We’re back from San Francisco and I apologize for disappearing without a word. I intended to post en route but we traveled around so much and time was shorter than I expected. We went out as Allan was to do a radio interview with Michael and Justine Toms on their New Dimensions program and we decided to tack on a vacation. The Toms broadcast from Ukiah, a couple of hours north of San Francisco and we drove up to that beautiful wee town in poring rain and were delighted to wake up the next day to a charming place set in a valley in the far reaches of the beautiful wine country. The Toms are doing such good work interviewing authors and artists. It was a real pleasure to meet them and I’ll let you know when the radio interview will be web cast.

So many things happened on this trip. I hadn’t been anywhere new for a while so it was fantastic to see beautiful San Francisco, the incredible landscape and seascape all around and especially to meet some great people. I love that most of all, for sure.

After Ukiah, Allan gave a presentation at JFK University set up by his friend, artist and writer, Julie Stiles. JFK actually has a Department of Consciousness and Transformation! Pretty cool and not the sort of thing we find much of here on the east coast where we have to work through things the good old-fashioned way stumbling around a bit. I met two wonderful sisters, Pauline and Gillian. They’re from Liverpool originally but have lived in San Fran for years. Pauline is a nurse who uses art for healing and Gillian uses writing to get people to step forward through telling their stories. I could have talked to them all night and hope we’ll get to share a little through the grace of the internet!

Pauline and Gillian tipped us to the farmer’s market at Ferry Pier on Saturday and we spent the day roaming around there with Julie and eating Mexican food. It was great to hang out with Julie and chat about the process of making art. I can see that we don’t give ourselves nearly enough chances to do that when we’re home. It seems like we always have things ‘to do.’

San Francisco is so full of amazing vistas and architecture, a magical place, as is the landscape and seascape all around. We spent a few days at The San Remo Hotel which reminded us of other times and other realities. It was built in 1906 after the San Francisco to house workers rebuilding the city and restored to its former self a few years ago. I think Raymond Chandler roams the halls at night which made it a kind of cool place to stay.  Truly felt I’d stepped behind the brilliant curtain of light and beauty that is so much of San Francisco into something grittier.  The rooms are tiny, the furniture original to the early 20th century and the bathrooms separate from the rooms. A modest splendor. I like my creature comforts and was, at first, reluctant to stay anywhere where I might have to pad down a long corridor in the middle of the night to use the loo but the place is full of quaint charm and history. Our neighbor, George, was a permanent resident of the hotel, a jolly man in his seventies. Who knows what brought him there but I loved his cheerfulness even though his life was lived in a nine foot square room. I met another man when I went to wash a few clothes in the laundry. He, too, must have been a permanent resident because he was washing his curtains. He was young and handsome and greatly concerned that there was only one dryer working. I don’t know too many young men who wash curtains but this fellow did.
The hotel was so intimate—total strangers toddling about in their undershorts and pajamas to use the showers and toilets. Everyone was courteous and affable. In ordinary hotels people breeze right by each other but in The San Remo they greet each other with a smile and a hello. You really do need to say something when you meet someone in the early morning in your pajamas. It was great.

Home again. We drove through Boston in a taxi last night around midnight and I found the grittiness of this city, its red brick and well-worn buildings, all so familar and somehow comforting. It’s home and it’s good but the great vistas of San Francisco are in the mind and heart now too.  Anyway, many more tales to tell and much inspiration. To be continued!

I just spent the whole day at the Harvard Graduate School of Design at a symposium—Art in the Life of the City: London Stories. Several curators came from London to share stories of ephemeral art in the city—art that is not intended to be permanent and that often engages the viewer as participant. Many of the talks were densely intellectual—so much information that it was difficult to keep up. It’s clear that England and Europe are far ahead of us here in the United States in terms of this sort of engaged public art. Forty per cent of artists in England no longer think of art as object making. For them it is experience making.

I will write more about this but tonight, after this amazingly inspirational day, I’d like to tell the story of Antony Gormley’s Waste Man who you see here. Gormley went to the depressed English seaside resort of Margate to create an art piece that told the story of the exodus in the Bible. It is the story of how we leave the old behind and he asked the people of Margate, many of whom are poor, to give to this project by finding some object in their homes that they’d be willing to let go of. Maybe something that, when they let go of it, they could also let go of the pain associated with it. He obtained a space in an old abandoned amusement park and created the skeleton of a man with steel beams, eighty feet high with one arm raised like the Statue of Liberty. With the use of cranes they attached the detritus of this community of people to the frame to create the statue of a man made from junk. There was a piano, desks, chairs and who knows what.

One young woman clutched a small paper shopping bag. There were tears in her eyes. ‘I can’t tell you what it is,’ she said, ‘but I must let it go. It is time to let it go.’ She went up in the crane and deposited her package in the very heart of the man.

When he was complete, the whole town of Margate gathered around one night and they set him on fire. He burned all night until there was nothing but rubble left. Everyone huddled around and watched.

‘No one ever comes to Margate,’ said one spectator. ‘This is something special.’

I confess I’ve not thought much of art in these heart-based, political, public, ephemeral, huge-scale terms but now that I’ve experienced Waste Man and other similar works I feel both humbled and changed. There is work to do on this planet and artists can not just bring awareness to social problems they can actually change people. If you can rent the film, please do. The people of Margate have let go of something—an old way of viewing themselves. One burning night and working on this man together changed them. No one will forget this experience.I am not such an artist but I will consider now how I might be more engaged with the world in whatever it is I now do.

Because I designed the poster for this event I was invited to dinner in Harvard Square with the presenters. There was the chief curator of the Tate Modern, my favorite museum, the head of The Royal Society of the Arts, the director of the Serpentine Gallery in London, the producer of The Sultan’s Elephant and more. And they were all women, all a little younger than I am, but not by much. They are immensely accomplished women and I have to bow down to them for the courage and determination they have but I declined dinner. I knew I did not have anything to offer them, not in a group setting.

So I walked from the GSD through Harvard Yard to the bus. There were cops everywhere and a bandstand set up in the yard. It was a beautiful sunny day, (the first day of summer—spring is already over!) and I had to walk a little out of my way because the cops were closing down the yard for this event. I asked a student what was going on but he didn’t know. I stopped in at The Coop, the Harvard-owned bookstore and spent a pleasant half hour browsing around. When I exited, by the back door, I saw three men dressed identically in blue blazers with little buttons in their lapels. A mild curiosity but I paid no attention—I was much too full of inspiration from the day. I passed a man on my way out the door, turned left and was told by a rather burly dude that I must go to the right. I could see a couple of black limos down by Mt. Auburn Street on the left. ‘Why’s that?’ I said. ‘The prime Minister of Britain is visiting,’ he said. ‘You’re joking!’ I really couldn’t believe this just having spent the whole day with the culture honchos of Britain and having just declined dinner with them. The man laughed. ‘You just walked right by him!’ Funny. Not only could I have had dinner with these incredible women but I might have met the Prime Minister or at least said hi, if I’d had my eyes open. Well, there you go. Time to open the eyes!
Anyway, I hopped on the Number 71 bus and came back to home sweet home. But something changed for me today. At the symposium we all caught a glimpse of possibilities and who knows where any of us will go from here. This is not about ambition but inspiration and another door opened. So I say thank you to these incredibly intelligent and brave women who have really devoted their lives to art as curators and producers. Magic has happened.

Yesterday I got hired to design a poster for a symposium here in Boston hosted by Harvard in mid-April called—Art in the Life of the City—London Stories, about ephemeral art projects. What a fun assignment! I’ve already started to play around.

Last summer we watched the film, The Sultan’s Elephant which documented one of the most amazing public art projects ever. One day in London an object appeared on a major street. It looked like a space ship had crashed to earth—it was half submerged in the street and the road was all broken up. Londoners were stunned and puzzled when they encountered it. No one seemed to know what was going on—there were no explanations. The next day an enormous mechanical elephant, gloriously and extravagantly decorated, emerged from a side street and began a slow march through London. Soon the whole city was watching, the police cleared traffic, people pored out from office buildings, kids skipped school. Nobody knew what was happening. Where did it come from? There was a smile and wonder on every face. In a day or two a huge human figure, a little girl, stepped out of the elephant and began walking. The way she moved was so life-like, the whole thing was magic.

The event lasted three days and the procession ended back at the spaceship that was now, miraculously, whole again. I will say no more. Rent the film if you can.

But it reminded me that art can really take us to the place of infinite imagination and possibility if we think BIG. Imagine what might be possible if we started to think that way all the time! I’m so happy to be doing this poster. Now to think BIG!! Stay tuned. Will post when done.

If you go to Oprah.com and register you can tune into a live ‘webinar’ at 9 EST tonight with Oprah and Eckhart Tolle. For the next ten Monday nights they’ll be discussing his book A New Earth and you can sit in your pajamas and watch in the comfort of your own pad. It follows on from Tolle’s book— The Power of Now.

The book is about how we can awaken to our true selves, leave unhappiness behind and be the people we want to be and who we truly are. Then we can be agents of good on the planet. We’re so much more than we think we are once we awaken to the fact.

It’s a great book, a good reminder that all is possible if we come to reside in our true selves and let our attachment to pain go. Consciousness is changing on the planet and very rapidly. Good news. We cannot go on as we did in the twentieth century. We all want life here on earth to be better for all and we’re part of the positive changes to come.

It will be very interesting to see how positive change accelerates after this message reaches so many people around the world. You can tune in wherever you are in the world just check oprah.com for times. I’ll be tuning in and rereading the book. This is art on the planet. Peace.

Last week my amazing daughter, Anna Portnoy, put on MacBeth with her amazing eleventh grade students. Together they managed to put on a spectacular rendition in modern dress with hints of Boston streets seeping into MacBeth’s Scotland. Shakespeare in Wonderland. The kids loved the play because they saw how MacBeth was corrupted by power and by the violence he perpetrated, how it drove him mad. Many of them have witnessed violence on the Boston streets.

Today an article was published in The Bay State Banner with a full report on the play. You might like to check it out. Marques Latimore gave an outstanding performance as MacBeth. It’s such a large and daunting role and without a student willing to take on the hard work of preparing fr it the play could not have happened. So many other students also pitched in and participated. Lady MacBeth, the witches, Duncan—they were all fantastic. And it took a teacher like Anna, who believes in her students and who put in hours and hours of extra work. Back in my day the arts in school were dismissed as frivolous. It seems like times haven’t changed much. Apart from a few teachers who use the arts to teach curriculum and develop individual expression not much happens.

Teachers are not paid to do this work. There is almost no support for the arts in the Boston public schools. That’s a crime considering the payoff. In putting on this play these kids have learned things that you just can’t learn from books. They’ve overcome fears about performance—most had never been in a play before. They tackled the difficult language of Shakespeare and considered how to present scenes. They constructed sets and made costumes. They made a sound track with music they know and love. Think MacBeth and Michael Jackson’s Thriller. They choreographed a dance that brought the house down. They had disagreements, I’m sure. But when the curtain came down for the last time it came down on on a group of kids who know themselves a little better and who know know what it is to achieve something fantastic.

The fact that a group of kids worked together for three months on this play, staying after school and juggling jobs as well as their homework is testament to the power of artistic expression. Thank you, Shakespeare. It was so moving to see how the kids worked together and to witness theirs and Anna’s creativity.

It sounds hackneyed but I’ll say it anyway—the arts are transforming. They change lives. That’s their purpose. So when are we going to put money towards arts education? If we want kids to graduate with a solid sense of themselves and the spirit they possess then here’s the recipe—fund arts in the schools (hey, fund education, fund good teachers) and we’ll live in a world we all want to live in.

Back again at the old Wordpress site and I’m going to stay put.  I thought I was doing something clever switching over to an iWeb site but I was in well over my head.  No need to go into it—I’m just so glad I could retrieve my old site.  Lesson learned—I am no tech wizard.

In fact there were a good number of lessons learned—

Tech issues can stress a girl out even after years of yoga!

Do not throw things out until you have the next thing working.

etc.  Too boring to continue….

BUT I did discover how much I love my wee blog.  It really is an awesome place to explore various endeavors and see everything in one place, and to communicate with others.  Now it almost feels like I’m starting over.  I was hoping that when I transferred the site I’d actually be able to put more things up in a coherent way but I’ll figure out how to attach a new site to the blog rather that transferring the blog.

Anyway, back again and here to stay.  And soooooooooooo grateful.

I am in the process of changing this site over to the new one. It’s all a bit technical and I confess I don’t understand any of the transfer details. I’m just crossing my fingers that in a couple of days this will look very different. So, my loyal readers, if the site disappears for a bit it will be back, I promise. One way or another!! But most everything here will disappear or be reconfigured. It was fun. That was then. Now, on we go!

Yesterday we held Allan’s book launch party at the Arsenal Center for the Arts in the midst of the oddest weather ever where it went from balmy and warm to freezing blizzard of wee snow balls in a matter of minutes.  This was for his new book, Stories We Need To Know and with dire weather predictions we got a few emails from folks who said they didn’t think they could come with such bad driving conditions.  But we set up the food and drink table as if there’d be a crowd and, happily, there was!  There were at least sixty people and we ran out of chairs so some had to stand while Allan gave his talk.

When we arrived we had difficulty getting the fancy projector that hooks up to the computer to work so there were a few anxious moments of a technical nature.  By great good luck a lovely woman I know stepped in from the theater down the hall and she had the number of Martin, the young man who actually knows how to work the projector, so we were able to give him a call.  Then it looked like we’d forgotten the plastic glasses so I dashed to our local store to buy more only to realize I’d left my wallet at home.  It was one of those moments when the deep yogic three-part breath was put to good use.  No point in rushing, just breath deeply, proceed to house, pick up wallet, breathe deeply, return to store where plastic glasses were exactly where I’d stashed them by the cash, breathe even more deeply  while cashier, an elderly Russian with Sergei on his name tag, took all day to count out the change because he was clearly breathing very deeply or not at all.  Then, after finally getting the said bag of plastic glasses, stepping out from the store into a blast of arctic air and slicing wind that actually took the breath away.

So, I arrived with the glasses to discover that the technical difficulties had been solved by the heroic appearance of Martin and that the glasses we’d thought were lost were actually at the front of the room beside the projector rather than at the back by the drinks table.  But never mind, deep breathing is a very salutary practice and the difficulties we faced—a projector that wouldn’t work, missing cups, Sergei counting pennies as if they were gold, and blizzard conditions—none got in the way of a great time!  So nice to see friends, to meet new people and even to raise some money for the Arts Center.  And to launch Allan’s wonderful book.

This is a long way of saying, that with so much going on, I forgot to take pictures.  Next time.

One final note—I go again today to my tech man at Apple to work on switching this blog to my main website.  It’s possible the whole thing will disappear for a few days this week or next but it will be back.  Same address.  It’s more than possible, indeed a fact, that all the old posts here will disappear.  But we move on—as we must.  A good opportunity, among many, to practice letting go.  C’est la vie.

Just back from my meeting with the Apple man—two steps forward, one back. I’ve made my site too wide so that it can’t be seen properly by people with smaller monitors, so back to the drawing board to change everything. I had so many questions and this lovely young man could hardly keep up. He was awfully good and tried really hard not to knit his brows together but I couldn’t help but see his eyes glaze over a couple of times. He actually had to get his supervisor at one point. The thing is that when you move to something that really is simple like iWeb you do lose a few functions that are not available to Mac. Then, on the other hand, you gain all of the ease of use etc. It’s a bit of a toss-up because you get used to one thing then have to get used to another. But I will forge on.

I could just leave my blog thing here as is and do my art site separately as I have already but it would be cool to have the whole thing in one place because I want the art site to change as I do new things and to keep it vital. And I really would like to be able to bung things up on the blog in a second or two without fuss which is how it will be on iWeb though I can’t file things in Categories like I can here.

At any rate, in the grand scheme, these are just little crumbs of concern…not to be chewed on, just swallowed. It’s a learning curve and I’m still putting one foot in front of another. Monday, I have another meeting and, with luck, the new site will get up next week. But now, back to the digital drawing board!

Isn’t it crazy? Just when I decide to redesign my site and take the blog to iWeb this Wordpress site goes wonky. The whole type face has changed and I haven’t even touched it! Think the message is clear—I’m doing the right thing. This is too complicated for a girl like me.

Moving right along. The new site looks good. I’m keeping it very simple but it’s great to see all my work in one place and to ponder the trajectory. Thursday I go to meet my Apple man who will advise on lingering technicalities and, with luck, we can switch the new site on then and there. I really look forward to having this be easier so the focus can be more on the work and the trajectory.

Anyway, thanks for your patience and please forgive the wonky type…not worth fixing at this point. New site will still be Artwala Road.