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Sketches "Nights" Boffo in
Seven Acts
Florida State's first arts
festival in years—jointly produced with the City of Tallahassee—packed
houses last Feb. 19-27 for seven evenings of diverse cultural offerings. Tallahassee: Seven Days of Opening Nights was built around performances by New York's Garth Fagan Dancers, actors Danny Glover and Felix Justice, The Canadian Brass, and complemented by a retrospective exhibit of works by feminist artist Judy Chicago and the debut of "Rose's", a home-grown film written and directed by film-maker in residence Frank Patterson. Many of the guest artists came before, or stayed on after their performances, for seminars and workshops open to the public. Helping get arts lovers in the mood was "The Saturday Matinee," held in downtown Tallahassee on Kleman Plaza on Saturday, Feb. 20 featuring talent of all ages, from town as well as gown. "Seven Nights" returns in
Y2K and is set for Feb. 18-26, 2000.
Peace, Goodwill &
Ed Love
Ed Love was a good friend
of mine. More than that, Ed became a mentor to me over the time I knew
him here in Tallahassee. I liked to visit his studio in Railroad Square
frequently because, as I told Ed many times, there was a spiritual energy
there that he had harnessed in his own work. The minute you walked in, you knew you were in the company and presence of not only a great artist, but a gentle, and generous man. A spiritual man. We liked each other right away, having shared some similar childhood places. Ed grew up in South Central Los Angeles where I also grew up, of course much later. On several occasions, I came to Ed for advice, and he always managed to make me feel like all the right answers were within me already, all he could do was reaffirm the positive elements in my own life, and that always came down to passion. Passion with a capital P. The kind Ed Love brought to his own life, his own work. I remember one time I visited he was putting the finishing touches on a (one of my favorite) piece he had titled "Basquiat's Door," a magnificent metal sculpture that when I first saw it blew me away for its complexity of texture, form, and beauty. Like most of Ed's work, you had to walk around it—had to stand in front of it and allow yourself to be taken by the power of the sculpted metal... It was in the work that Ed Love found peace, found courage, found energy and I found it for my own poetry there. He knew it because I had told him, but many times I merely went to soak it up; whatever Ed was coaxing out of his metal scraps, I wanted to bring out of my blank pieces of paper. It was about the daily work, he often said to me, the routine, the picking up where you left off the day before. I had found in Ed's company
and teachings, a way to approach my own work, and I think so far it's paid
off. I'm going to miss Ed Love, the person, the teacher, as I am sure hundreds
of his students will, and all I can find comfort in is his work, his words
to me, and the times that I will walk or drive by both the FSU Museum and
his studio at Railroad Square and think of the man, his towering person
there, at work, ready to embrace me and give me that much needed stabilizing
hug. I will dream and in my dream I will be in a garden in the company
of Ed's sculptures, standing erect, proud, majestic, like that man who
molded and shaped the beauty of his own self out of so much scrap metal.
En pace requiescat, amigo.
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