There was a competition at Garfield Park this past weekend. I competed in one of three divisions, The Arts division. The other divisions were Diversity and Garfield Park. It turned out that the Arts was the category the fewest people applied to compete in, garnering half the entries than each of the other two had. I met some fantastic people, a portrait painter named Michael was nearby and scrubbing away with oils. The competition spanned throughout the entire building with people taking their spaces anywhere they felt comfortable. This is where I felt comfortable. On Saturday I started off by taking a cup of joe from the thermos and splashing it over myself, my left hand shaking and quaking out of control. I get nervous when I'm performing in front of others... Usually I'm just by my own in the garage doing whatnot.
The morning of I took a snapshot or two of my great uncle Lowell Duff's violin and set to sketch an angle of it that pronounced it as a chief figure in my experience. It is a very old violin, brought back from the Civil War, likely to the shagrin of some family in Tennessee, our family having lived in Laporte, IN for some time- knowing that many Indiana soldiers went to TN to fight, this seems the most likely spot where it originated. It was perhaps bought, but most likely stolen... Bummer. Anyway, I need to get new strings for this violin, perhaps steel core, but whatever gives it a slightly warmer G, D, A. The steel tailpiece lends the violin a slightly tinny sound on the all strings, but E has always sounded great. Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting it up and running, which should happen within the next two weeks. I have not ruled out cat gut.
All in all, I had a great time. I met some fantastic people and discovered this very interesting building, which may prove in time to be a formidable asset to Indianapolis in hosting art events of this type and others. There's been some talk of their hosting weekend retreats for artists to come and work, socialize. The grounds are quite beautiful, and this was expressed through the work of many of the artists in the Garfield Park category. I'm looking ahead to seeing this place mature into a center alive with activity. I did not mention, but this was the first event held at the center since it was reformatted to be an Arts building.
