The 10 February, 2007 Art Walk - as reported by Horst

Octogenarians dominate the 10 February Art Walk
Never was there such a crowd in any one place in the 2+ year history of the Brookings Art Walk.
The octogenarian event, suggested by the town's travel writer Jan Norwood, and organized and conducted by the Pilot's art reporter Marge Woodfin, was a huge success. Although the Art Walk program had this special event start at 6 pm, Art Walkers started arriving at 4 to admire at the art of our senior painters, who spanned the spectrum from well known pros, such as Liz James, to pupils in Mary McMinn's workshop at Manley, such as Bob Brian, who started less than a year ago at age 92! And his work is amazing. As Marge says, "It's never too late to start something new."

For the first hour the crowd was entertained by myself and Friends, with Matt Powers, a new music teacher in Gold Beach, getting his first taste of our Art Walk. According to Matt, he liked it and he'll be back next month.

The first octogenarian musician to arrive was Dorian James who entertained Art Walkers with saxophone solos from 5 to 6. Many of his songs were old standards, popular and jazz, that caused the crowd to tap their feet and hum along while they waited for the special event at 6.

At 6 on the dot Marge Woodfin started off by introducing the 80+ artists and pointing to them as examples of how retirement should be handled. "Start something new, something that's out of your comfort zone, something that keeps your body moving and your brain exercised." She gave examples from her own life (can you believe she is 80+?). She gave a pep talk the likes I haven't heard, except maybe from a football coach firing up his team before the big game. Then she introduced the other octogenarian speakers: Bill Hiltz, Jean Sullivan and Elmo Williams.

Bill read from his "cogitations", a weekly commentary that he used to write until recently. Jean read poetry from her books and a couple of short stories. Elmo read a humorous story he wrote about 50 years ago, after Sputnik was launched. It dealt with a fictitious tribe of humans with huge heads and small bodies that lived near the south-pole and got the superpowers to pay for the right to launch moon rockets from their little island. Between the presentations Matt Sciulli played his accordion to the delight of the crowd, and Margaret Cowley and Steve Combs made sure the food plates were loaded and the punch bowl was full.

Special events during the Art Walk usually take 10 to 20 minutes at most. The first octogenarian event lasted over an hour. People were still hanging around at 7:15, when I left to go to the musician's party that happens after every Art Walk. I include a few photos of this party so you see that the Art Walk musicians, who never see each other during the Art Walk, can have a great time all by themselves.

Tune in again at the end of February, when you will find the program for the March Art Walk on this page.!
Horst

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