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"Art Garden: 20 Years in Bloom!" report.
Nov. 27th, 2007 11:38 amWe got back Sunday Night, after three days of staying in close quarters (as in no more than a dozen feet away) with another human being for the better part of three days, waking and sleeping (except when she went for a walk), I needed to spend time decompressing, and retreated into the world of my NaNo Novel, yesterday.
... It was a good, uneventful trip up. The hotel room was indeed "Wheelchair accessible," as much as it could be. But it was a retro-fit the handrail/grab-bar was one of those fold-away ones (no room for it, otherwise), so while it could support my weight while I leaned down on it, I couldn't pull up on it without it swinging up on me. I could get out of the chair onto the toilet, all right, but I couldn't get off the toilet back to the chair without a lot of help. ... At least, the door was wide enough that I could get into the bathroom. From the skinny, shallow size of the tub, though, it was very clear that this hotel was first built in the 70's when people were, on average, smaller... Also, we had to go outide, and walk past the pool to get from our room to the reception area & restaurant. That was annoying, as it was cold outside, and overly warm inside. And Audrey has a cold right now. Luckily, my immune system is proving to be its old, ironclad self, and despite all odds (and her coughing while driving in a closed car) I have not caught that same cold. Yay, Leukocites, rah, rah!!
Okay. So that last bit was fascinating and important to me... probably not so much for you, though, huh?
Oh, but there were still roses in bloom, against a sheltered wall by the pool, and one of the ornamental trees had a pretty little birds' nest just about at eye-level: well constructed, and ready to move into again, when spring comes back.
On Saturday Night, the night of the Art Garden itself, I was convinced it started at 7:00p, an hour longer than usual... I was wrong. When we arrived,
the theater was still all locked up. But the Garrison Art Center Gallery across the street had lights on, and people inside; someone was in there, organizing a pottery sale. Poor woman had been there since 9 in the morning, and was dead on her feet. But she let us come in out of the cold until the woman in charge of selling tickets opened up the theater. She'd been teaching pottery there, for years (and in the old days, the Art Garden used to be held in a tiny, tiny room in the back, with basically just an upturned soapbox for a stage), but she'd never actually been to an Art Garden, or really knew what it was. But when I told her about it, she said she'd come check it out...
Anyway, so the Art Garden itself. I seem to have lost my program, so I can't refresh my memory as to what the pieces were in what order -- but they were not chronological. Instead, Irene had us each read the most unique pieces we'd written, and rearranged them into a new order, so the ideas all flowed from one to another in a thematic way.
I was tenth out of eighteen pieces (but it was really nineteen pieces, because one writer found a poem she'd written about the Art Garden founder, herself, and couldn't help but read it). I had practiced my piece over and over that day, to make sure I could read it through clearly and fluently. It was a lost cause. As soon as I got to the first humorous line, the people in the audience who remembered it from eighteen years ago started laughing at the jokes, and that would trigger my laughing, and that would trigger more of their laughing, and ... oh, gawd... it was like a Carol Burnett sketch with Tim Conway and Harvey Korman: a complete meltdown. All through the piece, I was thinking how mortified my mother would have been, since she had tried to drill into my skull that civilized people do not, as in never, laugh at their own jokes, and that the most important thing I can ever do is speak articulately.
But afterwards, when people came up to me, they said they loved the way I read it, and they loved that I couldn't help laughing, so...
Then, instead of the usual get-together for the writers only, at Irene's house, we all, audience and writers together, trundled back across the street for a cake and wine reception in that tiny back room where it all started. I had the chocolate cake-- it wouldn't be a birthday party without cake)-- the cake had coffee icing, yum!
The president of the town/county's (I'm not really sure what Philipstown is organized as), art council got up and gave a speach about how Irene just about single-handedly created Philipstown theater, and inspires all our literature. And she, and the woman who helped her design every single stage set for all 47 Art Gardens got a commemorative art print for the 20th anniversary.... And then, I was given one, too, as a prize for being the person who travels the farthest to be there each time. So that was very nice, and I am very honored, and I will have to find a place to hang it.
So it was very nice. But really, I would have preferred the smaller gathering. I was feeling nostalgic, and there were people there I hadn't seen in over a year, and I wanted to sit with them in a corner and have hearts-to-hearts. But insted, this is how the conversations went:
Someone I don't know: I loved your piece!
Me: Thank you!
Someone: Did that really happen?
Me: Yes...
Someone else I don't know: I loved your piece!
Me: Thank you!
Someone: Did that really happen?
Me: Yes...
And so on...
And then, I went out to the pottery sale, and bought a good mug, made by a local artist, that can hold an extra large amount, and has a good handle so that I can lift it from the microwave with one hand without spilling it. I needed such a mug, and I also felt, that since I had monopolized the sale's organizer for an hour, I had to buy at least something (the outside is an off-white satin glaze, and the inside is a pale pink satin glaze, and the handle is shaped like half an equalateral triangle (the flat part on the bottom), and is big enough to grip with my whole hand.
(I knew there must have been a reason that the NaNo mugs sold out before I even knew they existed!).
So good and productive. But still... there are all these hearts-to-hearts still inside me...
--
The themes for 2008 will be "Guilt" (for the Spring) and "Kindness" (for the "Hollidays").
... It was a good, uneventful trip up. The hotel room was indeed "Wheelchair accessible," as much as it could be. But it was a retro-fit the handrail/grab-bar was one of those fold-away ones (no room for it, otherwise), so while it could support my weight while I leaned down on it, I couldn't pull up on it without it swinging up on me. I could get out of the chair onto the toilet, all right, but I couldn't get off the toilet back to the chair without a lot of help. ... At least, the door was wide enough that I could get into the bathroom. From the skinny, shallow size of the tub, though, it was very clear that this hotel was first built in the 70's when people were, on average, smaller... Also, we had to go outide, and walk past the pool to get from our room to the reception area & restaurant. That was annoying, as it was cold outside, and overly warm inside. And Audrey has a cold right now. Luckily, my immune system is proving to be its old, ironclad self, and despite all odds (and her coughing while driving in a closed car) I have not caught that same cold. Yay, Leukocites, rah, rah!!
Okay. So that last bit was fascinating and important to me... probably not so much for you, though, huh?
Oh, but there were still roses in bloom, against a sheltered wall by the pool, and one of the ornamental trees had a pretty little birds' nest just about at eye-level: well constructed, and ready to move into again, when spring comes back.
On Saturday Night, the night of the Art Garden itself, I was convinced it started at 7:00p, an hour longer than usual... I was wrong. When we arrived,
the theater was still all locked up. But the Garrison Art Center Gallery across the street had lights on, and people inside; someone was in there, organizing a pottery sale. Poor woman had been there since 9 in the morning, and was dead on her feet. But she let us come in out of the cold until the woman in charge of selling tickets opened up the theater. She'd been teaching pottery there, for years (and in the old days, the Art Garden used to be held in a tiny, tiny room in the back, with basically just an upturned soapbox for a stage), but she'd never actually been to an Art Garden, or really knew what it was. But when I told her about it, she said she'd come check it out...
Anyway, so the Art Garden itself. I seem to have lost my program, so I can't refresh my memory as to what the pieces were in what order -- but they were not chronological. Instead, Irene had us each read the most unique pieces we'd written, and rearranged them into a new order, so the ideas all flowed from one to another in a thematic way.
I was tenth out of eighteen pieces (but it was really nineteen pieces, because one writer found a poem she'd written about the Art Garden founder, herself, and couldn't help but read it). I had practiced my piece over and over that day, to make sure I could read it through clearly and fluently. It was a lost cause. As soon as I got to the first humorous line, the people in the audience who remembered it from eighteen years ago started laughing at the jokes, and that would trigger my laughing, and that would trigger more of their laughing, and ... oh, gawd... it was like a Carol Burnett sketch with Tim Conway and Harvey Korman: a complete meltdown. All through the piece, I was thinking how mortified my mother would have been, since she had tried to drill into my skull that civilized people do not, as in never, laugh at their own jokes, and that the most important thing I can ever do is speak articulately.
But afterwards, when people came up to me, they said they loved the way I read it, and they loved that I couldn't help laughing, so...
Then, instead of the usual get-together for the writers only, at Irene's house, we all, audience and writers together, trundled back across the street for a cake and wine reception in that tiny back room where it all started. I had the chocolate cake-- it wouldn't be a birthday party without cake)-- the cake had coffee icing, yum!
The president of the town/county's (I'm not really sure what Philipstown is organized as), art council got up and gave a speach about how Irene just about single-handedly created Philipstown theater, and inspires all our literature. And she, and the woman who helped her design every single stage set for all 47 Art Gardens got a commemorative art print for the 20th anniversary.... And then, I was given one, too, as a prize for being the person who travels the farthest to be there each time. So that was very nice, and I am very honored, and I will have to find a place to hang it.
So it was very nice. But really, I would have preferred the smaller gathering. I was feeling nostalgic, and there were people there I hadn't seen in over a year, and I wanted to sit with them in a corner and have hearts-to-hearts. But insted, this is how the conversations went:
Someone I don't know: I loved your piece!
Me: Thank you!
Someone: Did that really happen?
Me: Yes...
Someone else I don't know: I loved your piece!
Me: Thank you!
Someone: Did that really happen?
Me: Yes...
And so on...
And then, I went out to the pottery sale, and bought a good mug, made by a local artist, that can hold an extra large amount, and has a good handle so that I can lift it from the microwave with one hand without spilling it. I needed such a mug, and I also felt, that since I had monopolized the sale's organizer for an hour, I had to buy at least something (the outside is an off-white satin glaze, and the inside is a pale pink satin glaze, and the handle is shaped like half an equalateral triangle (the flat part on the bottom), and is big enough to grip with my whole hand.
(I knew there must have been a reason that the NaNo mugs sold out before I even knew they existed!).
So good and productive. But still... there are all these hearts-to-hearts still inside me...
--
The themes for 2008 will be "Guilt" (for the Spring) and "Kindness" (for the "Hollidays").
