Art...

I need it my life. I always have had it there and I will always have it there. When I was a little girl I loved to perform in front of everyone. I loved to play dress up with my cousin. I loved to color. I loved to take my dolls and stuffed animals and reenact plays or shows or make up my own. I used to write stories. Pages and pages of stories. I have a zillion unfinished journals. I fell into theatre in college and I never stopped. I ran a theater for a couple of years, served on the board of another, acted mostly, sometimes stage managed, directed a couple, helped with costumes, lighting, building sets, sound design down to cleaning toilets at no financial gain to me. But just to do it. I’ve dabbled in photography. I still write in unfinished journals. And now I blog my thoughts out to the cyber universe. Funny thing? I still do all of these things I just listed. I haven’t stopped and I never will. Music to me is another form of art. I used to play drums and piano and someday want to learn the harmonica and ukulele. I’m a tireless music fan. Will always love watching concerts, listening to music, listening to people sing, watching people dance. I love it all. All forms of art. My love for it has grown as I’ve gotten older. I never thought of myself as a painter, but not I consider it. I picked up a sketch pad and some pencils. I also bought some new colored pencils to continue coloring as I always have. Although I realize this can be an expensive art! Eeeesh, we’ll start small. I read a book by Christopher Moore called Sacra Blue. It was an odd comedy as his books are, but it followed the lives of famous artists and I found myself researching their work again and realizing I never appreciated art as much as I should have. Now I find myself wanting to attend art shows and really see what people have done. See if I can see their thoughts and dreams and emotions on a canvas. Since my life as an actor has slowed down a bit I have more time for other aspects of art and I’m loving it. I will still act – no worries there my diehard fans – but just not back to back to back like I used to. I used to do it sometimes because I felt like I HAD to. If I didn’t I would fall off the face of the earth. But I don’t feel that way anymore. I feel that art is already running through my blood and my soul and it’s just there. It will always be there. Hell. I’m an artist. So – I wanted to touch on a few things I have seen as of late. I saw The Balcony at Stages, put on my fellow MWC folks. It was a play I was in in college, but was pulled after only 2 rehearsals. It’s a play I’ve read a few times and love and is a play I was planning on auditioning for this time around, but when Papas health took a bad turn, my stage time will have to be put on hold for a bit. Theatre isn’t something you can just pull out of at a moment’s notice. You commit to the whole thing, so I was not able to do that. But – I went to see it last week and I have to say, I was a little disappointed. I realized that this is one of those productions that just don’t translate as well to stage from the text. I thought the costumes were over the top spectacular as the show calls for. Beautiful and fun. I thought Cynthia and Rick were fantastic. They are two actors who always blow me away. I enjoyed Jack and Robert’s performances and I thought Sean, Austin and Adam were the perfect amount of over the top and comedic. But it felt the long 3 hours it was. It just felt to me that it was always taking a bit too long to get to the point. I didn’t feel that way when I read it, but as I said, just didn’t translate well. I defiantly wouldn’t say it was a bad show though. I did enjoy it for the most part! The next day I went and saw War Horse at OCPAC. Now, I wouldn’t normally see this because I knew it was going to be sad, but I was dying to see the theatrics of the show. I had heard about the puppets and these shows always are so cool! So – a co-worker/friend and I went. Tissue in hand. Thank GAWD because oh did we cry. In fact, I think I was actually sobbing at a few points. That aside the play was visually spectacular. There were 3 people to a horse. To underneath and one next to the head. I was sure I was going to be distracted at the fact you can see them standing right there but somehow they disappear when performing. The subtle movements of the horse, the noises, everything was amazing. I mean after a vigorous scene the horse would be standing there BREATHING! The heaved it up and down as if it was out of breath. There were images on the backdrop that were gorgeous. One moment after a very harsh war scene it looked like blood was oozing through the backdrop and they turned into beautiful red flowers. Spectacular. There was a hilarious goose that made appearances and the man who played the German deserter was brilliant. That was another thing I really liked – I do not watch war movies/plays usually due to how upset it makes me with my antiwar hippie mentality, and this was no exception to the tragedy of war – BUT they didn’t make either side look like the “good guys”. It was just sad. Period. And you felt for all of the soldiers. There was also this awesome moment where this big metal thing that symbolized a tank was moving around the stage operated by men, so ominous and cool! I loved it. I don’t know if I could watch it again but I am so glad I went and was able to see how brilliant the special effects were! Also earlier this month my dad treated us to Tower of Power playing at Coach House early January. You want to see music at perfection? Watch Tower of Power perform. These guys have been at it for 40 some years. The horns are the tightest you will ever here. I guarantee it. They are all having so much fun up there you can’t help but jump on the ride with them. Every single musician is fucking amazing at their craft. They also had an opening band that was a blast, but I of course lost the paper I wrote their name down on. So when I hear back from Coach House hopefully I will add it in here. They were a bunch of hipster looking kids that started out a little rough but once they got comfortable – nailed it. It was as usual an amazing night of music. So January has been full of some damn good art. I will hopefully be putting more of my own out there but plan to share more that I see. Keep on making art my friends!!! I mean the earth needs it! Without it it’s just EH! ;)