Art-filled Week in Review

This has been a busy week with lots going on on many different fronts.

ART WORK: Started the week taking art work to the Katzen Rotunda Gallery at American University for the hanging of the new Group 93 show.  Its going to be an exicting show - 180 plus contemporary works hanging in a lightfilled, marvelous space. Can't ask for more - but there is more for me in showing with this group of artists. Many of us have known each other since the 1970s and it is exciting and satisfying to see their work and to appreciate how much it has grown and expanded over time. I am always grateful to be a part of this group.

Check it out. HERE And get the information on the opening and the run of the show.

WRITING: Monday was the first day of the week-long work shop on "Building Characters " taught by author Solveig Erggez at the Writers Center in Bethesda. Meet Solveig HERE in an interview. After reading "Seal Woman"  I trusted the workshop would be good but it has been so much more than that. Solveig's approach has opened windows and doors in my imagination and pushed my approach to the writing.

I have been writing since I was in  High School but turned to Storytelling because I was more at ease with the spoken word than struggling with the writer's craft. This week has nudged me into grappling with  characters,  scenes, dialogue, and experimenting with time are now front and center as I think about a new story. Words have been pouring onto the paper so that I have practically completed a first draft for a new one-woman show.

Truthfully no one is more surprised than I am that this new story has emerged. I think it happened because I approached the workshop differently than I usually do. I arrived Monday morning with a new blank composition book, two pens, and no plans. I had decided that I would go without an agenda and just be OPEN to what was presented and see what happened. As it turned out that was exactly the right approach. I listened to Solveig's well-planned discussions and followed the promts and instructions and VOILA!!!

As always when you are winding up a successful and challenging workshop experience the question is - "how do I keep this up -on my own." I have a few ideas about that and all I can say at the moment is - more will be revealed.

READING:  Bumped into an author, Charles Todd, on the Mystery Shelf at the Chevy Chase Library and am enjoying journeying with him onto the battlefields and mysteries of World War 1. I appreciated my sister Kathy for not batting out a crisp "I told you so" when I told her because she had recommended the series several years ago. But I wasn't ready for Charles Todd then so passed it by.
He is commended for his historical research and I am thoroughly enjoying his suspenseful plot, believeable characters and vivid descriptions.