Day Nine – June 26, 2018 – Chautauqua

Day Nine – June 26, 2018 – Chautauqua 

Half the crew is going to Niagara Falls today.  Jorge has never seen them and it will be fun for Ginger, Nick, and Paula to share that experience with him.  Roddy is going to have a quiet morning at home and Betsy, Myra, and I are going to poke around, looking at a gallery or two and whatever else strikes our fancy.

Everyone is on their own for breakfast.  Nick bought banana bread, zucchini bread, instant oatmeal and other goodies, so there is lots to choose from.  Once we three ladies have satisfied our tummies, we’re off.

The first stop is the farmers’ market by the mail gate.  It is open from seven to eleven and we get there a little before nine.  Happily, we discover that there are lots of goodies left, so we’ll be coming back here to buy breakfast one day before we leave.  

Ginger says this is the tourist tree, because it gets red and peels!

 From here we go exploring, looking for streets we haven’t checked out yet.  We’re especially looking for the Smith Public Library.  We find it facing Bestor Plaza and go inside to have a look.  There is a basement, a ground floor and a beautiful staircase leading to the second floor.  Looks like a Carnegie library!  The original stacks were all built into the walls;  but there are lots of free-standing ones now.  The computer for the card catalog sits on the old wooden card catalog! There is a collection of CDs of all the lectures delivered during the summer institution, going back to 2004.  On the way out we chat with one of the librarians, who works there every summer.  Her colleague is full time and we learn that once the summer is over, the library and, indeed, all the grounds are open and available to everyone for free.

View of Bestor Plaza from the library's second floor balcony.

Their computers' screen savers are the lake.

Picture quilt of the library

Story Time

 Next we go in search of two of the art centers, the Strohl and the Fowler-Kellogg  Along the way we stop to watch a water feature.  As the water flows into a bucket, it gradually fills enough for the bucket to tip over and pour the water out!  The lady who lives in the house in front of which it stands comes over to chat.  Her husband grew up in that house!  His parents taught at the high school and she tells us that it used to be that everyone lived there full time and had a job on site!  She also tells us about the artist who works in metal, making sculptures from found objects.  He was able to fix her sculpture when it broke.

This is where the ladies are knitting for peace.

Myra is anxious to get to the Strohl and the lady says it’s all right to cut through her neighbor’s yard.  We stay and chat a few minutes longer; then we, too, cut through the yard and wind up in a small sculpture garden adjacent to the art center.

Inside the Strohl we check out the exhibits and run into Myra.  There is a lecture she wants to go to about English gardens, so she heads off while we continue on to the Fowler-Kellogg, which is actually right across the “piazza”.  More about that later! 

There is a docent tour at three o’clock and we are early enough that we can look at all the exhibits first, so we’ll know what she is talking about! Sure enough, three o’clock rolls around and here she comes!  The name of the show downstairs is The Ties that Bind and some of the pieces are so wonderful that I’d like to have one!  One artist has made 3-D creations out of fishing line!  They look like sea shells and just cry out to be touched!  She has also made things that hang from the ceiling and look like sea urchins – out of cable ties!!  Wish I could take pictures.  There is also a glass artist who does lamp work and is fascinated by domestic objects.  One of her pieces is a front door with a real working knob and a bolt that really slides.  Another looks like part of a decorative table cover and a third is a bowl made out of a doily – all in glass.  Stunning! 

Upstairs is the 61^st Annual Chautauqua Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Art, a juried show containing twenty-six works that were selected from over four hundred submissions! Our docent then leads us across the piazza to the Strohl Art Center.  The Italian flair comes from the fact that the Chautauqua art program has a connection with a school in Italy, where their students may study.

In the Strohl, we are lucky enough to meet the artist who curated the current exhibit, Gretna Campbell and Louis Finkelstein’s works, which he calls Force of Nature.   He tells us about their place in American twentieth-century art and his close connection to them.

Upstairs we see Roy G Biv, obviously a celebration of color, and Masters in Craft.  Again, we are truly lucky, because the artist who curated this show is also here!  She fairly glows when she talks about Craft and we laugh when she tells us that her colleagues call her a ceramics slut! 

We are all planning to meet at a restaurant in Bemus Point for dinner before tonight’s performance in the amphitheater, so we head back home to gather Roddy and head out.  We haven’t heard from the Niagara contingent, so we keep checking to see what the name of the restaurant is.  We think we know which one it is, and if we don’t ever connect, we’ll eat there anyway!  While we're waiting, we check out the little gift shops across the street and walk along the lake front. Betsy decides to call Ginger, since we haven’t gotten any response to her texts or email, and Ginger says they are only five minutes away!  Good to know!  And we’re at the right restaurant, so we go in and start the process of being seated.

This is called "Poem".  There's a plaque that identifies all the people depicted!

Crossing the lake to get to Bemus Point

Ellicottville Brewery

Fun double entendre!

 The Niagara contingent arrives just as our tables are ready and we seat ourselves at an outdoor table for eight.  This is a craft brewery, too, and I have a blood-orange hefeweizen which is really tasty!  For dinner I have an avocado bacon pepper blue burger and fries.  Decadent and delicious and I could only eat half!  Tomorrow’s breakfast!!

I love these glasses!  Our server, Danae, says her mother loves them, too, and took two of them when she first ate here!  And she has blue hair, too!  We are kindred spirits.  I ask about her name and she says it is French;  bit I ask if it doesn't also mean The People and she says that she is, in fact, part Cherokee.

Thanks, Betsy, for asking Danae to take this group shot!  I think Myra has one, too, but I'm going with my philosophy of taking the first circus!

We all return to the Institution, park our cars, and head to the townhouse.  Most people try to take a fifteen- or twenty-minute nap before we walk to the amphitheater for BLACK VIOLIN!!  I’m so very excited!!  They came to the Straz about six-months ago and I didn’t get to see them.  This is much more convenient and our gate pass will get us in for free, as it has for all the other events.

The “amp” probably has about two thousand people in it and we are lucky enough to get seats in the “cushions” section!!  We don’t have too long to wait before the flashing lights alert us to the start of the show.  The first person on stage is the techno wizard who DJs for the show!  He’s got all sorts of electronics in front of him and he’s already producing enticing sounds with a heavy beat.  I think the next person is the drummer, who settles behind his enormous drum kit and sound baffle.  Finally, our two young, black violinists enter from each side of the stage and the magic begins!  After their first song, they tell us that they met in high school orchestra class where they played the classics.  Then, between that class and the next they listened to hip hop!  It finally occurred to them that they could join their two loves into a stereotype-bending new genre! Their entire message to the young people in the crowd is to do what you love, not let others dissuade you, break stereotypes and bring about connection and unity!  They remind us that they are not the typical violinists – which is pretty obvious and gets a laugh from the crowd.

There is so much energy!  The light show alone would have been worth the price of admission!  Both men are extremely talented musicians and their blending of the classics with the rock drumming and techno wizardry of the mixologist makes for an amazing new experience!  One of the violinists is also a singer and he plays the keyboard, too.  Fairly early in the show he serenades his true love, Tiffany – his violin!

Fun lights on the ceiling!

Tiffany!!

Dancing and photography are encouraged and two young girls dance back and forth between the sections of the orchestra seats.  They eventually move down toward the stage where they are joined by nearly a dozen other dancers.  By the end of the show people are not just clapping with the music, but standing and swaying their arms and generally getting into it!  And we even get an encore!  Fabulous show!!  Nick comments later that Black Violin will do more to introduce young people to classical music than any symphony orchestra.  They have already performed for more than one hundred thousand students! 

Found the UU house!!  It's pretty well disguised!

Great night!  Time for bed!!  Oh – my app tells me that I walked 14,257 steps today!  That’s 5.4 miles and eight floors!  I’m beat!!  (Yesterday was 14, 169!)