"The N Train" 

“The best thing we ever did, outside of having children, was moving to Wisconsin,” I said last Tuesday as we sat in our son Joshua’s living room in New York. What if we’d taken a different path out of Manhattan 42 years ago, what if Adolph had chosen to teach at Skidmore in Saratoga Springs instead of at UWM? What if, what if, no way of knowing, and it doesn’t matter.
 
We loved living in NYC with its great museums, galleries galore, theater, dance, concerts, poetry venues, parks, public transit, sidewalks perfect for people watchers like me. I’ve spent countless days of my life drawing in Macys, Gimbels, and Central Park, in coffeehouses, buses, and subways. In fact I did a new series of “N” train and “M3” bus drawings this past week.

"More N Train" 

We loved NY but didn’t want to raise our children there. Soot coated our freshly-washed dishes if we left the kitchen window open. Snow drifts were not white. I had to walk thirteen blocks with three babies in a stroller to get to Washington Square Park. I had to trudge with a giant laundry bag and three babies to go to the laundromat, had to pile grocery bags with the kids when shopping. People pushed through crowds on the sidewalks; cars, trucks, buses, and taxis sped through the traffic-filled streets.

"The Third Avenue Bus" 

Small-scale Shorewood seems perfect for people like me. We came home from NY last Thursday, then went to the vegetarian potluck at the Urban Ecology Center and a WAVE benefit at the house next door. Friday: a sustainability committee meeting and the Fitness Center; since then I’ve taken a granddaughter to the Nutcracker, hung out with friends at Schwartz Bookstore, gone to Walgreens, Pick & Save, Beans & Barley, Whole Foods, to the ear doctor with Adolph, had dinner at our kids’ houses, gone to a salon discussion on feminism, and almost every trip was on foot or by bus.

Friends here often mention how lucky they feel to live in Shorewood, where so much is so close at hand, easily accessible without a car, and where there are so many interesting and thoughtful people. American mores have gone askew, more money more power bigger cars houses egos. Maybe life’s meant to be smaller and simpler: more salons where people sit around and discuss issues that matter, more salons and less saloons, more urban farms and gardens and less agribusiness, more creative games and less computer games, more bikes and less cars, more thought about values and less vacant worship of things.
 

As a painter, poet, performer, dancer, my creativity usually begins with getting into the flow. My hands become my eyes and put down the image, my feet listen to the music and decide the moves, the dream part of my brain tells me what to write. It’s basically losing the self to find the self. I have decades of flow behind me; I don’t know what I’ve got ahead!

I’ll have the opportunity to discuss my thoughts on creativity in a presentation at Danceworks, 1661 N Water Street, on Friday, October 17, at 7:30 PM. I’ll also have some of my latest artwork, and some of my oldest artwork, on exhibit there from October 10 to January 8, opening reception October 17, 6:00 to 8:30 PM. Below are a few of the recent drawings I'll include in the show, and some comments about them.

Why do I draw dancers? I'm not a dancer, I just love to dance, even if I make an absolute fool of myself, love to move to music, letting my feet guide me, love feeling energized and free. So when I draw dancers, I'm feeling the movement and energy. And freedom. 

My pen drawings of dancers were done at Danceworks and at UWM performances. In the dark.

I'm a people-person, love to watch, to draw and paint them and to write about their relationships to each other and to the world around them. That's one of the reasons I could sit on the #15 bus all day and not get bored. When I lived in New York, I'd sometimes take the A train to the end of the line and back, drawing what was going on around me.  The two drawings below I did in Milwaukee buses.

And then there are dogs. I've done dozens, no, hundreds, of drawings of dogs. Whenever I visit New York, I try to spend time in Central Park, which swarms with relationships, lovers, parents, nannies, children, dogs, trees, pigeons, and I sit on a bench and draw it all. Like the one below, which I did in Central Park last spring.

On Sunday I glanced at the lake from Atwater Bluff, expecting nothing special. Yet it was spectacular! What made the lake look that way? There were dark streaks, turquoise streaks, and a startling band of white in the distance, probably a mix of mists and cloud reflections.

That's what's so fascinating about life: I never know what I'll find somewhere until I get there, what friends, what strangers, what mists.

I of course have no idea who will show up at Friday night's reception in our gallery. I do know what work is there! Adolph recently moved his BALCONY from the Regent's Board Room at UWM's Chapman Hall to the gallery, and his Oriental Pharmacy Lunch Counter is still there. I just set up a show of dancer drawings that I did last year when Margot Sappington was setting Common People for the Milwaukee Ballet. These drawings aren't yet on our web site, but some earlier dancers are. Our guest artist is Joe Boblick. You can see his work in the MIAD Online Gallery.

As for the Artist Marketplace on Saturday, I'm not yet sure what sculptures, what paintings, what drawings we'll use, don't know if our tent will consent to another fair, don't know if the weather will be fair. What I do know are the details of both events, if all pans out as planned:

FRIDAY, July 25, 7 to 10 PM, reception at Rosenblatt Gallery, work by Adolph & Suzanne Rosenblatt & Joe Boblick, 181 N Broadway, in Milwaukee's Historic Third Ward
SATURDAY, July 26, 10 AM to 5 PM, Fourth Annual Artist Marketplace, in front of the Milwaukee Art Museum, 700 North Art Museum Drive, Milwaukee
 
 

Our brother-in-law, Marshall Goldman, may be known as a scholar, but we always think first of his humor! This Friday, May 16, 7 PM, you'll have a chance to hear him in person at Schwartz  Bookshops, 4093 N Oakland Avenue in Shorewood.

Here's an excerpt from Marvin Kalb's review of Marshall's latest book, “Petrostate: Putin, Power, and the New Russia”: "This may be Goldman's best book, and that's saying a lot. Focusing on Putin's Russia with a scholar's commitment to deep and meaningful research and a reporter's eye for detail and color, Goldman has explained why and how Russia has again emerged as a global power.." --Marvin Kalb, former Moscow bureau chief for CBS News.

I asked Marshall to send me something about his book to forward to our list, and here it is: Less than a decade ago,  Russia was effectively bankrupt.  Its banks were closed and its debt worthless.  Then in August 1999 Putin was appointed prime minister.  Now Russia has the world's third largest holding of reserves, its banks are profitable and its GDP has doubled.  No wonder the Russian people credit Putin with this turnaround.  Would Russia be any different today if someone else had been appointed instead?  The answer is yes and no.   Because Russia today is the world's largest producer of petroleum, no matter who would have been appointed prime minister, Russia today would be prosperous.  But Putin did make a difference. In what way?  What are the implications of all this for the European Union and the US and what difference will it make now that Medvedev is the new president?

Hope to see you Friday!