Time Warp

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I was sketching a rehearsal at Bob Carr Performing Arts Center and I wanted to sketch a concert at Unity Church as well. I wanted to sketch both events but I knew I would be late to Unity since my sketches take at least an hour and a half to do. Sultana Ali was to be singing at the Unity concert. I fired off a text when I finished my Red Chair Affair rehearsal sketch. She texted back that she would be singing around half way into the concert. Although the concert had already started I decided to make a dash up to the church to try and catch her performance. I texted her that she needed to slow down time a bit. When I walked into the church three women were on stage singing “The Times they Are a Changing.” I spotted Sultana and her friend near the front on the right hand side. Sultana waved me over and I sat down. She showed me the program and indicated silently that there was one more act before she went on stage. She gave me a thumbs up and I smiled.

I immediately got my sketchbook out and got to work. I had the whole composition blocked in when Sultana got on stage and then I placed her at the microphone in my sketch. She sang “Summertime“, a lazy sensuous southern tune. When she finished, the place erupted and there was a standing ovation. When she walked off the stage, the moderator, dressed in his 50’s beat costume said, “Now THAT is what I am talking about!” Sultana laughed as she sat down.

The final act caught me by surprise. Miguel and Judy Ander sang “Time to Say Goodbye.” I had met Miguel the last time I had visited the church and he left an impression. He is at least 80 years old and his face is beautifully delineated with wrinkles and the weathering of time. What immediately struck me when I shook his hand was his enthusiasm and joy. As I listened to this beautiful song I flushed and my eyes began to sting. I had to stop sketching and just listen. With this elder couple singing so beautifully, I started to think about the idea of growing old together.

This week I had just started sketching portraits of residents of a local retirement community. I had sketched Captain Pete who will be turning 101 this year. Author Mary Hill had interviewed him the entire time I sketched. His story was profound and moving. He spoke of life and death issues faced in war time, the importance of choosing friends and loved ones wisely, and he explained the spark that keeps him motivated even today. I learned so much about myself from having spent that time with him. The elder couple singing on stage seemed so in love. This is what it must be like to grow old together with faith and love. All these thoughts rushed through my head as I listened. It was useless to try and stop the flow of tears. I put the sketchbook aside. I usually find opera hard to swallow but this song on this day overwhelmed me. I stood when it was over and clapped until my hands hurt.

The Chaplain Visits

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On a return visit to Margaret Hill, she was able to get up with much help and eat at the dining room table. I joined her and Mary for lunch. Mary grew concerned watching her mothers breathing worsen over the course of lunch. She helped her mother get back into bed. Margaret’s breathing grew shallow and harsh. She began to struggle for each breath and began to panic. Mary placed her left hand on her mother’s brow and then held her right hand over her mothers chest. She made a gesture like she was crumpling a sheet of paper and then she threw it away. Mary did this several times, breathed in deeply and then turned her head away and exhaled into the corner of the room. It appeared as though Mary was in a very deep meditative state. Instantly Margaret calmed down and her struggle to breath lessened. In a matter of perhaps 15 minutes she fell fast asleep. I had never seen anything like this. I was mystified. Mary is a Christian and has absolute faith in the healing powers of God working through her as his instrument. Mary also has a Master’s degree in spiritual psychology, participates in various healing/creative art ministries and studied various healing tradition in California, before returning to care for her mother.

Although I am still baffled by what I saw, from my perspective, it seems to me that Mary is able to deflect diseased energy, then channel a very intense healing energy where it then flows to the person she is in prayer for. There was an overwhelming calm and peace in her mother’s room.

As her mother slept, a chaplain and hospice nurse arrived. The chaplain comes to the house frequently to address Margaret’s emotional and spiritual needs. Mary talked to the chaplain for some time discussing her mother’s physical and emotional states. Copious notes were taken as the mother and daughter’s needs were evaluated. In the kitchen, where Mary and the Chaplain are talking, there is a photo of Margaret in her prime on the wall. It’s as if she is looking over the Chaplain’s shoulder, perhaps to observe and grace these emotionally charged and sometimes heart-wrenching discussions.

On a trip to a doctors office Mary recited a poem she was inspired to write about healing, how it flows through her and how God has used others to heal her as well. She agreed to share it, with gratitude and blessings.

A Place to Meet

Meet me…in the stillness of my touch

Allow me to feel your pain, it won’t hurt quite as much.

Meet me…in the safety of my soul

Tell me your stories, the ones you’ve dared, but never told.

Meet me…in the solitude of my heart

Lay down your sorrow, welcome healing’s start.

Meet me…in the center of the earth

Surrender to its wisdom, awaken to your rebirth

Meet me…far beyond the ageless universe

Bask in love’s perfection; nothing’s better, nothing’s worse.

Meet me when you’re willing, meet me when you can

It’s there I’ll give my best to you – my mind, my heart, my hands.

-Mary J. Hill 2005

Margret Sleeps

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Mary Hill has been caring for her ailing mother for the last five years. Her mother has pulmonary fibrosis, among many other problems. Margaret Hill is at home, bedridden and under the constant care of her daughter along with private duty help. Recently, she is also under the medical direction of a local Hospice. I met Mary at a writing workshop and it was with a refreshing openness, curiosity and acceptance of the beauty of this thing we call life and death that Mary told me about her mother. I expressed an interest and love of sketching people in diverse scenarios. It was then with a tremendous leap of faith and generosity that Mary invited me to her mother’s home to meet and sketch her Mom. When I was introduced to Margaret, she clutched my hand with a surprisingly firm grip the whole time we talked. A CD was playing soothing Christian music by Ruth Fazal and when we weren’t talking Margaret would close her eyes and hum to the songs. She falls asleep every night to this same music and at her request listens to these same songs many times a day. “They are my favorites,” she shares with a smile. I asked her if I could sketch and she gladly agreed. A rocking chair, and a great source of pride, as it is the same rocking chair that Margaret had rocked all 5 of her children and many grandchildren to sleep in, sat at the foot of her bed. I sat down in the seat of honor and quietly blocked in the scene and before long Margaret was fast asleep. Mary felt my presence and attention had a soothing affect on Margaret. Mary left the room to afford me quiet, focused time to sketch. Her mother breathed evenly with fresh oxygen being supplied by a noisy oxygen concentrator that was down the hallway in the living room. The machine made a constant sound much like a scuba diving apparatus.

From where I sat at the foot of the bed, I could see Mary down the hall at the kitchen table writing in her journal. I thought she might be curious about my drawing so once I had the features of Margaret’s face set down in ink, I got up and quietly walked down the hall to show her. I tapped her on the shoulder and showed her the early stages of the drawing. She was moved to tears at the startling reality and solemn beauty of her mother. She said I had captured the essence and expression of her mother right down to the slight worry lines that often furrow her brow. I had never had someone cry when they saw my work before. I felt I was doing something important by documenting this fleeting moment. When I returned to work I proceeded with quiet deliberateness. Drawing and listening to Margaret’s breath left me with a sense of peace and a certainty that this was an important drawing.

Project F – Vocals

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This was the second Project F rehearsal I was able to attend and sketch. When I arrived at the Shakespeare Theater there were only a few actors gathered in the space. Aradhana Tiwari, the director, explained to the actors gathered that this night they would begin with a viewpoints session and then move on to vocalizations for the first time. After more actors trickled in, Aradhana turned off the house lights leaving only the Ghost lamp to illuminate the stage. The actors began to walk the grid. Viewpoints is an acting regiment in which actors explore tempo, shape, duration, line, and form. When Aradhana described the process it was as if she was describing the creation of a beautiful canvas using actors and their creative spirits as the medium. She just returned from a month long viewpoints training session in NYC and her intentions and purpose were strong and clear. She often jumped up on the stage to join the actors and affect the session. My favorite quote which came up in the evenings review was, “Art is intention.” The actors were asked to do everything on the stage with a strong clear intention.

After a break. The actors were asked to sit on the stage and review some status updates that had been typed out by the director. All of the updates began with the ubiquitous Facebook “is”.

_____ is wishing and hoping.

_____ is work…again!

_____ is popping Advil like their Tic Tacs.

_____ is sending out healing energy, joy & swirling peas. Namaste ya’ll.

In the next view-pointing exercise, Aradhana divided the actors into 2 groups. When one group moved, the other group would remain still. Actors were asked to only move when they had a status to vocalize. Some fascinating things happened as one group would move in and around the other groups architecture. Sarah Lockhard lead one group and she moved frantically around the stage crouched and peering about as if she was being followed. She said, “Sarah has 534 friends.” The other actors echoed “534 friends” while mimicking her movements. At one point Dennis Neal stood still on one corner of the stage and all the other actors gathered around him. The moment became all about him.

Aradhana said she wants to explore archetypes. She asked the actors to consider what archetypes need to be in the show and how they can be represented through rhythm, melody and movement. She wants the actors to capture a persons signature through movement.

Natalie Peterson expressed the concern that she actually felt scared at one point in the session. Themes of voyeurism and exhibitionism were surfacing and they want to explore the extremes of those ideas. Dennis pointed out that everyone in the room is an exhibitionist, on some level. Aradhana pointed out that shy people can become exhibitionists on Facebook. Mary Hill pointed out that at times she could tell when an actor was reciting a line and when they were speaking from the heart from a personal space. Mary was bought into the cast because she has never been on Facebook. She honestly has no idea what most of the cast was talking about as they spoke of “pokes”, “likes” and “followers.”. She wandered the grid as an outsider.

There was some discussion on how Facebook promotes “revolving door relationships.” Just as in NYC where so many people are in constant close proximity, friendships and relationships can often be short and intense, then people move on. Facebook has the effect of throwing everyone into close proximity, knowing intimate details of people who barely know each other and perhaps have never met in person. This play has limitless potential and I’m excited by the possibilities.

67 Books

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In honor of National Library Week (April 11-17, 2010), Brian Feldman organized a week long performance where 67 Orange County Library System (OCLS) card holders read aloud for one hour at a time from any book they choose from the OCLS collection, on the entry roof of the Orlando Public Library downtown branch. The event is an independent production of Brian Feldman Projects and is supported through in-kind donations of area businesses and individuals, and has not been paid for by the Orange County Library System.

Every reader to this point had been taken up to the roof overlooking the entryway to the library. This area is like a large never used balcony with a grand view of the street below, and makes for an impressive staging area. Mary Hill was open to the idea of me sketching her as she read Thomas Morton‘s book “Contemplative Prayer.” She was set up with a wireless mic and she then began to read. Speakers carried her voice to any passersby, and on rare occasions someone would look up and notice her perched high above the entry. When she reached for a sip of water, a homeless man across the street threw his hands up in the air and cheered. The sun was pounding down that afternoon and I sketched from the only patch of shade on the roof. After Mary had been replaced with another reader, she said her eyes had dried out and she had trouble focusing. She laid down for a while and rested on the concrete ledge before we both went back down to ground level using the scissor lift.

Harriett Lake is a renowned Orlando philanthropist and supporter of the arts. When I discovered she was going to be a reader, I knew I had to sketch her. Her choice of “The Catcher in the Rye” was also a bit controversial since this book at times has been banned from school curricula. Harriet told Brian she couldn’t go up in the lift because of her age and slight disability. She was seated in one of the two red camping chairs Brian had set up on the street level near the computer which was mission central. Harriet needed a more comfortable chair so a wheelchair was bought out for her to sit in. Harriet’s enthusiasm for the book was evident from the start as she read a newspaper article about the book and author, J. D. Salinger. She lost her grip on the article when she finished and the paper started to blow down the street. A passerby picked it up and tried to hand it back, but she was already reading the book and didn’t notice him.

Amanda Chadwick came over with her very frightened dachshund. She tried to calm the dog, but it would jump and scurry any time there was aloud noise. In front of the public library, there are many loud noises. Ambulances rushed by, the electronic lift screeched and groaned. People exiting the library bust out with loud laughter and joking as they escape the deafening silence from inside. Through it all, Harriet read with enjoyment the small orange paperback.

She read, “Pencey was full of crooks. Quite a few guys came from these wealthy families, but it was full of crooks anyway. The more expensive school is, the more crooks it has – I’m not kidding.” Twice she stopped reading and started laughing. She shouted out, “This is a funny book, I forgot how darn funny it is.” I laughed out loud as well sharing her delight. Homeless men with backpacks and business men in suits shuffled by. A few times people stopped, surprised by all the camera equipment and lights and they listened for a brief moment before hurrying off.

She read aloud, “People never notice anything.” This seemed so appropriate as people rushed all around her always focused on a destination rather than savoring this moment here and now. Harriet was the last reader for the day and when her hour was up Brian approached her and let her know. She shouted back, “What? THAT was an hour?! It didn’t feel like an hour!” I laughed out loud again. When you’re doing something you love, time flies and life always finds a way to interrupt the process. There was magic in the moments Harriet was reading in front of the library. The fact that she was so much closer to all the activity on the street, and the fact that nothing phased her made this feel like an important and meaningful sign that art endures amidst life’s chaos.

I will be reading as part of 67 Books on Saturday April 17th from 3 to 4 PM. I am not entirely sure which book I am reading yet, but in the running are “The Fountainhead” by Ann Rand and “Book of Sketches” by Jack Kerouac. Which do you think I should read, any suggestions?

Hal Stringer’s artist gathering.

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At the last minute I was invited to an artists dinner party being hosted by Hal Stringer in Winter Park. Mary Hill had told me about this event once before but the last time it was held, I was driving down to the Keys. When I entered the first order of business was to walk room to room and look at all the beautiful paintings of Florida landscapes. I bumped into Don Sontag a portrait artist who I first met when I worked at Disney and later at the McARae Studios. There was a self portrait by Don in the living room leaning up against a wall and waiting to be hung. There was a blur of introductions and then I asked if I could dig into the Paella that Phillis Miller had made. I thought I was going to leave within an hour to go sketch another dance rehearsal. I was the first to load up my plate and I went into the living room to eat. I only knew a few people at the gathering and as I ate, I started to feel overwhelmed by the sound of all the different conversations. In a crowd like this I start to hear everything at once with no filter. It gets to the point where I don’t even notice if someone is talking right at me. Mary Hill suggested I take a look at the artist studio in the back yard.

When I went back to the studio I fell in love with the space. It was a tiny little outdoor shack with exposed beams and a warm inviting interior. Inside a table had been set up and people were seated having dinner. The studio also had an outdoor patio with comfortable lawn chairs with a perfect view of the bright half moon. I suddenly realized I had to sketch so I ran out to my truck to get my sketchbook and supplies. The people around the table were, Elizabeth and Joe Ferber, Maralyn Masters, Sharon Osterhold and Jazz Morgan. After they finished eating they started to paint their dinner plates. All of these plate paintings were abstract and very colorful. One finished plate painting can be seen on the fireplace mantle in my sketch.

A few people became curious about what I was up to, so I found myself surrounded with people who wanted to see my sketchbook. As usual, my eyes teared up from the strain of sketching, and I struggled to recover. The host joked about how he took the longest time to join Facebook. He said “This gathering is face time, not Facebook.” Mary came out with a blanket and sat in the lawn chair next to me. We joked for a while about the notion of making a B grade horror film. It is actually a really fun idea that I am now considering doing some visual development for. I was glad I had decided to stay longer at this artists gathering. I got a good sketch and met some talented and inspiring artists.

Writing Your Life

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I met Patricia Charpentier at a Cajun concert. Her last name definitely has a Cajun ring and she had researched her family history for many generations back. As I sketched at that concert she was looking over my shoulder and after the concert we talked for a while. I found out she teaches a writing workshop so I asked if she would mind if I sketched one of the classes.

Several months later when I arrived at the Marks Street Senior Center, I met Patricia in the parking lot and she showed me the way to the classroom. The Senior Center is a beautiful warm pink stucco building in a Spanish Colonial style.

The classroom quickly filled up and everyone introduced themselves and told a brief story about a unique incident that had happened in their life. Morrie told a harrowing story about living in the depression and not having enough food. He found a pear tree in an alley and returned that night to secretly pick some pears. Morrie’s job was to keep watch while the other boys picked the pears. He realized he might not get any pears if he was just standing watch so he climbed up as well. Suddenly a huge burly man started yelling and all the boys ran for their lives. He got his pants leg caught on a fence post nail and hung upside down helpless. He kept quiet and thankfully that man never saw his legs above the fence. Later some rustling startled him again and it was the boys who came back to help get him down. Morrie has a small book published called “Sundays with Morrie”.

The class was organized much like a sketch class with quick short exercises to begin and then longer writing sessions build upon the ideas discovered in the short exercises. After each writing session people would volunteer to read what they had written. Some of the stories were truly heart wrenching and others filled with joy. It was a wonderful sketching experience and I felt blessed to be able to hear these life stories.

Mary Hill, a late arrival spoke with me after the class. She had treated herself to the workshop because it was her birthday. She explained that she was taking care of her ailing mother. She also talked about the the courses she had taken in California that covered the more mystical side of healing. Doctors in America tend to be pushing drugs as the solution to all problems. Mary feels that the simple act of touch can offer healing. She told me about an instructor who could sense her feelings just with a phone call. The mystical forms of heeling she talked about were outside my understanding but I was intrigued.