June 1 2013

Don Juan in Tech Rehearsal February 2013. Photo: Manuel Rotenberg. Dancers: Members of the San Diego Ballet. So in the middle of Act Two, we have a dream sequence. As I was looking for the music for this 3 act ballet, I finally came a round to classical Spanish guitar concertos, after a few detours to various opera composers. Putting together the sequences, I thought "Hey, I just did an entire Guitar Concerto a few years back." When I looked at the old video, I realized it would make a perfect apex for the whole ballet. The fact that costumes already existed for it helped as well. The bottom line is never far from my mind.

Daily Stuff: Pretty Much day off, so I'll talk a bit about an "epiphany"

The San Diego Foundation hosted a free seminar about Arts and Civic Engagement. Past and potential Creative Catalyst artists and organizations were invited to attend. It was a nice event, but pretty much focused around the idea that individual artists need to see themselves as entrepreneurs.

Afterwards, I had a nice chat with Nigel Brooks from the Commission for Arts and Culture, glass artist Vicki Leon, puppeteer  Bridget Rountree and a lovely young woman from the Museum for Contemporary Art (whose name is escaping me in the heat of writing this blog). While we chatted, Vicki asked me if I had gone to see a piece by a fellow Creative Catalyst artist, Brandi Maddelena.

I had not.

And to make matters worse, I had said that I would. But for one reason or another, I had not been able to get to it.

And here was the epiphany.

If artists can't even engage their OWN community, how can they hope to engage the larger community?

So I decided to "engage". Right then and there I made verbal commitments to go to support the immediate projects of each of the artists I was talking to that group.

Nigel- A festival on some mountaintop
Vicki - A visit to her studio
The lovely young woman from SDMCA - An artist's talk that evening
Bridget - The Adult Puppet Cabaret on that Saturday

But first up was a visit to the AJA Project to check out Brandi Maddelena's installation, "The Nature of a Door is to be Opened." More tomorrow.