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.

Blog titles or poem titles pop into my mind as I write; exhibit or performance titles are more of a challenge. Last Tuesday, Louisa Loveridge-Gallas, Bill Murtaugh, and I brainstormed, trying to find a title for our reading at Schwartz on Oakland on Wednesday, April 30th,  at 7 PM.

We looked for the threads connecting our varied poems: emotions, family, the earth. We eliminated titles like Blood Relations, Father Time and Mother Earth, and then Louisa muttered MUD. Great, I thought, that’s a good blood substitute, though I didn’t want Mud Relations, ah, Mud, Sweat, and Tears. That covers it all, nature, emotions, life. Flowers and frogs peep up from the mud, life creeps out of the mud, life is sweat, life is tears. Mud, Sweat, and Tears, an Evening With Three Poets, hah, then who’s who? Whose name is Mud? Perhaps we’re each all three, for we each wanted to write a book with that title. We’ll have to write it together.

In the meantime we’re reading together on Wednesday, April 30, 7 PM, Schwartz Book Store, 4093 N. Oakland Avenue.
 

Since I'm one of the original members of the Earth Poets, and our twentieth anniversary performances take place this Friday and Saturday, I thought I'd post our press release, and a poem.

Global warming was considered a fringe concept when Jeff Poniewaz founded the Earth Poets in 1988. Now it's 2008, and the fringe has become mainstream. "Green" is the latest buzz word, and it doesn't mean envy. It means harmony, living in harmony with nature. For their 20th Anniversary Performances, four of the original poets, Jeff Poniewaz, Louisa Loveridge-Gallas, Suzanne Rosenblatt, and Harvey Taylor, and the two musician members of the group, Jahmes Finlayson and Holly Haebig, will continue to transform inconvenient truths into conscientious action. The performances will also feature a special guest, activist and poet James Godsil. Scientists say it's not yet too late, so the Earth Poets and Musicians will contemplate how we can slow down the rush towards global warmth!

FRIDAY, APRIL 18,  2008
7 P.M. Interactive Poetry and Music for the Whole Family
8 PM Earth Poets and Musicians
Jahmes Finlayson, Louisa Loveridge-Gallas, Holly Haebig, Jeff Poniewaz, Suzanne Rosenblatt,
Harvey Taylor, and SPECIAL GUEST: James Godsil
URBAN ECOLOGY CENTER
1500 E. Park Place
$5.00 Per Person, $10.00 Per Family, UEC Members Free

SATURDAY, APRIL 19, 2008, 8 P.M.
Jahmes Finlayson, Louisa Loveridge-Gallas, Holly Haebig, Jeff Poniewaz, Suzanne Rosenblatt, Harvey Taylor, and SPECIAL GUEST: James Godsil
THE COFFEE HOUSE
631 N. 19th Street (Just South of Wisconsin Ave)
Donation: $5.00

MUCH OBLIGED
By Suzanne Rosenblatt

What's an artist to do?
He paints, dances, writes,
Maybe he recites,
Composes a sonata, deftly draws a flower
As the mad world succumbs_   
To those greedy for power
He may struggle to get others   
To listen or look
As he tries to make a living   
With his painting, song, or book
Yet he loves what he does   
In his cranny or nook

Should he reimburse the planet for his talents
And work to put the earth back into balance?
Pay rent for his creative space
By trying to make the world a better place?
I'd say yes, we have to do what we can
Have to set up our personal
Repayment plan
 

The older I get, the smaller my artwork. Some reasons: I can carry a tiny drawing pad without needing a big purse.  I can capture fleeting passers-by more quickly and unobtrusively. Anyway, less is often more. Here's another advantage: In the Roberta Avonn Fiskum Art Gallery at UW-Whitewater I can fit several small works into my quarter of the "Phenomenal Women" show. The opening reception is Wednesday, February 27, 4:30-6:00. Marie Mellott and I will perform at 5:00, "Three Ladies in Their Eighties" plus some of our poems. Marie will become her 101-year-old grandmother, I'll do my global warming poem, which you can see on YouTube  if you won't be in the Whitewater area.

MORE DETAILS: The other three artists are Anne Kingsbury of Woodland Pattern, Flora Menager, and Caitlin Carroll.
The Roberta Avonn Fiskum Art Gallery is a newly-constructed gallery in the University Center Building in the heart of the UW-Whitewater campus. If you want more precise directions, please call Beth Wiza at 262-210-9491.

The Oakland Café, my hangout for writing and drawing in the early 90’s, affected my life in many ways. I’ll mention just one at this moment: THREE LADIES IN THEIR EIGHTIES, a series of more than one hundred drawings I did there. I have a few of the drawings on our web site, and I look back at those ladies with affection. They were not living in the same world they grew up in, just as I, now seventy, am living in a totally changed world.

It’s sixteen years later now, the Oakland Café’s no longer there, and I doubt the three ladies are still around, doubt I’ll get to draw THREE LADIES IN THEIR HUNDREDS. But perhaps the ladies do live on through their words. And Marie Mellott and I will be performing some of their conversations at a Valentine's Day Performance in conjunction with The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Show at Walkers Point Center for the Arts. Here’s rthe beginning of the conversations:

WELCOME TO OLD AGE RADIO, TONIGHT PRESENTING TWO LADIES IN THEIR EIGHTIES, THIRD ONE NOT THERE

The time was the early 90's, the place was the Oakland Cafe , and the snoop, well, I was the snoop. I sat as close as possible to Prudence, Gladys, and Madge, and took dictation. They never seemed to notice me drawing them, never knew I used their conversations to form their faces. Eventually Madge came less and less often. She was, however, always there in spirit.

Prudence:      I had a very lovely childhood. We had electricity, we had the first telephone in the neighborhood, my father was always ahead of everybody...
Gladys:    you were very lucky.
Prudence:    Well, you can thank the lord for your two loving daughters. I think it must be wonderful for a mother to have  daughters she can be with. Of course my mother had my father, and that was the most important thing in her life. My brother was very pretty when he was young, very pretty, but he didn’t grow up to be so attractive... Most mothers talk about their children, my mother didn’t. One of the reasons, I figured out, was because my brother was always at the bottom of the class. I was on the top, he was on the bottom. If she talked about me, she’d have to talk about him. I don’t know where he got that trait of a lazy mind. Both of my parents were intelligent...  And my mother always condoned his laziness. He just lived at home all his life.
Gladys:    Free of charge?
Prudence:   Oh yes. ...my brother never even gave us gifts..but we continued to give him presents...then once I looked at him and said, I didn’t buy you anything because I know you don’t believe in giving gifts...

Performance details:
POETRY, CHOCOLATE, AND WINE, Organized by ABEA
Walker's Point Center for the Arts,  911 W. National Ave. Milwaukee, WI 53204
Adults Only: Thursday, February 14, 7-9:30 PM
FEATURED PERFORMERS: Tanya Cromarte-Twaddle, Bobby Drake, Eric Jefferson, Marie Mellott, Carmen Murgia, and Suzanne Rosenblatt. Patrick Turner will play Blues Guitar
OPEN MIC