Roskilde 6 in Cincinnati

On Saturday this week I listened to Kristiane Strætkvern, conservator of the Danish National Museum, telling the story of how a Viking ship was unearthed in Roskilde fjord, Denmark, in 1996 and twenty years later made its way to Ohio to be a major focal point of the recent exhibit at the Cincinnati Museum Center.

In 1996-1997 the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde was expanding. During the renovation process the remains of nine Viking ships were unearthed. Through investigation over several years, the ships were determined to have been constructed during the period 1009-1032 AD. Roskilde 6 was the sixth one to be unearthed; restoration of this long ship started in 2009. With a series of excellent and detailed slides, Kristiane explained the process of conserving the waterlogged remains of the ship, using polyethylene glycol (PEG) to remove the excess water and then freeze drying—it took 3 ½ years to complete the freeze drying!

When the restoration began in 2009 it was not envisioned that the ship would be exhibited outside Denmark, but by 2013, it was decided that exhibition would start first in Copenhagen but then go on to London and then Berlin. This complicated the conservation process tremendously—in addition to planning for assembling the ship, plans had to be made for dissembling it, packing it, and transporting it. Denmark, unlike some other countries, does excavation and reconstruction piece-by-piece, rather than assembling the object as a whole in one piece. The careful marking of each piece was crucial in moving the exhibit from place to place. All three exhibits were successful, gathering nearly 200,000 visitors in each of the three museums.

In 2016, through cooperation with a museum exhibition company, the Roskilde 6 ship was matched with the Cincinnati Museum Center, and now the exhibit had to be transported out of Europe for the first time. It came from Copenhagen to New York by ship; from there parts were re-packed and sent by air, while other parts came by truck. Kristiane came to Cincinnati to direct the assembly of Roskilde 6, and she returned for its disassembly, which is scheduled to take ten days. (A YouTube video shows its assembly in Cincinnati https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFMB-IBFOk8&feature=youtu.be.) Roskilde 6 is “almost certainly” going to Minneapolis after its Cincinnati run, and it is hoped that it will find a temporary exhibition spot on the west coast and on the east coast before making its way back to Denmark, where it will become part of the permanent collection of the National Museum of Denmark.

At 122 feet, Roskilde 6 is the longest Viking ship yet discovered, and required 100 men as crew. It was definitely used as a warship and was built after 1025, probably in Oslo and shows signs of being repaired at a later date, also in Norway, before finding its nearly 1,000-year resting place in Roskilde fjord. It was operational at a time when King Knud of Denmark was fighting against King Olav of Norway, but it is not known who commissioned its construction.

More links:

Roskilde 6, from the Viking History Museum in Roskilde

http://www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk/en/professions/education/viking-knowledge/the-longships/findings-of-longships-from-the-viking-age/roskilde-6/

Longest known Viking ship goes on display at British Museum http://www.historyextra.com/news/longest-known-viking-ship-Roskilde-6-goes-display-exhibition-british-museum

Rebirth of the Viking warship that may have helped Canute conquer the seas

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2012/dec/27/viking-ship-roskilde-british-museum

It is still somewhat amazing to me that the first appearance of this restored ship outside of Europe would be in Cincinnati. We went to the exhibit with friends last month and I was amazed at the information in the entire exhibit--the Viking ship was only a part of the excellent content. It closed today, and although the exhibit was excellent, there was virtually no representation of this curation online or in book form, and that is a terrible loss.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Andersen!

Today is the birthday of Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875), the creator and teller of "fairy tales," as the poor translation of the Danish "eventyrer" characterizes his "stories told for children." In fact, Andersen also wrote in the form of novels, theater pieces, poetry, and travel journals in addition to the output of 156 (or 212, depending on how you count them) stories that made him famous.  The travel pieces are probably the most surprising, but Andersen was a great traveler in the 19th century, going by coach or steam railway far from his native Denmark, throughout Scandinavia, Germany, Italy, Spain, and beyond--even to England to pay an infamous visit to Charles Dickens and his family (he overstayed his welcome). Perhaps Andersen was wary of leaving England. He was fearful of ocean travel, a fact which prevented him from ever coming to the United States, even though he was invited and carried on a long correspondence with Horace Scudder, his American editor, and was glad to have some of the later eventyrer published in Boston before they were published in Denmark.

At rejse er at leve, Hans Christian Andersen famously remarked: "To travel is to live. " Andersen traveled for months on end, and often enough that for several years he had no permanent residence--he simply traveled or lived in a hotel in Copenhagen. You can still see his room upstairs between the Hotel d'Angleterre and Magasin du Nord in Kongens Nytorv, King's New Square, in Copenhagen, or at least you could as recently as 2005, when the city celebrated the bicentennial of his birth.

I've been traveling in the past weeks, but unlike Andersen, I stayed in my own country this time. It is delightful to discover something new, that you have never seen before, in your own country. In this case it was even more pleasant because I discovered it in Florida, a state that I have visited several times, but mostly Orlando and Kissimmee, where my parents and an aunt lived for many years.

This trip took us to Fort Lauderdale to make use of a four-night stay in a private home that I had "won" as part of a benefit auction last year. Our host warned us against coming during March and April, as that is spring break time, and the place is overrun with tourists, he said. But that is when there was time available on our schedules, so that is when we went. Somehow I never "did" spring break during my youth. I never had the money for an extended trip, and I was lucky to get home from college at spring break instead of staying in the dorm alone for a week. During my freshman year I remember a dorm neighbor bringing a souvenir back from her spring break to my roommate and me--a fork she had "forgotten to return" to her vacation hotel, the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach. We added it to our "kitchen utensils" centered around the popcorn popper--that was what we cooked in illegally in dorm rooms in those days.

Since we were going to spend four days in south Florida and this was my first pleasure trip there (I had been to Miami Beach only once before, for a conference at the convention center) we decided to go the extra mile, so to speak, and we spent three nights in Key West. A shuttle picked us up in the Ft. Lauderdale airport at 2:30 in the afternoon and drove us south and west on US 1, and by 7:00 we were on what I thought was the westernmost Key of the Florida Keys. I learned later that Key West is not the westernmost Key and that the name "Key West" was an anglicization of Cayo Hueso, island of the bones, because it was used as a commercial graveyard for prehistoric peoples, and bones were found by the first Europeans to explore the island. We explored Key West mostly by the hop-on, hop-off bus, and saw several of the sites along the route, but we didn't push ourselves too much. It was a relaxing few days, with good eating, gallery visits, some walking, and wandering among interesting architecture and gardens.

The Key shuttle appeared again to take us back to Ft. Lauderdale, and we passed along US 1 again, this time facing the hurricane evacuation signs, and then were escorted to a delightful Spanish-style villa within walking distance of the Atlantic Ocean in Lauderdale. This house reminded us very much of our home in Spain, but its completely surrounding garden was more lush, and our time there was as at an oasis. We took a boat trip along the New River and saw lavish homes, and walked to the beach and a mall (imagine being able to walk to an Apple store!), and bought good fish and prepared it ourselves in the well-equipped and comfortable kitchen. This was a delightful period of reading, eating well, and living in beautiful and peaceful surroundings. It was definitely more relaxing than most of our vacations--we moved at a sedate pace.

Mr. Andersen would have approved, I think.

Music Live with Lunch

So soon (just three days) after the Mack and Mabel performance at C-CM, and here comes another great musical experience. This week it was Music Live with Lunch, a series hosted by Christ Church Glendale, usually on the second Wednesday of each month. These are short concerts, starting at 12:05 and over by 12:35 or so. Some of the ladies of the church prepare an easy-to-eat, but hot and nutritious lunch, that you may purchase for a few dollars and eat during the performance, if you are truly on a lunch hour. I am not, and 12:00 noon is early for my lunch, so after the first one earlier this year, I've just showed up for the performance. It really is an opportunity to be able to leave my desk at 11:45, drive to the next town, park, hear a half hour or so of good music, and be back at my desk (after taking my lunch out of the refrigerator) by 1:00. You can almost do that without telling anyone you are taking time off. And you come back refreshed, inspired, and/or at peace.

Last Wednesday's musical menu featured Michael Unger playing the fabulous new organ in the chapel at Christ Church. Not all the performances are held in the chapel, but all three that I have been to have been in this modern, multi-purpose room with flexible seating and a multi-level pipe organ as center focal point. It was particularly fitting for the four organ pieces played by Mr. Unger, who is, among other roles, Assistant professor of Organ and Harpsichord at UC's College-Conservatory of Music. I wish I was more educated about organ music, or even music in general; all I really know is that this was grandiose in the good sense, and Unger clearly appreciated this great organ and venue. The program:

Concerto del Sigr. Torelli in A minor, arr. J.G. Walther (1684-1748)

[Allegro]

Adagio

Allegro

Herzlich tut mich verlangen, Johann Peter Keller (1705-1772)

Andante with Variations in D Major, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Fugue No. 2 on BACH Op. 60, No.2, Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

Mack and Mabel

Mack and Mabel, according to Wikipedia, is a musical first produced on Broadway in 1974, which received eight Tony nominations--including Best Musical--but which won none. The original Broadway production starred Robert Preston and Bernadette Peters and closed after just eight weeks. It tells the story of the romance between Mack Sennett, movie director, and his leading lady, Mabel Normand. between the years 1911 and 1933. It also tells the story of the early film industry in Brooklyn and Hollywood, Mack Sennett's comedic "two-reelers" starring Mabel Normand, then Sennett's Bathing Beauties, then his Keystone Cops, and finally the demise of "movies" after the incursion of the "talkies."

After seeing the production at the University of Cincinnati's College Conservatory of Music (CCM) this afternoon, it is hard to believe that the play was a flop in its original production. Spectacular choreography and costumes, original stage settings, expert music, and powerful and energetic stage performances transformed it into an experience to remember. Then, too, it was the first performance I have ever seen at CCM, a leading school for music in the U.S., with no fewer than five performance venues. I have heard of CCM since we came to Cincinnati two years ago, but somehow the timing was never right to get there. But the timing was right today, and off we went. It will not be our last excursion.

I have loved theater since the first productions I ever saw, two musical comedies in Dayton, Ohio, and two summer Shakespeare plays in Yellow Springs, Ohio, when I was in high school back in the 1960s. When I attended Tufts University I was pleased to discover bi-weekly Cup and Saucer performances in Tufts' small Theater in the Round during the school calendar terms, performance put on by the drama department, with discussions of the plays after each  presentation. Somehow I got myself admitted to a program in London for my junior year, designed for drama and English literature majors, though I was neither, and I went to every single play showing in the West End of London during the fall of 1967. There were theater performances at other times after I returned to New England, in the Merrimack Repertory Theater in Lowell, Massachusetts when we lived in the Boston area; the Yale Rep and the Long Wharf in New Haven when we lived in Connecticut; and occasional Broadway productions. I've even gone to a few live theater productions in Denmark on my many trips there, and attendance at the summer musical revue at Bakken north of Copenhagen has become an almost annual event. But attendance at live theater dropped off dramatically during the decade that we lived in Spain, replaced by mostly classical musical performances, which bridge the language barrier. So it had been a very long time indeed since I had experienced the energy and life of real theater. Until this afternoon. And I loved it again.

Musical Memories

I've been thinking about an upcoming trip to Spain to see friends where we used to live. Mostly I've been checking the logistics of air and train arrangements, hotels, and whom we plan to see when. Plus  I've been wondering about my packable wardrobe for three separate locations--and have just changed back to my original idea (beige, brown, and orange) from my second idea (blue), based on the realization that I don't have any shoes to wear with the blue outfits. Only in fleeting glimpses have I begun to picture myself actually driving around in the territory that we knew so well up until two years ago, checking out some favorite cafés, and thinking about a few items I may want to pick up at stores and markets that I used to frequent.

So this morning when we stopped at Kroger's on the way home from church to grab a single package of frozen peas (how I ever ran out of this staple in  my house, I do not know) and I heard the music of a jazz saxophone as we pulled into the parking lot, I sat bolt upright. Had I fallen asleep and slipped across the ocean unconsciously? Was I in Spain already? When we lived in Spain, you see, a regular sight and sound whenever we went to any one of the local grocery stores was the musician playing a tune outside the entrance door (and the exit door). I'm not sure if it was a long-standing cultural occurrence or whether it just started after 2008, when the economy got so bad, but it certainly persisted up through the rest of our stay in Spain. Some of the musicians were not bad and you were happy to toss a few coins into the case or box they had in front of them. There was one, though, that was horrid; he knew only one song and that not very well. It was almost as though you would toss coins in the box so that he would stop playing for a fraction of a minute while he thanked you.

The saxophonist in front of the Woodlawn Kroger store just after noon today was good, and nice, and appreciative when we immediately, on the way in, put some money in the hat to show our appreciation. I was sorry that he stopped playing for several seconds while he thanked us and wished us a good day.

We completed our purchases (discovering, of course, that we "needed" several more items besides the package of frozen peas that I had gone in for) and I made a point of telling the check-out woman how much I enjoyed the playing of the musician out front. Since I had never seen or heard a musician in front of Kroger's, I was really afraid that someone in authority was going to come out and tell him to move away. She smiled and thanked us, so I am hopeful that no one will do that. Then on the way out, I fished out all my loose change and again dropped something into his container, and again he stopped playing momentarily, thanked me, and wished us a good day. As we got into the car and drove out of the parking lot, I noticed he had switched tunes--there were two small twin boys standing with their father in front of him, and he was treating them to a short rendition of "Three Blind Mice."

I wish I had a picture of this musician to show you, but the only picture is the one that resides in my brain. It was a lovely foreshadowing to my upcoming trip into one of my past lives, prompting me to think about and recall places, images, and occurrences that were important to me. Now, as I remember, I am making a note to check the price of frozen peas at the Mercadona supermercado--in the twelve years we lived in Spain, I used that price as my own "McDonald's Index" of inflation and comparative pricing, watching the price go from 85 centimos steadily upward to over 90--or had it reached a euro?

Where Did the Summer Go?

Well, it's been more than a month of Sundays since I last posted on Sundays in Cincinnati--it's been very close to two months. Not that there hasn't been anything to say. In fact, there's been too much. I am much busier here, and have a fuller life, than I did back in Spain, when I started the predecessor to this blog and wrote faithfully almost every Sunday.

So where, on this last Sunday before Labor Day, has the summer gone?

Two trips to Orlando. The first at the end of June for the American Library Association annual conference, where I also was able to begin helping my 92-year-old aunt prepare for moving into the assisted living facility in the community she has lived happily in independently for ten years, and for which she was now on a waiting list. That trip also occassioned an emotional visit to the site of the Pulse massacre, just a week after it happened. ALA had observed the tragedy with a moving service on the opening day of the conference, at which Congressman John Lewis' appeared.

The second trip to Orlando was just this past week, when I joined my sister Nancy to help with the actual move to assisted living. Again a very emotional time, as our remaining blood relative from that generation faced this loss of independence. We managed the details and left her in a stable and trusted environment, and she has recovered her native optimism and forward-thinking stance and is well on the way to making new friends as long as still seeing her old bridge friends. An unexpected benefit for me was the hospitality of one of Nancy's friends from high school, who provided a glass of wine each evening in a beautiful environment, a change of pace and concerns, and many fun moments as we recalled days from the past and learned what we had done in the almost 50 years since I had last seen her.

Volunteer efforts. I had made a commitment at the beginning of the summer to work two mornings each week at Catholic Charities to help in their efforts at resettling refugees in Cincinnati. I honored that up until the final weeks when schedule intervened. I also made a few trips to a different agency, Heartfelt Tidbits, which also teaches English to Nepalis from Bhutan, some of whom have spent 20 years in a refugee camp before being admitted to the USA. I have learned a lot about the resources available for teaching English as an additional language and about the hurdles that these people go through to gain a better life. No one chooses this path on a frivolous whim; in fact, they have little choice in which of the many countries throughout the wold they are sent to at all.

Lately Johannes and I have been out registering voters for the upcoming (but not soon enough!) election. We have concentrated on identifying Latinos who are US citizens and might not otherwise have voted before. We've learned a lot about the political process. I expect that effort will shift to getting people to the polls as we get to election day.

I was also one of about 300 volunteers at the International Federation of Library Associations' World Library and Information Congress in August, held this year in Columbus, Ohio, just up the road a piece. IFLA is always interesting and provides the opportunity to meet people from many countries of the world--this year 145. I was stationed in the expo hall for two days and learned about The History Connection, formerly the Ohio Historical Society, and how the city of Columbus came to be the capital of the state. My third volunteer stint was in the main hall on the last formal day of the conference in the Internet area, where I spoke with lots and lots of delegates and learned that many US Internet service providers--and especially the one supplying the Columbus convention center--routinely block emails sent to many African nations.

Other fun stuff. I attended several OLLI single session lectures on areas of Cincinnati history and culture (theater, publishing, Prohibition, philanthropy). I had lunch or brunch with a couple new friends from my Unitarian-Universalist congregation. I went to two new musical events, and in addition to enjoying the music, experienced two lovely family estates now reformed as foundations. I met with the Scandinavian Scribblers and the Readers, and my other book group and a women's group, and my regular Sisters (my own) gathering once a month. And on the work front, I weathered the demise of my tasks related to publication on an old platform and recreated a life as customer service rep on the new platform.

Today is sunny and clear and cooler than it has been in this otherwise hot and humid summer--much hotter and more humid than last year, at leaf as I remember it. Tomorrow is Labor Day, and it feels like fall is coming. I wore my all-white pants and top outfit to church this morning, with the white shoes that I laugh about not wearing after Labor Day. I think we still have many more warn days ahead, but there is something about that change in the calendar that says we are moving along to colder weather.

There is one thing I had really wanted to do this summer that I didn't: I didn't ask the Cincinnati Parks department to build a petanca court. Maybe next year.

Faces of Cincinnati

This has been a week spent largely beyond our dwelling place in the city of Springdale in north Cincinnati. In spite of our location adjoining a somewhat dated Latino shopping center, with an Hispanic and a Halal grocery store, and a Mexican restaurant, the feel of our neighborhood, and our experience, is distinctly white suburban. This week brought us welcome interchanges with the world beyond.

Impromptu dancing with men and women at World Refugee Day.

On Wednesday we went to Saint Francis de Sales parish on Madison Road near downtown Cincinnati, to participate with others from The Gathering at Northern Hills in preparing and serving a hot lunch to elementary school students who are members of the UpSpring of Cincinnati summer camp enrichment program for homeless children. I am not used to cooking in quantities of 100s, so it's a good thing that I was not in charge of the menu and planning. But I did enjoy chopping more onions that I every had before in a single stretch for sloppy goes, stirring one of six pots of the mixture, and then preparing the plates for the sloppy joes, cole slaw, and tortilla chips. It had been busy with adults  in the kitchen from 10-12, but when the kids came into the dining area after their morning activities, the activity level skyrocketed, as did the decibel level. I went out to check some of the kids in the dining room later in case they wanted seconds, and it was hard hearing above the roar of the crown, even though any child that wanted individual attention from adults stood patiently with hand raised in air to attract attention from one of the teachers or volunteers. We heard details about the work of UpSpring, which sadly has increased the number of people it serves during the summer months in the seven years that this congregation has been performing this service. Shockingly more than  half of all children living in Greater Cincinnati live below the poverty line.

A very young attendee at World Refugee Day.

Friday morning I made a quick stop at the Northminster Presbyterian Church in Finneytown, catching a group of adult refugees at the tail end of their weekly English and citizenship classes, sponsored by Heartfelt Tidbits, a relatively new local non-profit organization that concentrates its efforts on refugee resettlement. I spoke with the executive director, and I am hoping to start some tutoring of adults in this program in the upcoming summer weeks.

Saturday was World Refugee Day, and Catholic Charities Southwestern Ohio had planned a festive event for the refugee families it serves. My volunteer efforts there included the making and sharing of a Vietnamese chicken-cabbage salad and a late pot of South African yellow spiced rice--both these in more customary sized quantities, for a couple families. There were lots of volunteers and lots of other food offerings, too, and some beautiful music and dancing. The large majority of the refugees to Cincinnati now are from Bhutan., but several African and Asian regions are represented. One of the unique experiences I had Saturday as I helped staff the soft drinks table was to hear the Nepali national song and see it interpreted in a graceful dance.

So much joy and grace in this dance! Smiling faces all around!

The Mind Set To Rhythm

Two members of the Cincinnati-based music group The Mind Set To Rhythm did a marvelous thing yesterday. They came to sing and play a private farewell concert for my dear brother-in-law Phil in the hospice facility where he has been since last Monday.

Just two weeks ago three members of the group had shown up at St. John's Unitarian Universalist Church to play "Lady Bird," a modern jazz classic by Tadd Dameron, specially requested by Phil, as the offertory. Phil knows a lot about jazz and its intricate structures, and loves it, and this was the way he chose to say thank you and farewell to the church friends who had been a special part of his life for the last several years. In addition to "Lady Bird" that Sunday, we were treated to Cole Porter's  "Night and Day" after the service, and that got the entire congregation up dancing.

Yesterday there was no dancing, but Will played on the keyboard and Molly sang "All of You," "Embraceable You,"  and "My Funny Valentine," and concluded again with "Night and Day." Phil enjoyed the music more than the lyrics of most pieces, but the lyrics of these classic love songs seemed particularly poignant at this time. Nancy held Phil's hand, while he and Abie (their lovable and loving bundle of dog fur) snuggled quietly together. It truly seemed that Phil could hear the music, and once or twice his feet fluttered on the bedsheets as if in dance.

I had intended to link the songs to their lyrics or to a suitable video, but after much exploration I could not choose among the numerous renditions of these classics. Just as well, as probably no version could compare to the feeling in Phil's room yesterday as a lovely young couple sang for my sister and her husband as they approached the "till death do us part" part of the vows they had made together nearly 40 years earlier.

And I have been playing with the words of the band, The Mind Set To Rhythm. Phil had an incredible mind that he often set to music and rhythm (yesterday we were still trying to figure out his explanation of the "flatted fifth," and Molly helped us). Just as often he set his mind to the question of time and quantum physics, as well as a myriad of other interests, occasionally including history and the social studies that he taught for many years. And as the end approached he set his mind with determination and marched onward, and we are all the richer for having shared a piece of the journey with him.

More Amazing Grace

On July 12 I wrote about our first visit to The Gathering at Northern Hills, a Unitarian Universalist congregation in Cincinnati, and my joy at hearing and singing new words to the hymn Amazing Grace. At the time I did not know the author of those new words.

Now four months later, I confess that I have been spending most Sunday mornings with this congregation. We have been welcomed and are getting to know numerous loving and caring people,  and we always find the services enlightening, hopeful, and thought-provoking. A large part of the intellectual stimulation comes from the congregation's minister, Rev. Doug Slagle.  Today, following his message on Gratitude and Confession, we sang Amazing Grace again, and this time, the name of the adaptor was given in the program.

Amazing Grace

Text by John Newton; revised by Rev. Doug Slagle

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound

That loved a soul like me.

I once was lost but now am found,

Was blind, but now I see!

'Twas grace that taught my heart to love,

And grace such love received;

How precious did that grace appear

The hour 'twas first perceived!

Through many dangers, toils, and snares,

We have already come;

'Tis grace that brought us safe thus far,

And grace will lead us home.

When we've been here ten thousand years,

Together just as one,

We've no less days to sing love's praise

Than when we'd first begun!

Amazing Grace

It's been a busy month and a half, but we are now home again in Cincinnati. This morning, through the grace of The Gathering at Northern Hills, I was introduced to new words to a well-known song whose melody haunts all who hear it, but for some of whom the traditional lyrics strike a disturbing chord. Here is "Amazing Grace" from a less individualized, more loving perspective.

Amazing Grace (Adapted)

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound

That loved a soul like me.

I once was lost but now am found,

Was blind, but now I see!

'Twas grace that taught my heart to love,

And grace such love received;

How precious did that grace appear

The hour 'twas first perceived!

Through many dangers, toils, and snares,

We have already come;

'Tis grace that brought us safe thus far,

And grace will lead us home.

When we've been here ten thousand years,

Together just as one,

We've no less days to sing love's praise

Than when we'd first begun!

No author attribution was offered for this version of the hymn that replaces the original by John Newton in my heart, and I have not found a source after a short research session. But I did find a Wikipedia discussion of modern interpretations that provides some interesting perspectives. It includes a mention of the wonderful documentary on "Amazing Grace" produced by Bill Moyers in 1990, which I recall seeing, and links to several excellent recordings of the piece by various artists.

Final Friday at the Pendleton

It had been a long time since we were able to get to the Final Friday-of-the-month open gallery evening at the Pendleton Arts Center. We first went last summer, but our attendance dropped off when the evenings got darker earlier and also when other social engagements and travel intervened. So we were happy this past week that an empty spot on the calendar showed up on the last Friday of May and that it was good weather for driving into Cincinnati. We drove down Winton Road, avoiding the interstate at rush hour. Then with the help of Gladys, our GPS lady,  we maneuvered through the twisty, curving and unknown (to us) streets of the inner city, and arrived on Pendleton Street just around 6:00 PM when the galleries were opening. The parking lot was already full, but we found on-street parking a couple blocks away in a residential neighborhood, in front of some old brick houses where families were sitting out on the stoop to enjoy the evening breeze, and small children were blowing soap bubbles.

One of the nice things about Final Friday is the opportunity to talk with the artists. We met and had a nice discussion with Katherine Thomas in the gallery she shares with seven other artist members of  the Cincinnati Art Club on the first floor. I was enchanted with her realistic paintings built around a bit of fancy--the row of houses built by the side of a piano keyboard and surrounded by sheet music, currently shown on her homepage, really caught my eye and brings music to my imagination as I think back on it.

We popped into the gallery of Philip Compton, who does "iPhoneography," because I remembered him from previous visits. Alas, he wasn't there when we were, but his business manager gave us a glass of wine and we chatted about his technique and his subjects. All his work starts as digital photographs taken with his iPhone; then he works with 20 or so different apps and his creativity to produce vastly different works, some recognizable from the original photo, some not.  All are striking or beautiful or surprising, and many are two or three of those. A few are available for viewing on his Facebook page.

We chatted at length with glass sculptor Joseph Drury, who works in recycled glass to produce gorgeous works of art that you can see on his homepage. He collects used glass from everywhere he can and told us that when he came to open the gallery this week, there were bottles and sheets of glass waiting at his door. I didn't know that European and U.S. glass manufacturing used different techniques in production and thus need different techniques in reworking them, but Joe told us how he had found out the hard way not to blend the two. We then had a far-ranging discussion of which beer bottles are the preferred, both for art work and for their contents. Now I am wondering whether the green Carlsberg bottles we collect slowly but regularly at our house will be useful for him in his domestic or international works.

When we left the Pendleton building two hours later and walked to the car, the families were still sitting out on the stoop but the children had used up all their bubble water. We were surprised to discover Reading Road at the next corner and followed it for a leisurely 45 minutes all the way out to our normal driving area.

Cincinnati Treasures

This week brought two more opportunities to learn about Cincinnati history. On Wednesday I went to Prime Time, a monthly luncheon and program sponsored by the Friendship United Methodist Church of Wyoming, Ohio, where I have previously learned the history of Cincinnati chili, followed along by pictures on a recent trip to Machu Picchu, and listened to fabulous bell choirs. This time we were treated to a presentation by the Cincinnati Preservation Association, a "virtual tour" of notable architectural landmarks in the city.  We saw the Carew Tower, an early retail center, and Union Terminal, which provided a common transfer point between several disparate railroad lines that previously had failed to meet in this crossroads of America. Much of the program focused on Cincinnati's central Fountain Square, its unique fountain and the Albee Theater. They even showed a picture of Wiggins, a popular restaurant in the '50s and '60s, which was replaced in the 1970s by the Westin Hotel. That was after I went there in 1967 on my first date with the man who shortly thereafter became my husband. Ever since we became aware of its absence on our few and far-between visits  back to the city in which we met, we had wondered what had happened to it and in fact been unable to place where it had been on the square. Now perhaps we can take an excursion some time and re-situate it in our memories.

On Saturday afternoon I happened across an article in the newspaper about weekend performances at Music Hall honoring Stephen Foster as an "American Original." Not only is Stephen Foster acknowledged as the father of American music, he has an association with Cincinnati as he came here in 1846 to work as bookkeeper for his brother's steamship company. The Cincinnati Pops would be playing "Oh! Susanna," "Beautiful Dreamer," and "My Old Kentucky Home." Was it too late to get tickets for the Sunday matinee performance?

No! We book entertainment through the Internet these days, and in less than 15 minutes I had found seats and printed out tickets. So off we went this afternoon and were treated to a magical performance of orchestral and vocal American music. Not all the pieces were written by Foster--some traditional tunes were those that had influenced him, and one ("I Still Miss Someone," by Johnny Cash, was influenced by him). Stephen Foster only stayed in Cincinnati for two years, but it was here that he wrote "Oh! Susanna," his first popular published piece. He wrote almost 200 more in the following 16 years before he died at the age of 37.

Music, Music, Music

Fountains in Washington Park across from the Music Hall on a summer evening
©2014 Johannes Bjorner

Though the weather turned suddenly cold last week, it was technically still summer when we made our first 2014 trip to Cincinnati's venerable Music Hall. We drove into the city guided by Gladys Philips Smith, found parking easily right beside Music Hall and across from Washington Park, and walked down 14th Street to Race to find a bite to eat before the 8:00 PM performance. We were attracted to the outdoor seating at a place called The Anchor, and we were able to snag a table on the patio and next to the sidewalk, so we could observe the other diners and the passers-by on a Friday evening. There was a large party of younger people in the center of the patio--maybe a work gathering to celebrate a special event for one of their colleagues, an upcoming wedding perhaps. Another couple nearer our age were within my view, and they were enjoying a full dinner and sure seemed as though they would be heading back over to Music Hall after they finished the bottle of wine that accompanied their meal. We settled for a single glass of wine, coffee, a snack of hard cooked egg with salmon caviar and an appetizer of cold salmon (gravad laks, though it wasn't termed that on the menu), and then a giant pecan pie ice cream sundae for dessert. Sated but not stuffed, we ambled back toward Music Hall through Washington Park, a delightful and lively small park filling the space of two city squares in the OTR (Over-the-Rhine) area. There were people everywhere--walking, sitting on the benches, biking through the park and around the colored water jets spouting up in the center of the park. When we got around to the other side we read a poster telling us that you can select music on the internet, and the various jets will react to the music.

The performance that night was grand; we were introduced to a fantastic clarinetist, Martin Fröst, who was featured in Mozart's Concerto in A Major for Clarinet and Orchestra, K. 622. You can hear and see him play it yourself in three movements on YouTube and discover why we were so enthralled.

Then the following week, through the generosity of a new acquaintance who has retired from playing in the CSO, we were at another performance. This one was at 11:00 Friday morning, which is the earliest I have ever been to a professional concert (and about twelve hours earlier than they normally begin in Spain!). It turned out to be a great time to listen to music. Emanuel Ax was the piano soloist for Chopin's Concerto No. 2 in F Minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 21. The remainder of this performance had a nautical theme:

Ravel. Une barque sur l'océan (A Boat on the Ocean)
Mendelssohn. The Hebrides ("Fingal's Cave") Overture, Op. 26
Debussy. La mer
     From Dawn to Noon on the Sea
     Games of the Waves
     Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea

Following the performance we went out for a bite to eat for lunch at Salazar, another chef-owned bistro down the street, where we split a giant burger and plate of scrumptious Mediterranean sea salt fries. But there was no music at the park afterwards, and no colored lights. After a longer-than-expected tour of OTR that confused even Gladys Philips Smith, we found our way home and still had part of the afternoon and all evening to revel in the music we had heard.

Experimental Art

Opus 273, ©Johannes Bjorner. ISEA Exhibit 2014.

Our trip to southern California was occasioned by the 23rd Annual International Art Exhibit of the International Society of Experimental Artists. This is a juried show, and Johannes Bjorner, sometime photographer and recorder of events for this and a prior blog, entered a painting and was accepted into the show. Although Johannes has done art for many years now, this was a new group to us both.

ISEA says that art is experimental when the concept, attitude, techniques, or materials--in any combination--are experimental. ISEA artists work in two and three dimensions, and both my artist and I agree that this particular exhibition, which presented 87 works from the 400 or so that were submitted, showed some very creative pieces and was the best overall show that we had ever seen. It was an honor just to be included.

The exhibit is being held at the National Watercolor Society gallery in San Pedro from September 13 through October 12; a view of the gallery can be seen currently on the NWS website. Images of entries and prize works of the ISEA exhibits in 2012 (Gloucester, Massachusetts) and 2013 (Sanibel, Florida) can be seen from links at http://www.iseaartexhibit.org/photo-galleries, and presumably images from the 2014 show will make it there in due course.

Final Friday and Art in Action

I had heard about Final Friday, an art walk through numerous galleries occurring each month in downtown Cincinnati, from a sister, and then I was reminded of it again by a new acquaintance. And suddenly it was the final Friday of the month of August, so off we drove last Friday at 5:30, to catch the beginning of the event at 6:00.

Gladys, our GPS lady, sent us south on I-75, my least favorite method of getting into the city, and either she or we made a mistake, because we got close but weren't actually at the Pendleton Art Center in OTR, the "Over-the-Rhine" area that has changed from a dangerous neighborhood to become "the" new chic entertainment area in town. We parked the car and walked, and fortunately a young woman wheeling a baby stroller found us and directed us across the street and in the opposite direction to which we had been wandering.

When we got there, we found an old building--it had been the headquarters of U.S. Shoe Corporation, which itself has a fascinating history--in various stages of renovation, but with eight floors of artists' studios and galleries. What a feast for the eyes! and for the ears, with music, and also refreshments. We took the elevator to the eighth floor and figured we could walk through each studio and then descend, floor by floor, using the stairs.

I only made it through three floors Friday night before becoming saturated, so we left well before the 10:00 closing, and just in time to escape the worst of an evening rain. But Final Friday is only the start of the weekend events: Art in Action is held in the same place(s) on the Saturday following, from 11:00 to 3:00, so there we were again on Saturday afternoon. This time we knew the way to Pendleton Street and where to park, and while not as many galleries were open for demos and lessons as the night before, there were enough to make the trip worthwhile. And starting on the fifth floor, we still have not made it down to two and three.

The directory of artists and the website claim that this is the largest collection of artists under one roof in the world, and I see no reason to dispute the claim. Some artists work in the Pendleton studios while others only exhibit and sell there on the once-monthly weekend--many of the artists still support themselves with a "day job." It's a pity that there is only one weekend each month for this extravaganza, but it's a sure thing that we will be there at the end of September and many times more.

A very active Facebook page shows some of the happenings at each Final Friday.