Event-filled weekend

Yesterday was the Tucson LGBT- Gay Pride - Celebration at Reid Park and today was the UA Poetry Center's Housewarming Festival, both really fun. At Gay Pride there were lots of fun offerings. I did a 40-minute yoga class, drank a fresh fruit smoothie blended in a bicycle-powered blender (care of B.I.C.A.S.), went to the reiki booth for a reiki healing session (and a tarot reading!), learned about the labrynth one can walk at Grace St. Paul's Episcopal Church, found out about the LGBT Jewish Inclusion Project, and listened to the taiko group Odaiko Sonora while I sketched them in pencil. I added the watercolor after I got home.


Today at the UA Poetry Center's Housewarming Festival I listened to poets Jane Miller, Charles Alexander, Steve Orlen, Billy Collins, and others reading their poetry and I roamed around the beautiful new Poetry Center. And once again, I enjoyed the Japanese style drumming of Odaiko Sonora. I'll post the sketches I made of today's taiko performance as soon as I have the chance to watercolor them; they're still in light pencil.

Tomorrow afternoon I will hang my month-long art show at Bentley's House of Coffee & Tea. The pieces I am showing at Bentley's are a mix of original watercolors, a few acrylic paintings, plus 14 giclée prints from my first set of 100 teapots.

The UA Poetry Ctr event ended with a procession led by Odaiko Sonora and performance troupe Flam Chen to see Flam Chen's finale (the photos at the end of this post).





And more UA Poetry Center Housewarming photos. I was amazed at the crowds of people come to support poetry, poets and writers, the written and spoken word, book arts, books, and art--a happy and festive occasion indeed.