The Arts Council - Thanks So Much for a Wonderful Evening!!

This is a short post my friends - not because tonight's Arts Council of the Blue Ridge Annual Meeting wasn't something worthy of a long post, but because I am just too awed for words. If you are a Roanoker and into the whole love-affair of our area's Arts presence, then you will appreciate this short and sweet entry.

First of all, I am a newbie Arts Council member. I belonged to my hometown's Council years ago in Elizabeth, NJ. We were not exactly bursting with members and programs. (I am still friends with one fellow who is a world-class 6-string Contra Bass player, a member and son of musicians/ artists, his mother being one of the leaders of the Elizabeth Arts Council. In fact, he will be performing here at the Taubman this coming Sunday. I will give details at the end of my post.)

Anyway, as a member to the Arts Council here, I went by invitation to its Annual Meeting and experienced a history lesson of this organization by one of its founding members: Ms Carol Bewley Dalhouse, the Arts Council's first Executive Director. She was the Guest Speaker for the meeting tonight held at the Eleanor D Wilson Museum at Hollins University. What a heart-warming story she told! And it was a real treat to hear it from the person who did so much to make this Arts Council a reality today. One of the amazing things I learned was how in its early days, they felt they had no choice but to return an initial grant of funds because trying to get matching donations took them away from the Council's real mission.

I met and chatted afterwards with some of the wonderful people on the Council's staff and made my way over to the special exposition of Artist Betty Branch: "Through The Crow's Eye, a Retrospective." Her work is currently on display at the Eleanor D Wilson Museum, as well as throughout Roanoke and beyond. (You can find more information about Ms Branch's sculptures and drawings - including videos - on her website http://www.bettybranch.com/. The artist has a Roanoke studio you may visit by appointment. The Betty Branch Sculpture Studio and Gallery is located in the Historic Warehouse District in Roanoke, Virginia at 123 Norfolk Avenue.)

Scuplture of women's figures, crows, a variety of media including fire - I took my time walking through the museum in amazement. I can't remember the last time I was so moved to stare so long at an artist's creations. I wondered what her mind was telling her hands - or was it her heart speaking, or an other-worldly breath? I was also intrigued by the combination of the two subjects. Could it be one theme? Indeed, sculptures of the female form/ female rites of passage (see Biographical Notes on her website) interspersed with sculptures of crows. The soft and the hard; the blunt and the sharp; the curved and the angled... those are just the visual contrasts. It seemed somehow perfect to me in the same room.

Well, I lied. This is not a short blog post after all. Therefore, let me finish by saying that my friends Denise Jordan Finley and Daniel Pagdon, singer-songwriters, will be performing at the Taubman this Sunday at 1pm. Perhaps I can see a woman-crow combination in their musical partnering now that I may never be able to shake that concept... Hmmm.

(Photos of Betty Branch's work are from her website, http://www.bettybranch.com/ and if there are any objections to embedding them here, please contact me and I will humbly comply with your request to remove them.)

The Grandin Theatre – Open Projector Night

Edited from original post on Star City Harbinger – August 26, 2009

You can live in a town for quite some time before visiting a place that is a landmark or doing something that ought to be part of one’s typical interest as a resident. For example, I lived in the New York City area for over 45 years, yet I have gone to the Statue of Liberty only once. I rode to the top of the World Trade Center only once. I have never been to Coney Island. Sometimes I don’t feel like acting like a tourist, but definitely, there just isn’t enough time to see and do everything.

Finally, after living in Roanoke for five years, I visited the Grandin Theatre. The event, I felt, was the best one to which I could be initiated – The Open Projector Night.

I learned that Open Projector Night is a quarterly contest for filmmakers of all levels. I wanted to acquaint myself with Open Projector Night because I too am interested in entering a short film in November. I needed to see how videos looked on a theatre-sized movie screen and to get a taste of the talent in our area. Of course, I also went to enjoy myself, which I did.

I paid the admission price of $6.50 and walked up to the ticket collector who gave me a flyer. This flyer is no ordinary piece of paper, I thought, looking at the names and titles listed on it. This is what Open Projector Night is all about for the filmmakers who have entered their pieces for the evening. This, I knew, was the holiest sheet of paper ever printed on and ever to be checked off by every person in attendance. It demanded that I pay very close attention to each single frame flickering by on the screen.

And so I walked into a dark theatre, feeling embarrassed for being obviously late, and made my way to an empty seat all the way down in the front rows. It was an awkward walk, but once in my seat, I was relieved and, in an instant, forgot my crime. The screen had immediately grasped my full interest and I remained, as did the entire theatre full of viewers, focused without interruption.

I’m not sure how many seats are at the Grandin, but the theatre seemed pretty filled. I did not meet up with the Blacksburg Media Artists group that I recently joined, because I was late leaving my office. However, I managed to see all but the first selection.

I had no expectations, except that perhaps I might like or dislike some films more than others. But I hoped that at least one or two would prove worthy of the six bucks I just spent. To my surprise, each short film had a life of its own. Each had a statement to make. Some of them suffered slightly from holding back in cutting what might not have made it into its finished version once the film’s editor learned to say more with less. Most of the evening’s pieces were challenged technically from the difficult conversion to a large screen, having been shot and edited as videos and not in professional (and expensive) 16mm film. Otherwise, Open Projector Night was clearly a winner in itself, bringing out the best in our area’s short-film creators.

A couple films were dramatic pieces, one of which was presented in black and white (ii played for her), and told a story about a young man meeting a woman, to whom he’d eventually play his saxophone once he’d get up the nerve. There were a few music videos. One such work was entered by Randolf Walker, who set to his own version of “House of the Rising Sun” an emotional Wild West piece, which he directed and also played in as the wretched, gambling, drinking man whom his maiden (Lisa Angell) sang about in lamenting flashbacks while walking sullenly and lonely by the old railroad tracks. (You can see this piece here on YouTube.)

There were several comedies. Most enjoyable were The Great American Road Trip Part 2 about a road trip to the Martinsville Speedway, and First Impressions, about a young man sitting in a waiting room before an interview when suddenly he reverts back to his childhood fantasies.

Open Projector Night’s showcase of local filmmakers is one of the few held in Roanoke for this genre of visual media, oddly enough. The screening is paneled by the Young Curators and the Teen Advisory Committee of the Taubman Museum of Art. (You can see past winners on the Grandin Theatre website).

Roanoke appears to be the Arts hub of SW Virginia with all of its galleries, museums and music venues. This is a nice addition and shouldn’t be missed in anyone’s repertoire of things to do in Roanoke… I for one will put it on my rotation.

The Grandin Theatre and the area itself are very conducive to the Arts. The Roanoke Ballet is on the same street. The Grandin neighborhood is home to the Heart of Virginia Foundation, led by Americana artist Tommy Edwards and his partner Nancy Hunter. (They will be hosting a “Healing through Creativity” Festival from October 17-24. Please visit their website for more information.) The locals also enjoy the bohemian and artsy atmosphere in town, which includes the Grandin Gardens and the Roanoke Natural Foods Co-op.