Saxofestivus - crazy name, wild sounds

Yes, Sunday night, a friend, Anne Marie Marra and I attended Saxofestivus – a concert of saxophone quartets at Western Connecticut State University. We went because it was close, and cheap. The press release on the college web page said the event was free, although a sign at the door suggested a $5 donation.

Considering all the pricy alternatives – we thought it might be a hoot to hear a bunch of saxophones playing in their brassy way. We sat in the back in case it wasn’t – so we could sneak out. But we didn’t sneak out. We stayed to the end and clapped for every round because it was worth clapping for….. Unlike a quite a few in the audience – we were not family to any of the players, nor fellow students at WCSU, but were just a couple of low budget boobs out for a little tune to tap a toe to…..

There were four student quartets that played – and the concert ended with a set by the first quartet, who ( I think) were upper classmen or at least the most experienced players of the evening. Who knew four saxophones at once would be so lush? The program ran the gamut from Bach to Twentieth Century music, and strayed once over into pop. All in all – the quality was very good. Well done.

patchwork - a crazy life...

I think my life has been something of a patchwork like the colors on this sculpture. It's been an extended juggling event. Still, I have dropped a lot of plates over 5 decades. You can't go back. You have to start from where you are and figure how to go forward with joy. Selah and hi ho!

This is one of my small scale sculptures. It's gessoed, air-dry clay with oil paints on the surface over the gesso. It was not meant to be provocative at all, just a dramatic pose. There is a bit of gloss medium on top of it all as well.

Thoughts after a funeral - poem from Inverse Origami

I drift east of the moon,
a vapor dispersing,
a dimension perpendicular to noon.

Call to me.
Tend me with great remorse.
I am wrapped in death's granite skin.

I have become
an over-the-counter medication
encapsulating formaldehyde in a time-release formula.

Call to me.
I will answer
with silence, in temporal immobility.

I am less
than a breeze,
a nuance of dark matter falling to a black hole of being,

building
to a critical mass...
Will I shriek into nova after half a billion years?

---

from Inverse Origami - the art of unfolding
--- Mar (Mistryel) Walker, © 1998
Puzzled Dragon Press

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Color or a reflection of confusion

This is a JPEG made in Corel Painter from a photo of an oil pastel of mine using various distortion techniques.

I am looking forward to getting back to the poetry series on Wednesdays. My choir job is seasonal and we have had our last Wednesday rehearsal until Sept. (If they ask me back...) Although I will miss the music, the people and the income, I have missed the poetry and the poets too. I have a lot of catching up to do....

Old magazine drawing test

This is a very old sketched of mine, from childhood. I think it is a drawing I made for a test from one of those "learn to draw" ads which used to appear in many household magazines. The ads offered a drawing correspondence course from the Famous Artist School in Westport.

The Forsythia out back has finally bloomed in full.

The flight for silence

When I lived in Brownfield, ME I had a great apartment on the ground floor, right under the apartment of a woman with three children, who may have also taken in a few kids for day care. I wrote the following vignette about the experience:

Living in the country

I moved from the glittery, clap-trap, honky-tonk enclaves of North Conway, New Hampshire out to the tranquil fens of Brownfield Maine - brown grasses, white birch and white pine...

Imagine my surprise when, unexpectedly, a bowling ball rolls across the floor of the upstairs apartment. Rolled by erratic spastic weight lifters unaware of their deafening strength.The upstairs, I later find, is inhabited by three children. Lovely lively maniacal children. No I am sure there must be 300 children at least. Each weights 500 pounds, no 50,000 pounds. They carry bricks in their pockets and wear lead shoes. They play tackle football for hours on end, scurrying with vibratory clatter and crash through every room. Not one square inch of ceiling is safe. No room is quiet.

My nerves have reached a degree of raw reserved for the uncooked and freshly slaughtered. My cat tears out his hair in clumps. Why did I come here? Oh yes, the tranquil country life....
______

I'd come home from work and have to coax my cat of those years, Jacklee out from under the couch. Other odd things happened. One day I shoveled out the litter box, putting the offending debris into a paper bag and carefully folded the the top down to seal it. I put this bag of treasure  out on the little deck by the front door, meaning to carry it to the dumpster. I forgot to. When I came home from work it was gone. I can only imagine little hands unrolling the bag and well - ick

Apparition of unknown motives

This is a picture from the old gallery blog. It's a pencil sketch from high school. I like it because of the consternation and puzzlement evident in the expression. This world is a confusing place. Often I am not sure why something was said or done. HOWEVER I refuse to spend time thinking about it. If there is a deeper meaning you want to communicate to me - you'd better just tell me..... I think things should be taken at face value.

This philosophy (which I occassionally fail to use...) came about because, once I obsessively spent months trying to figure out the odd statements of a man I was seeing. I had developed a network of alternate explainations in great detail. But when the real explaination came to light - it involved somethings totally unfamiliar - that I had never once considered. What a waste of time!!!!!