Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Celebrating the Library




The Grand Island Memorial Library celebrated twenty years at its location on Bedell Road with a week-long series of programs that included a Big Read book discussion of The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, a horticultural presentation by the Cinderella Isle Garden Club, and an open house with guest performer Nan Hoffman.
Before the library was located on Bedell Road, it was housed in a single room in Town Hall.
Although the current library is not among the larger libraries in the Buffalo & Erie County library system, it is a good facility, with a large room housing the stacks and a separate meeting room. In the meeting room, there is a rotating art display. Library staff have established a collaboration with the schools on Grand Island. Art teachers from the all of the schools on Grand Island send their students' work to be displayed in the meeting room. These exhibits are changed regularly to give more young artists the chance to have their work displayed in a public venue.
I went to two of the events that were held at the library: the book discussion and the open house. The book discussion was led by Liz Engl. She is the moderator of a book club that meets monthly. She gave some background information about the book and about F. Scott Fitzgerald. The author, like the narrator of The Great Gatsby, came from Minnesota and moved to New York. He fell in love with a charming young woman, Zelda Sayre, who would not marry him until he had some financial success. He did have success and he did marry her. Liz noted that there were elements of several characters of the book that seemed to resemble the author. It could be said that Fitzgerald projected parts of himself and his life into a variety of characters.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's life, unfortunately, was full of tragedy. His wife developed a severe mental illness and he became an alcoholic. He died of a heart attack at the age of 44. When he died, he left behind an incomplete manuscript. The book in progress was titled The Last Tycoon.
Discussion during the hour-long session centered on the shallowness of the characters and of the fruitless attempts of the title character, Jay Gatsby, to reclaim lost love. Before he had gone to war, he had been in love with a young lady named Daisy. She told him that she would not marry him until he had made some money and could support him in the style to which she'd like to become accustomed. She sort-of promised to wait for him to come home from the war. When Gatsby returned, he found her married. He never stopped pining for her and he threw all sorts of parties. He vainly hoped that he could win her back but it was not meant to be.
The book read like a stage play, with lots of dialogue and very visual descriptions of the scenery.
It was an interesting story and well written but I can't honestly say that it was one of my favorite pieces of writing. I wouldn't say it was as bad as a friend described it, however. He described the book as a yawner that you have to read in high school.
OK. Onto the open house. That was well attended. State Assemblymember Sam Hoyt offered the library a proclamation. Board of Trustees president Agnes Becker spoke, as did Friends of the Library president Mary Cooke, who described the annual book sales and book cart as "Grand Island's greatest recycling program." Also, people won door prizes, which included gift cards to Barnes & Noble and floral arrangements from the Cinderella Isle Garden Club. Island resident Nan Hoffman, who described herself as a "story singer," rather than a "story teller," sang a bunch of folk songs and she encouraged the audience to sing along with her. She also had a bunch of dancing wooden marionettes. With some deft hand movements, she got the marionettes to dance on a wooden board. Thus the marionettes had become a rhythm instrument.
All in all, the open house was great fun and, of course, cake and cider were served.
Photographs: some of the floral arrangements, the cake, and the reading of the proclamation (from left: Barbara Birt (member of the library's board of trustees), Agnes Becker, Sam Hoyt, and Library Director Lynn Konovitz.

Monday, October 26, 2009

The Sun Came Out!


Today was too beautiful a day to spend in the house so off I went for my walk. I made a beeline for Buckhorn Island State Park, which is a restored wetland and a bird sanctuary and a very important bird area. It's no ordinary bird area. It is Very Important. There are no modern amenities at this park, unlike at Beaver Island State Park, where there is a casino (not the gambling kind, but it's still called a "casino"), a golf course, a boardwalk, a beach, restroom facilities, and a 19th century house. At Buckhorn Island State Park, there are cute little snakes, a canoe launch, a place for people to fish, and good spots for birdwatching. Also, there's a bike path that goes partway through the park and a hiking trail that leads you over the bridge from which people like to fish under the bridge that will take you to Niagara Falls to a narrow peninsula that will take you partway across the Niagara River. At the end of the peninsula, at some times of the year (mostly in early to mid spring), you can find hordes of birds congregating. They also flock to a small island nearby. The birds mate there, lay their eggs there, and raise their babies there. And then they fly away, once the babies are old enough to fly.
Today, there were no birds. They must have already flown away. While I was in the park, though, I met and walked with a couple named Terry and Tammy. I had met them a few years ago, on a summer day, when I was walking to Beaver Island State Park. They have a beautiful garden that I wanted to photograph. Today, like me, Terry and Tammy were out, enjoying the beautiful weather.
When we left the park, Terry and Tammy got into their bright yellow car and drove away! Their car looked as sunny as the sky.
I took pictures of the bridge as seen from the peninsula, Terry and Tammy standing close to their yellow car, and some Halloween displays.

Alice the Cowgirl


It's always fun to pretend to be something or somewhat that you're not. On September 25th, I got to pretend to be a cowgirl. I dressed up in as much of a cowgirl getup as I could put together for the "Hoe Down" at the Whitehaven Road Baptist Church. My friend Rhonda lent me the hat and the bandanna for the occasion. Everyone at the event got to eat a Wild West meal, which, fortunately for me, wasn't especially hot and spicy. The highlight of the evening was the line dancing instruction. It was loads of fun and good exercise.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

National Portrait Gallery

The National Portrait Gallery is a fantastic museum! I had to wait for a long time to visit it, however. I walked past the building in 2005 and 2006, feeling a bit sad that it was closed. When I came to Washington, D.C., in May of 2008, I was thrilled to discover that the National Portrait Gallery was open for visitors. I spent a few hours wandering around the museum and then discovered that I could go to a free drawing class!
I returned to the National Portrait Gallery on October 3rd. While I was there, I wandered over to the folk art exhibit. A wide variety of subjects in a myriad of mediums was on display. The subjects included Navajo people, fish, animals, Coca Cola, and religion, among other subjects. There were paintings done in a primitive style (the perspective was off, which made pathways in the woods appear as if they were headed up to the sky), quilts, dolls, articles of clothing, and wood carvings. One of the more interesting displays was objects that Greg Warmach (known as Mr. Imagination) made from such cast-off items as bottle caps, mirrors, and wood.
My next stop was the 1933-1934 Public Works of Art Project display. I learned that, during these two years, 3,749 artists created 15,663 paintings, murals, sculptures, prints, drawings, and craft works. The suggested subject matter was the vague "American scene." This project was immediately followed by the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project.
The paintings that I saw in this exhibit were beautiful views of people, places, and things in many parts of the United States, from New York City to New Mexico. The things being portrayed included street scenes, portraits, animals, farms, workplaces, and sports. Certainly, the poverty of the time was presented in a realistic style. There were pictures of abandoned farms and people in tenements. There were paintings of the beautiful (animals, skylines, etc.) and the ugly (coal mines don't look so beautiful to me). The saddest story for me was Earle Richardson's. He was one of just a few African-American painters who participated in the project. He painted a scene of African-Americans harvesting cotton, titled "Employment of Negroes in Agriculture." When he made the painting in 1934, he was just 22 years old. One year later and far too young, he died.
After going through the 1933-34 exhibit, I then joined a docent tour and viewed the presidential portraits. I saw various portraits of George Washington, Andrew Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln. I learned from the guide, Randall, that the third floor of the National Portrait Gallery had been the site of Abraham Lincoln's inaugural ball. Today, there is only one piece of the original neo-renaissance tile left. All of the rest are reproductions. I also learned that, by the 1950s, the building was decayed and was almost torn down and replaced by a parking garage! Horrors! President Eisenhower, however, intervened when he saw the magnificent stairway, and the building was saved. In 2000, the building was once again closed for restoration and was reopened in 2006.
Randall said, "You can explore American history through portraits."
We saw portraits of such famous people as Pocahontas, Marilyn Monroe, Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Sequoya, Isaac Singer, John Brown, and Barack Obama. One of the more interesting paintings was a self portrait by Alice Neel, done in 1980. She painted herself as a nude, and she didn't hide the fact that she was old and heavy!
I am already looking forward to my next visit to the National Portrait Gallery!