la superette

I've just submitted Street Bling and Prayer Beads for this year's La Superette, a great art and artist's venue for the holidays. I participated in 2003 and for some reason didn't last year. Probably because of my adventures with Lyme. This year's event will be at Exit Art, which is very exciting because it's a great space, the backdrop will be amazing as Exit Art's exhibitions always are. And I love that I performed Bead Meditation there for prayingproject, and it will feel like being home again.
Larry and I saw Laurie Anderson perform The End of the Moon last night at the Bardavon in Poughkeepsie. It's an amazing piece and not at all heart-lifting, which I tend to prefer in my art as well as my life. But there were certain moments of beauty and grace in it that balance the darkness.
On Wednesday night in the city we had a chance to see Junior Mance and Virginia Mayhew at the Greenwich School of Music on Barrow Street. It was a great evening. A small performance space on the second floor of the school, with a raised platform stage. A small crowd. And amazing, absolutely amazing musicians. Larry knows Junior from back in the day at Seido. Virginia is a 3rd degree black belt. And Ed Ellington - grandson of Duke Ellington, and a kyoshi at Seido, and a jazz musician in his own right was also there.
It was a treat to have a week punctuated by art and music that are particularly poignant examples of artists on their path. We come in all shapes and sizes, with a zillion ways of expressing ourselves, and to varying degrees of commercial success in the marketplace. But in the presence of any artist, no matter how successful, one senses a connection of universal proportions. We are all vessels full of ideas and impressions that aren't really mainstream. I think it was Jung who said that artists are a society's collective unconscious. We are the dreamers and the dreams.