There's someone else.

July 14, 2007 at 6:40 AM

I got an email from Susie, asking if I would please join the summer music festival at the beginning of August. Every year, it comes around, but by July, I'm so far from the music scene that I can't take my trail shoes off long enough to attend a single rehearsal. It breaks my heart--this year, Paul Rosenthal will be playing the Beethoven concerto, and I would love to see it. I want to do it. I'm thinking about it. Will this year finally be year I play in the community orchestra for the summer music festival?

Meanwhile, I've been preparing to give birth to some ideas I've had simmering back there in my brain for a long while. You see, I like to draw. Yeah, I know, you don't read about it much here; that's because I took last year off completely. But I've always liked to go out and see beauty and capture it in art. However, things got busy last fall, when I'd hoped to get some color pencil ideas ready for my annual October show. The show fell through right about the same time I got into the symphony.

The Anchorage Symphony concert season begins in September. Teaching commences around Labor Day. So this summer is it. It's the only time I have to get ideas and assemble them on paper, and this time I'm gonna do it. I'm pretty excited about it, actually. It will be hard; I'll be rusty, for certain. But in October, I will have new drawings to hang on the wall once again. I can't wait.

Now for some reason, I just can't shake this uncomfortable feeling, as I sit here thinking about someone else. Whose strings lie silent. And alone. Just down the hall in that darkened room...

From Jim W. Miller
Posted on July 14, 2007 at 2:08 PM

"Meanwhile, I've been preparing to give birth... "
Whew! Never start a sentence like that.

From Linda Lerskier
Posted on July 14, 2007 at 3:42 PM

Oh no. I was thinking the same thing as Jim.

Lovely artwork! I can't believe you drew that, it's so gorgeous.

From Penelope Brackenbury
Posted on July 14, 2007 at 5:52 PM

That's beautiful, great composition and eye to detail. Its nice to see work done under natural light, even overcast like that, it adds so much atmosphere.

From Emily Grossman
Posted on July 14, 2007 at 6:05 PM

Gee, I hope I didn't scare my mom with that comment!

From Jim W. Miller
Posted on July 14, 2007 at 7:56 PM

You didn't scare her. You raised her hopes and then dashed them on the ground :)

From Laurie Niles
Posted on July 14, 2007 at 10:54 PM

I understand...the fiddle always calls, doesn't it?

From David Russell
Posted on July 15, 2007 at 11:17 AM

Emily, your work is so beautiful! It evokes the spiritual! You have a wonderful gift.

Josef Gingold once asked an old student:"How's your violin? Do you still take a daily promenade on the fingerboard?... or at least do you take it out of the closet and stroke it, sit with it awhile?"

Yours is not really an "affair", is it? Its the same love wearing different clothes. :-)

From Tom Holzman
Posted on July 15, 2007 at 2:38 PM

You are definitely multi-talented.

From Albert Justice
Posted on July 15, 2007 at 3:50 PM

Very impressive Emily.. What does the image mean to--you?... I have some Japanese black and white oils I think, that evoke the same thoughtfulness 'for me', and just wanted your take.

From Emily Grossman
Posted on July 15, 2007 at 5:24 PM

Hmm, good question. I titled it "Prelude" because I drew a second one of that lake and mountain during the sunrise, all rosy and warm, its layers of color and repeating shapes reminding me of a fugue. The pre-dawn stillness of "Prelude" struck me as the embodiment of calm.

I used to draw with a lot of grey, back when I was depressed. This drawing was created during that period, although looking at it doesn't depress me. It calms me.

From Jim W. Miller
Posted on July 15, 2007 at 11:51 PM

I have bad astigmatism so I can't see it very well. Can you make it bigger?

From Emily Grossman
Posted on July 16, 2007 at 4:32 AM

That's a photo I took of a 4 x 5 card, so it's already close to life size, at least on my computer. You could always order a full-sized 10 x 14 print for only $30 plus shipping. Or, I'll send you the card. :)

From Jim W. Miller
Posted on July 16, 2007 at 5:09 AM

I still wouldn't be able to see it. Can you describe it to me?

From Emily Grossman
Posted on July 16, 2007 at 6:11 AM

A long time ago, glaciers carved a path through a chain of mountain peaks, leaving a series bowl-shaped valleys behind. As a result, the mountain silhouettes over Waterton Lake form a repetition of artistic lines that gracefully fade to lighter shades of slate with each receding peak.

The air was particularly warm and still that morning, especially for September in Canada, and though the sun hadn't yet risen, I needed only a light jacket for warmth while I finished waking up. I walked in silence along a shore of polished stones, whose uniformity in size and shape reminded me of a well-tended rock garden. The water's smooth ripples were echoed in the texture of the worn driftwood trunk that lay just out of its reach. For a moment, the mountains, the lake, the rocks, and the wood were bathed only in blue.

From Jim W. Miller
Posted on July 16, 2007 at 7:31 AM

Needs more garlic.

From Emily Grossman
Posted on July 16, 2007 at 8:03 AM

How did you know that I've been craving garlic all day?

From Roelof Bijkerk
Posted on July 17, 2007 at 4:29 AM

"The air was particularly warm and still that morning, especially for September in Canada, and though the sun hadn't yet risen, I needed only a light jacket for warmth while I finished waking up. I walked in silence along a shore of polished stones, whose uniformity in size and shape reminded me of a well-tended rock garden. The water's smooth ripples were echoed in the texture of the worn driftwood trunk that lay just out of its reach. For a moment, the mountains, the lake, the rocks, and the wood were bathed only in blue."

And then. Go ahead build up this whole scene and leave out the whole reason for it (which is this someone else).

And what about the birth? And if there's someone else who's the father?

Who's this mysterious person who's refered to as the other? Why does he or she keep you from the one whose strings aren't taut anymore?

Has anyone offered you any money for that "someone else"? Is he going to the museum, and if so which museum? Will he meet someone else there and will their light intertwine?

What will happen if he finds out that he left a child behind?

Will the child grow up to be like his father?

From Jim W. Miller
Posted on July 17, 2007 at 8:54 AM

Or, in other words...

This entry has been archived and is no longer accepting comments.