Take your kids to the ballet, darn it!
Miscellaneous arts news: Dancing, drawing, and celebrating the winners of the CLA poetry contest
The city I live in almost cut their strings program from the elementary schools. After many meetings and a lot protest, it was saved, but of course fee increases and painful cuts had to be made in other areas to preserve this music instruction.
You truly do not appreciate what you have until something threatens to take it away…
Dancing
While this was looming I had the sudden urge to take my daughters to the ballet. I figured they could listen to a live orchestra playing as dancers depicted the story of Sleeping Beauty.
Music and dance. Two birds, one stone.
It may be intimidating to bring a young children to a performance that has a run time of 2 hours 50 minutes(!), but there were two well-timed intermissions and so many of young children in attendance made it happily to the end. I was impressed with the number of booster seats for the littlest of patrons. The families that had to leave were able to do so discretely. Many of the snacks available at the concessions were kid-oriented (and there was enough booze to calm the nerves for any stressed parent).
We were able to pull this off because one of the great things about the Boston Ballet is that they have heavily discounted matinee tickets for children. Here is the text from their website:
Do you have children’s ticket pricing?
Youth ages 20 and under save 50% on tickets in sections A and B for select performances. Call the Box Office at 617.695.6955 for details and to order.
On a more personal note, I was thrilled to find out that the Boston Ballet has two Filipino-American principal dancers: a brother and a sister.
The best thing about this was getting to see the looks on the faces of the girls when they entered the opera house. I don’t think they had ever seen such opulence. And of course the chatter of little voices in the minivan on the ride home was wonderful. I think this is something they will remember fondly.
Life isn't about the stuff. It’s about remembering time together.
In the end, life is all about memory, isn’t it?
Drawing
I recently got a message from my friend Luis Escobar, whom I have known for close to twenty years now. He’s a long time story board artist for The Simpsons, and his side hustle is teaching people how to draw.
Here’s the note I got…
Hi everyone. I'm not sure how many people even know this because I'm terrible with "marketing," but I've been teaching drawing through my website (TheDrawingWebsite.com) for well over ten years.
I ease people from knowing absolutely nothing at all to being able to make marks etc. as if it's a martial arts school. Lvl 0 is less than beginner level. Lvl 1 is "you can draw" but it's time to step it up a bit. Lvl 2 was supposed to be a more professional level and I've never gotten around to it, until now.
I've just launched the first Lvl 2 lesson for anyone who really wants to get serious about drawing. All I do in this lesson is cover gesture and sketching.
Unlike my other content on my site, this is a one time paid lesson of $10. I'm very proud of it. I think it's extremely helpful and I think it's worth a look.
The video let's you know what the lesson covers. If you know anyone who you think might be interested. Especially if you're an artist who has family who wants to draw but won't listen to you. They may listen to me.
And if you're interested in drawing but don't know where to start, this is a good place to do so.
I'd appreciate it if you pass the word along. Thanks!
I have not personally taken the course myself, but for $10 I probably will. The comments and reviews on his site look great.
Poetry
And a while back I mentioned that I was going to enter the Catholic Literary Arts Sacred Art poetry contest, however, I wanted to come clean and tell you that I didn’t enter. I just was not happy with what I wrote. In retrospect, I may have been fine, but sometimes you have to go with your gut.
That said, I attended the Zoom reading of the finalists and winners this past Tuesday, and I was delighted to see many familiar faces. Two of my poetry critique friends were among the finalists, and I was thrilled to be able to support them.
This year’s finalists were Daniel Andrews, Ashley Archuleta, Monika Cooper, Mia Grogan, Heather Kaufmann, J.E. McBride, Tamara Nicholl-Smith, Paul Pastor, V. Paige Parker, Greg Rappleye, Douglas Taylor-Weiss, Gail White and Leslie Williams.
If you are interested in seeing what the winning poems looked like you can click here.
And, as always, thank you…
To my subscribers, and especially my paid subscribers. I would not be able to do this without your support.
In a couple of weeks I shall be away without a computer so the only way for me to post will be via phone. Wish me luck!