Deanna Jay Chu Nim Showcases John Dowland Lute Music

Deanna Jay Chu Nim Leads Us to a World of Lutists , Classical Guitarists,  & Luthiers



Deanna Jay Chu Nim "Come Again ,Sweet Love,Doth Now Invite"

I recognize John Dowland's name because his repertoire of music composition are especially targeted for lute and stringed instruments. In my younger years I used to take lessons in classical guitar and violin so I know the world of luthiers. In fact the classical guitar is my favorite instrument of all instruments because the music coming from a classical guitar  is melodramatic and romantically hypnotizing. I almost forgot I once performed a classical guitar duet with a famous classical guitarist(He said,"You there at back you're going to play with me on stage". I was actually very quiet at back of the room)  but I don't practice as much now. Classical guitar  is difficult because you do it note for note rather than by chords.  But I still love to compose musical pieces.

Deanna's piece is also one of the main attraction placed near the entrance wall. It's visually big at the same time content is beautiful. Deanna writes, "This gilded piece was inspired by John Downland(1563-1626), guitar and lute professor  John Schneiderman  and luthier Mel Wong who reopened the door for me to the wealth of early music." There's a revival of John Dowland's music because his compositions still touch a listener's heart and soul.



Detailed Look of  "Come Again ,Sweet Love,Doth Now Invite"

One who plays a guitar is a guitarist. One who plays a lute is a lutenist, lutanist or a lutist .

A maker of any string instrument(violins,viola,guitars,cello)  is a luthier. Stradivarius was a luthier in Cremona. I can do another post on world of luthiers, classical guitarists and lutists later.

I was not a fan of  rock and pop star Sting but when I heard him sing John Dowland's "Come Again, Sweet Love" while playing a lute, oh boy I became a fan because in a rock atmosphere his lovely voice was usually drowned by electric guitars.

While Deanna uses her calligraphy to showcase John Dowland, listen to Sting interpret Downland's music. He's also playing the lute with lutist Edin Kamarazov.

To serenade you with Claire De Lune,listen to two of my favorite classical guitarists Julian Bream & John Williams. It will make your day  or night. Julian Bream performed and played in Berkeley several years ago.

Thanks Deanna for taking me back to my memories of lutists, lutes, classical guitars & violins. At one point in my life, I was crazy researching the world of Stradivarius, violins , Andres Segovia,  classical guitars but that needs another post.



Ellen Sarkisian Chesnut Family Haiku Made Me Cry

Ellen Sarkisian Chesnut Piece Exposes Memory of  Armenian  Genocide at Kalligraphia 13






Ellen Sarkisian Chesnut  piece doesn't have the colorful 'gimmickry' or layout  to make her piece noticeable. It's more like a mystery, a puzzle or a symbol to decode in a novel which holds the key to a solution. I'm glad my criteria to write about a piece is more about  content and narrative rather than how pretty a piece looks or if a piece was created by a star calligrapher.



Ellen Sarkisian Chestnut "Family  Haiku"



I'm also glad I ventured writing on pieces in an exhibition; it gave me an insight what critics and journalists are looking for in an art exhibit. It's more than visual. It invites dialogue and brings a viewer further into deeper meaning of our existence.

Of all the pieces in Kalligraphia 13, Ellen's piece is the one with 'gravitas' , haikus  stewed with gravity   which concerned 1.5 million people that were removed on the face of the earth. Her five haikus tell brief moments of the Armenian people genocide under the Ottoman Empire and the vehicle is poetry  expressed  in calligraphy.

John Kifner of the New York Times in "Armenian Genocide in an Overview" wrote:
"Armenians mark the date April 24, 1915, when several hundred Armenian intellectuals were rounded up, arrested and later executed as the start of the Armenian genocide and it is generally said to have extended to 1917. However, there were also massacres of Armenians in 1894, 1895, 1896, 1909, and a reprise between 1920 and 1923."
He added, "The University of Minnesota’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies has compiled figures by province and district that show there were 2,133,190 Armenians in the empire in 1914 and only about 387,800 by 1922. "

I know about the atrociousness of Nazi Adolf Hitler to the six million Jews in concentration camp but this is my first time to know about the Armenian Genocide. It took Kalligraphia 13 to educate me  what genocide means.

Ellen Writes: These five haikus are based on my family history(mother and father) of which the crime of the Armenian  Genocide  during the waning years of the Ottoman Empire(1915-1923) played a big part. But life goes on as finding the great good in life."

  Family  Haiku

In rush to vacate
one child's red slipper left there
like wound in dirt road.

He refused to move.
We left him in desert waste
a distant black speck.

"What are those strange cries?"
At dawn charred bodies revealed
Inside burning church.

Key to alphabet
took her sixty years to find.
Her letters are blest.

We are your children
who heard the stories and wept.
"Keep moving, seize life!"

Ellen notes on the  mulberry leaves.that show up in the canvas ." Those  words described the little leaves that I drew at the bottom as mulberry trees were abundant in my father's village because they  raised silk worms for the silk industry".

It's sad to note what human beings can do to dehumanize another human being to be in power. Yet the inspiration of Ellen's final haiku is enough for me and you to appreciate life everyday.  "Keep moving seize life." Like Carpe Diem, Seize the Day.

Thanks Ellen for sharing part of your family history.

Where were you when 9/11 happened?

I was in a cafe and heard a voice in the next table ask to the members of his young group, "Where were you when 9/11 happened?" One added, "It seems every generation has its own tragedy like Pearl Harbor."

A pause. A prayer to the 9/11 tragedy. A remembrance.

49'ers David Akers Makes an Enchanting 63 Yard Field Goal

63-Yard Field Goal Kick by 49'ers David Akers Makes NFL Football History And Inspires Me to Risk
and Try - What have I got to Lose.



 I don't  know about you but I love watching football especially the SF 49'ers.

Football season has arrived with the first games opening last week. The most talked  football game was the clash between the Green Bay Packers (15-1) vs SF 49'ers(13-3). Majority of the football analysts and the Las Vegas (5 point favorite) oddsmakers predicted the Greenbay Packers would win since the QB Rogers was the MVP last year and Packers had the most NFL win in 2011. The 49'ers hadn't won in  Greenbay's Lambeau Field since 1990.

I believed the 49'ers  would win last Sunday (9/8/2012). Last time I checked the defense was top-of-the-line.  Defense. Defense. Defense. And Defensive players  were able to hold & block & intercept the QB 12 Aaron Rogers' amazing passes to his receivers. The 49'ers underrated QB Alex Smith #11 outplayed the Greenbay  Packers  QB #12 & MVP.

What really caught my attention was the scene almost at the end of half-time. With 18 seconds left - David Akers chose to kick the 63-yard field goal  and made it.  40-yard-kick is hard, 50-yard-kick is very hard. 63-yard-kick is very very hard.
I was watching tv and believed he was going to make it.  After all  enchantment is believing in doing the impossible. Whooo- whooooo- whooo- he DID make NFL history. David Aker's  reaction says it all.

What an inspiration. To try even with a possible 99% failure rate. So keep trying even if you fall flat to your face and everyone mocks you if you didn't make it. However, there's also a possibility you might make it. Take a risk. What have you got to lose?



..

Kalligraphia 13 Was My Writing Prompts for Summer

Kalligraphia 13 Exhibition Ends   but Still Continuing to Write for Some Pieces



Kalligraphia 13 Comment Station

As in all temporary things, they all come to an end. Kalligraphia 13 exhibition ended in August 26th. Pieces need to be picked up or mailed to owners by September 1.  Classes open again and Kalligraphia 14 will be up again in 2015. Life is a cycle. Something ends and something begins.

This blog was my Summer Writing Prompt Exercises for Creative Non-Fiction. I usually attend a writing conference on Summer. Thought --why not a DIY(do it yourself)  writing workshop and it's free. I wished I'd started writing about pieces  on June 16th  when the exhibition opened.

I didn't actually tell a lot of people I'm writing this blog , it was for my personal challenge only for summer. The challenge was to write something and boom - there it was - why not write about the pieces on Kalligraphia 13.  The challenge was to write on pieces that will trigger or jumpstart me to write NOT which piece has the perfect letter, or the prettiest to look at or is the calligrapher a big name. A trigger to write or the piece induces a writer to write. In the writer's world - a writing prompt .  In any creative writing book or course, there are exercises at the end of a chapter where the teacher or author challenges you to do writing exercises.

A Kalligraphia piece 13 is the lead or the thought-provoking piece  to dare you to write. I came across Roger Angell, a New Yorker  magazine writer who said in an essay on baseball catchers - "Anything is a lead if it catches your attention and leads you on into the piece of writing...[I]t's fun writing a different kind of lead."

This was an educational one for me.  People around the world read my obscure blog even if I only used a basic template (I intend to customize this later). Folks used different kind of browsers (Explorer, Firefox,Safari, Chrome,Opera, NS8, Mobile, Netscape, etc). I only know three. Netscape is still around?
Operating systems(Windows, MacIntosh, Linux, Unix, Iphone, Ipad, etc).

I only expected 10 to 100 people to read my obscure blog. It is read by the thousands from around the world and continents per stats. Which made me conclude if your blog has content, it will be read. I hardly placed anything in my profile. Stats also tell how the entry is made or if somebody is searching for a word or phrase.

Since I work full-time and cannot post during work hours, my only time to post is late at night or early morning. I'll be buying a new computer and been busy backing my files.  For those who gave me permissions to write about their piece- thanks a billion.

Stay tuned - Kalligraphia 13 exhibition is still ongoing in the Fortress of Enchantment