Artist Dates, Week 27 ~ A Little Music and a Lot of Moon

On Friday, March 18th, and Saturday, March 19th I sat outside in my backyard with a bottle of wine, and camera in hand waiting for the moon to rise.  Sometimes it's just the simpliest things that bring you the most joy.

March 18th Moon

March 19th Supermoon

On Saturday afternoon I went over to the Fine Art & Wine Fest Fest in Fountain Hills and listened for awhile to guitarist Eric Hansen.  A little music and a lot of moon does wonders for your heart and soul.

Only the heart knows how

to find what is precious.

FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Artist Dates, Week 27 ~ I Heart Scottsdale

I started out my week of Artist Dates going on Saturday to the Scottsdale Arts Festival.  I got there around 1:00pm and had to park about five blocks away.   Between the Old Town Farmer's Market, the Giant Spring Training game, and the Art Fest...let's just say parking was a BITCH!

I spent the entire day there, so parking a little further away was not going to hinder my day.  I walked the entire Art Fest, then sat and listened to music for awhile...had a little lunch...then went to see the new exhibits at SMoCA...walked around a little more...went to see the Haikou: China Sister Cities art exhibit of painting and sculpture art at the Civic Center Library.

I walked around some more because I love seeing new artists and there were quite a few here at the Scottsdale Art Fest.  Then I went over to the Camera Obscura exhibit. Camera obscura means ‘dark room.’ Functioning much like an early camera, the device projects images of the surrounding Festival into room-sized, darkened chambers.  It was pretty cool.

Then I ended my day by listening to Marmalade Skies playing Beatles tunes.  The most impressive thing was an artist was painting during the concert pictures of the Beatles.  You could not tell what he was painting for about ten minutes, then all of a sudden you could tell the first painting was of John Lennon, and the second painting was George Harrison.  Pretty cool stuff.  Do I date myself with saying "Cool."





My second Artist Date of the week was going to the Scottsdale Desert Stages Theater to see A Raisin in the Sun.   This was one of the most extraordinary performances I have seen in awhile.  The cast was perfect.  I brought a friend from Chicago with me who had seen the original film with Sidney Poitier and was sobbing at the end.  When we walked out of the theater and started talking to the cast, she began to lose it once again...she was that moved by their stellar performances. 

The best career advice to give the young is,

find out what you like doing best and get

someone to pay you for doing it.

KATHERINE WHILEHARN

Artist Dates, Week 26 ~ Spring Events

Well Spring is not officially here yet, but it feels like Spring  with warmer weather, plus the springtime events have started. I love the sights, sounds and colors of Spring.

I went to the el Pedregal last Sunday for their Spring Wine and Jazz concerts.  The group Shining Star performed

It was a perfect day to sit outside and listen to music for three hours.

I also went to The Desert Botanical Gardens to see the Spring Butterfly Exhibit.  They will have eventually about 18 different types of butterflies.  These butterflies, unlike the Monarch butterflies in the Fall, will come and sit on you.  One landed on my shoulder.  I saw many people with butterflies on their arms, hands, shoulders and on their heads.



While at the garden I also saw the John Schaefer Photography Exhibit: A Desert Illuminated.  The exhibit features 30 photographs of cactus flowers of the Sonoran Desert. These stunning macro photographs are wrapped in the visual and contextual embrace of a Renaissance-era illuminated manuscript that connects the human passion for science and art. By placing a sheet of black construction paper behind the cactus, he is able to isolate the subject, intensifying the composition of the richly hued and delicate flower.

I also saw the Ludvic Steel Jam Sculptures in the Garden. Ludvic's junkyard finds are gathered and recycled into lively, impromptu compositions. He reassembles, cuts, reshapes, sandblasts and grinds the materials, claiming to never discard a single piece. The sculptures, titled “Steel Jam Session,” are created as in a jazz jam session —“in the moment,” — with the artist following his intuitive sense. A viewer can see how each sculpture moves to the rhythm of Ludvic’s perpetual jam session.

Only the heart knows how to find what is precious.

FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY

Artist Date, Week 25 ~ The Mystical Arts of Tibet

This was the first week where I came very close to missing an Artist Date.  I have been in the house nursing a cold, and I had been summoned for jury duty in downtown Phoenix.  But since I  did not have to report back to the courts on Friday, I got out of the house and went down to the Scottsdale Center for Performing Arts to see the Drepung Loseling monks of Tibet.   These ten monks are in town for the Mystical Arts of Tibet tour, which is co-produced by actor and Buddhist Richard Gere.

I attended their free lecture on Friday afternoon titled, “From Confusion to Enlightenment: Steps in Inner Evolution.”  The audience laughed with their depiction of confussion by showing a picture of George W. Bush. 

Then I spent some time watching four monks work on building a sand mandala which is located in the lobby. Formed of a traditional prescribed iconography that includes geometric shapes and a multitude of ancient spiritual symbols, the sand-painted mandala is used as a tool for re-consecrating the earth and its inhabitants.

The monks will painstakingly lay millions of grains of sand into place on a flat platform over the four days here in Scottsdale.

The closing ceremony is on Sunday, and the monks will dismantle the mandala, sweeping up the colored sands to symbolize the impermanecne of all that exists.

In the lobby there is also a community manadala which everyone is invited to work on for as long as you like.  There is someone there to teach you how to use the tools to paint the manadala with sand. This practice of mandala painting helps you "live in the now," and get out of your monkey mind that is always thinking and chatting with itself.  I spent a little time coloring in the mandala myself.  It does take concentration and patience, and it does help you drop your monkey mind.

                                                                                                    

We can never obtain peace in the outer

world until we make peace with ourselves.

DALAI LAMA