Simple Gifts Performs

Partnerships are roots that nourish a flowering society. Alone we can do but in a partnership we do double, triple or more.

Simple Gifts is a partnership of 2 women, a dozen stringed instruments made to pluck, strum, hammer or bow, a bellows and some recorders that take a simple breath and pull it into a vibrant rainbow of sound. Simple Gifts, Karen Hirshon and Linda Littleton, gave their music to enthusiastic reception at the David A. Howe Library with funding from one of its partners, the Allegany Arts Association.

One element of the concert was the open sharing of information about the instruments and the music which included tunes from Irish, American, Klezmer, Gypsy, Balkan and Indian roots. There was even a lesson in how to play the smallest and most easily acquired instrument – the soup spoons.

Hirshon and Littleton have been partners in music for 13 years. They said that when people get along and make good music, it’s hard to quit. They form an “alternate universe” and it feels, and sounds, like home.

After the program, Aydrianna Weimer said, “The concert was great. I especially liked that they knew different tunes and styles and they smiled a lot.”

Aydrianna, a 4^th grader in Wellsville who plays recorder and intends to play flute soon, claimed the Shruti box as her favorite instrument. The Shruti is an Indian instrument that consists of reeds powered by a foot operated bellows. Hirshon said that the instrument is designed to be used during meditation but that it sounds great when it accompanies a flute and that’s how she first heard it.

Simple Gifts was the first program in Appalachia Rediscovered – a 2 month project funded in part by another Library partner, the Allegany County Area Foundation. Programs include academic lectures, concerts, films, classes, art exhibits and other events to address social, political, economical, environmental and cultural issues that have formed and continue to transform this thirteen-state region.

The full list of programs is at www. DavidaHoweLibrary.org (click on Appalachia Rediscovered on the left.) but here’s a partial list -

Allegany River Indian Dancers, Thurs, Oct 28, 7pm

Family Concert with Dave Ruch: Songs, Strings Spoons and More Fun with Appalachian Music
Sat, Sept 25, 10:30am

Creek Bend Band, Bluegrass, Thurs Nov 4, 7pm

Still Singing: The John C. Campbell Folk School, Betsy And Charley Orlando, Tues, Sept 28, 7pm

Leonard M. Adkins, Wildflowers of the Appalachian Trail, Thurs, Oct 21, 1:30pm

Newsletter for September-November 2010 Click on a page to get larger image

Karen Lang Show at Howe Public Library

You just can't see the color in these photos. There isn't enough light in the room for my little camera to make that happen but Karen Lang sees color in the world and she brought her paintings from Berlin to Wellsville so that you can see them too. The Arts Association sponsored her show. Open when the Library is open. Stop by and be amazed.




Tulip Shoes and Summer Fruit (below) are my favorites. Which are yours? Leave a note for Karen in her book.

Allison Midgley adds her touch to the Albright Knox

Early in my life there was an incident with a bobby pin as a scribble-device. Looking back through 55 years of cobwebbed time, I faintly see varnish dust fly from the broken tip of a black bobby pin. The scribble grew, intertwined and danced with movement and intricacy.

Unfortunately my creativity involved a treasured parlor end table. I remember my mother’s crestfallen face as she rubbed the table top in disbelief and despair.

Many of us likely have early life scribble experiences ranging from achievement to disaster. At the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo scribble lives as noun, verb and art as a team of artists, printmakers and architects scribble over walls bridging the 1905 gallery with the 1962 wing with the installation of the last, the largest and possibly the most intricate of the world’s Sol LeWitt drawings.

Sol LeWitt (1928-2007) created structures, drew, made prints and painted, showing his work at hundreds of solo exhibitions around the world from 1965 onward. He was interested in music, mathematics, architecture, line, process, communication and ideas. Over 1200 of his works were huge, architectural drawings executed by crews as is this Scribble Drawing at the Albright-Knox.

The team working now in Buffalo includes head draftsman Takeshi Arita and 4 assistants from the Sol LeWitt Studio in New York, 2 Albright-Knox Art Handlers and 9 apprentices including librarian/printmaker/mixed media artist Allison Midgley of Wellsville. For 8 weeks the crew will draw millions of layered, chaotic scribbles that will, over time and from a distance, become an ordered, precise drawing covering 2200 square feet.

Now, in week three, the artists enter a scaffold area covered in taped plastic sheets housing ladders. The air, filled with graphite motes – escapees from the process - is forced through a filtration system that drones during work periods. Zippers in the plastic allow entry and exit. Disposable booties over shoes trap some dirt and on either side of entry points sticky floor mats are tattooed with graphite footprints.

The plastic walls defining the work area were constructed weeks ago and the scaffolding held painters who covered the walls with 2 coats of oil based paint and then 5 more of latex – sanding between coats - giving the walls the look and feel of paper.

On the uniform surface, the artists measured out the drawing, masking areas with craft paper and labeling it in white chalk numbers with each number indicating a level of density of line. They had a short lesson in basic scribble technique and started turning graphite into the first of millions of lines. They created flowing curves, sharpening the lead by pulling it against the surface of the wall, bending and turning their hands over the lines, becoming ever more graceful as they worked and received individual coaching.

Like many huge undertakings this is not work for the faint of heart - or arm. They work 6 days a week/ 7 hours a day with lunch and an afternoon break. While at the wall, they are asked to be in the moment with intense concentration. “Be present,” Arita tells them. “Don’t be automatic. Each person is an artist. What you do makes the whole thing work.”

Could they cut the number of drawing hours from the estimated 5,000 if they used brushes? Sprayers? Chalk? Not if they want to accomplish the goal. To give the effect required, the drawing must be of many lines, layered and focused.

The apprentices and draftsmen draw crisp, even, whispers of graphite that build on each other to create the visual roar of millions of butterfly wings. The many lines give the drawing depth so that now, 3 weeks into the project, the densely filled areas look luminous. From one side, they are rich velvet and from another point of view they become huge pipes of burnished steel. The surfaces reflect light as if mirrors. All from a simple pencil.

Sol LeWitt began his drawing career in the 60s with pencil on walls – radical for the time and, according to Ilana Chlebowski, Curatorial Assistant at the Alright-Kinox, still radical.

LeWitt explored paints and colors, shapes and shadows, lines and angles over the decades. To give an idea of his stature, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (with Williams College Museum of Art) opened an exhibition of LeWitt’s work that will be on view for 25 years and offers 105 drawings covering nearly an acre of wall space.

Pieces for that exhibit were among the last works LeWitt created before his death in 2007. They were created with the materials he used in 1960 and returned to – the pencil on a wall. Now, this crew of artists is bringing his last huge graphite, wall project to the world.

Allison Midgley saw the notice of Scribble Wall Line Drawing while surfing the internet. She mulled it over reading through the criteria and applied for the position after learning that she could take a leave of absence from her job at the David A. Howe Library. She put forth her art with her willingness to commit to the 8 week task and after time was thrilled to be accepted.

More about the project next week and at www.Albrightknox.org.

The Albright Knox Art Gallery is located at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York. Call
716.882.8700. Summer hours are noon to 5 Tuesday through Saturday. Admission for adults $12, Students and Seniors $8. Driving time from Wellsville 2 hours.