poet meant or intended, even as the poet sat there observing. This may seem odd but it’s useful to see all the different ways that certain words or lines can be interpreted by a reader, and I now think this is how all workshops should be run.

We’ve been given an assignment for the week, and since the class runs 9-noon, I went to Pepe’s on the waterfront for a veggie-burger lunch with bacon and onions, 2 Guinesses, and a bowl of clam chowder to fuel my writing. The assignment involves anaphora plus some other strictures and by applying them to a poem I’ve been struggling with for a year, I think I’ve not only finished the assignment but greatly improved the poem. We’ll see. (It’s funny how putting limits and rules on art and poetry can help make them better – as though telling someone who’s sautéing onions that he must do it while spinning plates in the air because this will improve his cooking.)

I love Provincetown, but let’s get the gay thing out of the way. Several of my friends at work couldn’t help but comment on it when I told them I was spending a week here.

I’ve seen P-Town described as a “gay Disneyland” and a “gay Mecca”. I can imagine a gay Disneyland, and frankly it would probably be an improvement. But what about Mecca? Let’s face it: Islam is a religion famous for separating men and women. In most Islamic societies they live in two different worlds, the women among the women and the men among the men. You can’t tell me that some of these men don’t occasionally cast knowing and longing glances at each other and I assume some of the women do likewise. Unfortunately the punishment in Saudi Arabia for this is death, although sometimes they show ‘mercy’ and merely whip the lovers in public.  Other Islamic nations follow suit -  Iran has executed 4000 gays and lesbians, according to Human Rights Watch and Pakistan is apt to stone them.

So there you have it: Provincetown and Mecca - They both have sand and sun, but Provincetown has great galleries, restaurants, sunsets, nightlife, street life, and human rights.  And it’s also more romantic for heterosexuals. – I’ve never been anyplace where I’ve seen so many straight couples holding hands in public!

Ever since I dispatched the woodchucks some of the zucchini plants have started to recover and two of them have produced new fruit. The others became horribly infected from their mauling and are dying in a mass of brown, curling decay.

Meanwhile we’re having our best raspberry and blueberry year ever, and yesterday I harvested enough blueberries to bake up a batch of muffins, using a Jane Brody recipe, for my wife and two musicians from Canada who were staying with us. Today I drove to Provincetown for a poetry workshop while my wife and our two guests went to Wellesley College for a music workshop.

I’m staying at the Carpe Diem Guest House, which is actually a charming cluster of Provincetown houses joined in the back by delighful gardens, and only a block from the Fine Arts Work Center where my classes are held. All the rooms are named after writers – I’m in the Jean Cocteau room and, ironically, there’s nothing in it resembling a desk to sit at and write, so I’ve piled chair cushions on the floor and I’m sitting on them with my computer on a coffee table writing this. Unfortunately the arrangement is less than ergonomic so this entry will be short.

Tonight we had a brief wine-and-cheese orientation for the Fine Arts Work Center where students in all the writing and visual arts classes for this week met and mingled. This was followed by a half-hour mini-class for my poetry workshop, where we met the instructor, Major Jackson, and learned a little bit about our fellow students. I had first heard about Major Jackson in a Radio Open Source interview over the winter and signed up for the workshop on that basis.

Peterography is almost here!

This blog will be a construction site for a week or two as dumptrucks and cranes and road graders rattle and scrape across it, and walls and jersey barriers and scaffolding appear one day and disappear the next. There will be dust and debris everywhere and the noise will be deafening.

In a few weeks the construction activity will settle down to just an occasional industrial accident but the noise will still be deafening.