self portrait


me


chris and andrew cuomo


conversation with self/chris and andrew

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The week ahead

We’ll talk together at 1pm today. In advance of that, think about the week ahead and invent some plans for yourself. Spread out over a piece of (real) paper—a big one if possible, or pages in your journal. Think about (and write about/diagram/sketch/doodle): What sorts of activities do you want to participate in this week? Inventing, outlining, sharing, reflecting, refining.  In what forms might those activities live? Solo rehearsal? Meeting with a peer? Talk with Mark? Sharing in our full group on Wednesday? Think from the POINT OF VIEW of your sense of yourself as an artist: Think about what will feel good to you. Think about what will be beneficial to your having a full sense of an active, engaged creative practice. Think about how you might be able to feel part of a team, if that’s desirable. Think now from the POINT OF VIEW of the PROJECT: what does it need? Where is it? What kinds of nurturing does it require? Where does it need to be fed? Where does it nee...
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Scales

At the end of her career, the pianist Lili Kraus came to Swarthmore, when I was a student there, to play a concert. For reasons not worth mentioning here, I was around the music building at about 9am the day of her concert. I heard what sounded like a child playing the concert piano on the stage, so I peeked in. It was Ms. Kraus, beginning to warm up. Her hands were so gnarled with arthritis that they were almost like claws. But she was forcing herself to play scales with them, despite the fact that she sounded (almost) as bad as I would have. I learned later that she had to begin to warm up almost 12 hours before every concert so that she could work her fingers and hands into a suitable dexterity to play the bright, fluid, fast Mozart that she was famous for. I went to the concert that evening and was amazed that the stooped old lady I had heard that morning clawing at the Bosendorfer was flying through piece after piece, as wild and merry as you'd imagine Mozart himself. She w...
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Taking up Residence

I went to a work session one time at BANFF . It's in one of the most beautiful areas of Canada . On the first day of our residency, we were taken to a little office and our photos were taken and we were issued ID cards and under our names on the ID cards it said "ARTIST." I found this both charming and ironic which is, frankly, how I experience a lot of Canadian things. Such a useless administrative function, processing  the artists, documenting  them,    providing them a means of identification. After we got our cards, we went for a little walk around the campus, which has gorgeous views in every direction and is fashioned a little bit like its own town. We saw a little store and went in. I was hoping to grab a newspaper and my friend needed cigarettes. We noticed they had coffee and each decided to grab a cup. (It being Canada, the little coffee stirrers were not made of wood; they were linguini, a more readily compostable item.) When we went up to the counter...
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