Transylvania opening

The opening was great fun -- lots of people and positive feedback. I think watching the art club with their parents and friends was the highlight of my night. At one point Henry was jumping up and down saying, "that one is mine," to his buddies and his two nine year old friends were laughing and saying "cool" over and over again. All the students seemed really proud and excited about how big the video looked on the wall and how loud and compelling the music sounded in the vast warehouse space. They had on artist nametags. I saw several other artists come up and comment on their piece, congratulating them on a job well done. Sylvia was around for the artist presentation section of the evening and she got a chance to talk about her experiences making the Transylvania video. She handled herself with great poise, as always, and I felt quite awestruck at her ability to charm a crowd of adults and speak articulately on artistic process and inspiration. I think many of the grown ups in attendance were inspired by the video and surprised that a group of youngsters could make such a sophisticated and smart work of art.

I felt happy to see the students interacting with many of the other works in the show. There were quite a few challenging pieces of contemporary art that really pushed them to discuss what was and wasn't art. At one point they were walking around pointing at things saying, "That's art, and that's not. That is. Yes. No. Art, not art." They all decided that the edible paper guy definitely had some art about him. All of them unanimously agreed that their piece was the best of show.

I will be posting the video on YouTube soon for those of you who are interested. We are waiting on hubby Frank for this one.