There is no such thing as too much art instruction, and Queen Anne is fortunate to be able to welcome another children's art instructor to the neighborhood. Ann Freistadt moved to Seattle from Yakima in December, to be closer to her three grown sons. She brings with her an enthusiasm for teaching children art, and experience.Freistadt attended Cornish College of the Arts in the '70s and has taken many art classes since. Fourteen years ago, in Yakima, a friend begged her to start an art class for her three young daughters. Freistadt obliged, teaching them in her home. Word spread. A month later she had 15 students, and she moved the class to Yakima's Allied Arts Center.For a while, Freistadt also taught adults. She loved it, but gave it up because she found that most adults are too busy to attend classes regularly.As do most art instructors, Freistadt teaches the elements of art (such as line, shape and color) and principles of design (balance, contrast, movement). Sometimes she finds herself teaching math, because artists have to calculate proportion.
"What kind of mouth-breathing cretin steals a car with a baby seat in the back?" I asked myself soon after rounding a corner one block away from my of-fice on a sun-filled spring afternoon. I felt more stupefied than angry when, three weeks ago, instead of spotting my black, four-door Honda Civic parked next to a green recycling bin, I stood over a blank expanse of worn, charcoal-colored asphalt. And no, I didn't forget the keys inside or leave the doors unlocked or just plain space out as to where I left it last. This was a theft, as clear as the robins singing among the nearby apple blossoms.It was also the third life-altering challenge my wife and I were forced to face in a month's time. The first two hit us at the end of February, when we learned our landlady would be selling our home, one week after we happily found out we are expecting our second child. The question of where we'll live, combined with our planning for our next baby, was causing a solid amount of stress in the house. But the emotional tone changed after my mother called me from Billings, Mont., to talk about her neighbors Marc and Melissa. I knew Marc, a close friend of mine from high school, was in his own state of parental anxiety during the last few weeks of February with Melissa due to deliver their second daughter, Chloe, any day. It had been a few weeks since Marc and I had touched base with each other about the pregnancy, and my mom beat me to it by telling me Chloe had been born."That's great news!" I said after she noted that everything went well and Chloe was in good health.My mom agreed, but her voice sounded flat and shaken as she continued. "Erik, Marc has cancer."My brain reset itself. My perspective altered.Cancer. He's my age. He's only 35.Instantly my own stressful situations were minimized to nothing.
"IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN EASTER," Owen Meany said, "DON'T KID YOURSELF - DON'T CALL YOURSELF A CHRISTIAN." So says the main character in John Irving's magnificent novel, "A Prayer for Owen Meany." Perhaps Owen's straightforward advice seems a little like preaching to the choir.Don't most peo-ple recog-nize that the Chris-tian faith is so inti-mately tied to the actual resurrection of Jesus that sepa-rating them is an astonishing oxy-moron? Not necessarily. Periodically it becomes fashionable, usually in the interest of being "original" or "rele-vant," for someone to rework the thinking about resurrection. In recent years Bishop John Shelby Spong, Dr. Marcus Borg and others have come along to inform the faithful that it is just the spiritual idea of resurrection that is important, not the actual physical resurrection of Jesus.Somebody forgot to tell the Apostle Paul. "If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith ... you are still in your sins." Owen Meany has nothing on Paul for refusing to beat around the bush. Paul preached a Christ who came to redeem, to fix His creation. When Christ was raised from the dead, everything changed - future, past and present.
We are near the end of a three-year, $10-million project to site and design a new Magnolia Bridge to re-place the current structure, which was built in 1929. Alternative A has been selected by the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), the Port of Seattle, the Magnolia Community Club (MCC), the Magnolia Chamber of Commerce and others.How "A" won requires a little background.The SDOT design team began with 25 potential route options and reduced them to eight after assessing their technical and legal challenges. (Even a tunnel through the east hill was considered.) These eight they brought into a public process that the MCC has participated in, along with other stakeholders in and around the Magnolia community.Alternative B required no bridge be built; it followed the shoreline by the marina, came up the valley between the two hills of Magnolia to the Village and merged into View-mont. However, the residents who would have been adversely affected successfully lobbied the mayor's office, and this option was tossed out.Everyone then assumed that any option that did not have its entry point into Magnolia other than where it is now was DOA. Every other alternative route except "A" cut through the Port's North Bay development plans and was thus "routis non gratis."Therefore Alternative A is left holding the ribbon-to-be-cut by default. It will be built parallel to and slightly south of the current bridge, in keeping with SDOT's promise from the beginning to keep the old bridge carrying on until the new bridge is built.But every good story deserves a good twist, and SDOT didn't dis-appoint. A couple of days after they announced in a press release that they agreed with MCC, the Chamber and the Port to officially endorse Alternative Route A, SDOT told The Seattle Times that they might change their minds and pick a "slight variation" of Alternative A - one that involved tearing down the old bridge before starting construction on a new bridge, so it could be built within the same footprint.To residents of Magnolia and the surrounding communities, this was like saying that Seahawks' Qwest Field is a "slight variation" on the refurbishing of the Kingdome. Such a three-year construction plan is unthinkable and unconscionable. It is an insult to all commuters in Magnolia, all potential emergency medical patients and all business owners in the Village who depend on customers from throughout the Seattle area.
There is a school of thought among those who run local journalism - as opposed to the bigger, sometimes better, sometimes not, national papers - that readers of local rags only want to read about their own neighborhoods and their own cities.I can't argue that point scientifically, not having commissioned a poll or anything, but I can say from a personal point of view that folks who read this paper regularly seem quite interested in things national.Just the other day, while I was visiting a local tavern to down a semi-powerful libation with a friend from Olympia who stopped by to see the city sights from inside a bar in Lower Queen Anne, a youngish fella sort of sidled over. (By "youngish" I mean younger than moi.) He was wearing that "I think I know you look" that readers often get. I assume their confusion is that in person I look a little like the Halloween picture gracing this space, and a little like Brad Pitt might look if he lives long enough. In other words, they think it might be me, but I seem soooo much more sauveish in person that they just aren't sure.After introductions, this fella got down to it. He liked the column, but he felt, despite my many disclaimers about once having voted for the elder Bush back in the day, that I must be a Republican hater.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has recognized both the Port of Seattle and Metro Transit with Clean Air Excellence awards for their constructive efforts to improve air quality.The Port - the first Port Authority ever to be accorded this distinction - was recognized for measures taken to reduce diesel emissions at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and in the Seattle harbor. The Port was nominated for the award by the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.Metro was saluted for using hybrid buses, which significantly diminish greenhouse gas emissions.
Evangeline Edwards, a very remarkable lady, died on March 19 at the age of 104 (and a half) in her Magnolia home. Permit me to share a column I wrote for the Queen Anne News upon her centenary four years ago:I had the great pleasure of being invited to a birthday party in Magnolia on Aug. 7, 2001. Not just an ordinary birthday party, but a celebration of 100 years of eventful and joyous living. The guest of honor, a bright and beautiful lady, Evangeline Edwards, had many interesting tales to tell.Her ancestors really did come over on the Mayflower. The family name is on the Mayflower's passenger list in the year 1621, and the family has many connections with the early Pilgrims.  Evangeline, or "Van," as she is known by her many friends, was born in a log cabin at the foot of Queen Anne Hill on Aug. 7, 1901. Her parents had arrived from George-town, Ohio, a year earlier. Her father, Dr. Orange Edwards, a recent graduate of Cincinnati Medical School, set up his medical practice in downtown Seattle.
Ladies and gentlemen, you may not think of this western corner of Seattle as Art Central, but I assure you, yours is a neighborhood where there's art for connoisseurs and collectors of all tastes and pocketbooks as well as for the neophytes willing to learn. Take a look at just three current exhibitions to get a sense of what we have.So you don't have much money but you want art on your walls. Don't think you have to settle for those pre-framed, cheap prints on sale by the thousands at retail stores. For you, there's original art available, in your price range, at MPSR Gallery at 3202 15th Ave. on the corner of Dravus.Jon Reilly, who opened the gallery about two years ago, set it up to feature his own work and that of his artist friends. The current exhibition consists of acrylic layouts on paper by the artist VBlast. These are preliminary works for his larger canvas and Masonite pieces. They consist of bright swirls of color and pattern that fall somewhere between representational and abstract art. The works are about 18 by 24 inches and cost only $50 each.
Most of his fans know Stanko Milov as the Prince in numerous Pacific Northwest Ballet productions. Often described as tall, dark and handsome, Milov has been a principal dancer with the company since 1999. Now his admirers are discovering that his talents range far beyond the dance floor. A new CD featuring piano solo pieces played and composed by him was released by Butterfly Productions in March under the title "Heartfelt." "The CD was inspired by my son, Alexander," said Milov. "When he was born, all the emotions that I had, I wanted somehow to translate into music. I wanted to write a little song for him, and that was the first piece."
There are many books (more than some reviewers will admit to) that are a great read the first time around. But most don't hold up under a second reading.Then there are other tomes that, for one reason or another - when we first read them, where we first read them or who we were with when we first read them - work the second time, but only just. We know when we finish that there won't be a third time.Now some people would find the above discussion all but irrelevant because they never read the same book twice, much less three times. But I have found during a lifetime of reading that certain books, like certain films, wines and even people, get better and better with age and familiarity.Three books I can heartily recommend that have stood up to multiple readings are "Dispatches" (1977) by Michael Herr, "Sympathy for the Devil" (1987) by Kent Anderson and "Classic Crimes," a selection from the works of William Roughead (published 1977, although Roughead, a Scottish lawyer and criminologist, wrote most of the entries in this volume in the 1920s and '30s - he died in 1952).
Seattle Children's Theatre's "Honus & Me," a thrilling adaptation of the debut novel in Gutman's series, actually improves on the original. The script by Queen Anne playwright Steven Dietz ("Still Life with Iris"), who also directs, necessarily fills out and sharpens many background details from Joey's life. But in the process, Dietz adds a richness to relationships and a dimension to characters one wouldn't necessarily have realized was lacking in the book until they showed up here. "Honus & Me" is the story of Joey's startling discovery of a baseball card considered the most rare and valuable of all: a T-206 Honus Wagner, originally a small insert in packs of cigarettes shortly after the turn of the century. The legendary Wagner, a tall man with huge hands, member of the Pittsburg (that's right, no "h") Pirates, rival of the villainous Ty Cobb, and a player considered by some to be the best ever, denounced smoking and demanded an end to the card's production. That means the few cards that made it into circulation are worth a fortune today, a fact that overwhelms Joey (outstanding work by Cornish graduate Gabriel Baron) when he finds a T-206 among attic clutter he's being paid to clear from the house of old, cantankerous Miss Young (Marianne Owen).
Seattle Children's Theatre's "Honus & Me," a thrilling adaptation of the debut novel in Gutman's series, actually improves on the original. The script by Queen Anne playwright Steven Dietz ("Still Life with Iris"), who also directs, necessarily fills out and sharpens many background details from Joey's life. But in the process, Dietz adds a richness to relationships and a dimension to characters one wouldn't necessarily have realized was lacking in the book until they showed up here. "Honus & Me" is the story of Joey's startling discovery of a baseball card considered the most rare and valuable of all: a T-206 Honus Wagner, originally a small insert in packs of cigarettes shortly after the turn of the century. The legendary Wagner, a tall man with huge hands, member of the Pittsburg (that's right, no "h") Pirates, rival of the villainous Ty Cobb, and a player considered by some to be the best ever, denounced smoking and demanded an end to the card's production. That means the few cards that made it into circulation are worth a fortune today, a fact that overwhelms Joey (outstanding work by Cornish graduate Gabriel Baron) when he finds a T-206 among attic clutter he's being paid to clear from the house of old, cantankerous Miss Young (Marianne Owen).
Time and time again, I meet with clients who do not want to restrict views or block natural light with window coverings. Logically, I understand this. Yet, from a creative side, I often struggle with it. Perhaps it has something to do with my upbringing in New England, where we used window coverings not only for aesthetics and privacy purposes but for warmth during the bitter, cold winters. Window coverings can bring together the look and feel of a room. They should not be forgotten when mapping out your interior-décor plans.
In the world of gardening, few plants can impact a landscape so greatly - and for such a long time - as a tree. Although homeowners have a year to fuss over the foliage of a tree, the novelty of a tree's bark or the pattern in which its branches grow, when the snow recedes and life returns, many gardeners want new, beautiful trees. And in the spring, landscaped trees are often the crown jewels of the yard. "The beauty of a tree - you don't always look at the tree, but you can feel the canopy over you. When trees spread out, they provide the shade and it has that feeling," said Jan Chima, of Superior Gardening Service, 5233 Kensington Place N.But as Chima's husband, Michael, would say, most people choose a tree because of its beauty rather than its compatibility with the yard.
After sharing her poetry with neighborhoods throughout the city, Seattle Poet Populist Pesha Joyce Gertler's one-year term will come to an end this September."Being Poet Populist has been the most personally fulfilling year of my professional life," she said. "It was a validation for many of my deepest values."An established audienceIncluding Gertler, there were 12 nominees and three finalists in the running. The finalists read at Bumber-shoot last year and were voted on by the local community. Gertler noted that she might have been voted in due to her experience as a teacher for more than 20 years. During that time, Gertler has heard from a number of her students who have been inspired by her teaching."What I have learned is that you don't have to be a professional to get the benefits of writing," she said. "Anyone who wants to can obtain those benefits."