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.

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)

We are spending the weekend at the estate of a friend on Cape Cod. My wife and her friend are both active in the greater Boston amateur chamber music community and every June we come here along with two dozen other musicians - plus a few non-playing spouses such as me - for weekend of wonderful music and food in a gorgeous beachfront setting. The house is large enough that we can have a piano quintet in the living room plus various string quartets, trios, or sextets scattered among the other rooms.

I’m not a very happy camper this weekend because I have a painful contact ulcer on my larynx and my doctor wants me to rest my voice. But how can I in such a social atmosphere, and especially given that I normally have an atomic-powered motormouth? So I’m being very bad about obeying doctor’s orders, and I’m paying the price in throat pain and delayed healing. I suppose there’s something karmic about the fact that it hurts for me to talk, since for years it’s often hurt to listen to me!

This is a bad setting to disobey doctors’ orders. I’ve never encountered any pastime that attracts so many physicians as chamber music. We may have a half-dozen doctors in the house right now. Recently at a workshop my wife, a pianist, was playing a quartet and all the string players were doctors. And when it’s not doctors, it’s professors, Harvard or MIT deans, business owners, research scientists, and other high achievers who seem to be attracted to chamber music. Why? Lots of hobbies attract their share of learned people but I’ve never seen such a concentration as I’ve seen in chamber music. It makes for wonderfully stimulating conversation at social gatherings and the average chamber music sextet abandoned on a desert island could probably re-create civilization.

To avoid talking I’ve banished myself, with my laptop, to the far corner of the vast pool room, while string ensembles play Brahms and Beethoven at the other end. The weather outside is bright and the yachts in the harbor gleam in the sunlight. In fact, the yacht club is supplying my internet connection, since they rent wireless access to visiting boats for a very modest fee and for their purposes right now I’m a yacht.

Here, in my lonely corner, I’ve been doing my little bit to stop the war in Iraq : I’ve created a parody of the movie poster for “The Endless Summer”, called “The Endless War”. And for more proof that this contact ulcer hasn’t shut me up, a couple of days ago I made my first YouTube video - . it’s just cutesy little woodland creatures around my office park set to music by Rossini. I just did it as a practice exercise for a new camcorder and video editing software I bought recently but that’s a topic for another day.