I met Matt Burford in Gahanna ten years ago at a Gahanna music and arts festival. I am drawn to children, especially those who are differently abled and Matt was in a wheel chair. Through the years he has been through more health emergencies, surgeries and hospitalizations than a human wants to go through in a lifetime. But he and his loving family are survivors.
I could write a book about the Burford and the Davises, Matt's grandparents who live in Bremen, Ohio. Let's just say, we are family.
Thursday, March 29, 2007, Matt invited me to be his special guest at Gahanna Middle School East, as seventh grade classes honored their heroes. Here's a little of what Matt wrote and spoke about me:
"What would the world be like without heroes? ...no one would be courageous or caring...no one would help those in need. But it's heroes, like my friend Arnett Howard, who make the world a caring, compassionate and wonderful place. They find out what people need and try their best to help them... A seeker goes out of his or her way and tries to find someone to help. Despite all of the people that Arnett knows, he loves and cares about every one of them...I don't know anyone who loves what he does so much that he actually failed at retirement and started working again...Thank you, Arnett, for being my hero and showing me your compassion and originality. But most of all, thank you for seeking me and being my friend."
Matt is my hero because, despite the pains of his twisted body, frequent illnesses and hopitalizations, he has a wonderful attitude. Now he's playing percussion drums, he's on a hockey team, his voice is changing and he has an assist dog, Breem. We will always be family!
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Sound the Trumpet is Dedicated to Arnett
John Carter and I have been playing original arrangements of hymns and spirituals since Tree of Life Community Church was founded Easter Sunday, four years ago. Hope Publishing Company, of Carol Stream, Illinois, has just published the collection under the title Sound the Trumpet and John dedicated the forward to me.
Sound the Trumpet contains nine selections for piano and trumpet, all written for me by John. He was born in Nashville, Tennessee into a religious and musical family. He received his B.M. from Trinity University in San Antonio and an M.M. from Peabody College in Nashville. He is a well-known composer with several hundred choral compositions to his credit, as well as several musicals, an opera, and dozens of collections for keyboard and organ. He and his wife, Reverend Mary Kay Beall, often collaborate as writers and in Music Ministry.
He is a recognized clinician and choral conductor and is particularly noted for his versatile writing style and his long-standing creative productivity. He teaches composition classes at Trinity Lutheran Seminary and admits to being a frustrated jazz pianist.
Having a book dedicated to me is a first and I am quite honored. I released a Christmas disc entitled Piano, Trumpet and Arnett Howard, featuring recordings that John and I did in November, 2006.
To order Sound the Trumpet, visit the Hope Publishing website at http://www.hopepublishing.com/html/main.isx
Sound the Trumpet contains nine selections for piano and trumpet, all written for me by John. He was born in Nashville, Tennessee into a religious and musical family. He received his B.M. from Trinity University in San Antonio and an M.M. from Peabody College in Nashville. He is a well-known composer with several hundred choral compositions to his credit, as well as several musicals, an opera, and dozens of collections for keyboard and organ. He and his wife, Reverend Mary Kay Beall, often collaborate as writers and in Music Ministry.
He is a recognized clinician and choral conductor and is particularly noted for his versatile writing style and his long-standing creative productivity. He teaches composition classes at Trinity Lutheran Seminary and admits to being a frustrated jazz pianist.
Having a book dedicated to me is a first and I am quite honored. I released a Christmas disc entitled Piano, Trumpet and Arnett Howard, featuring recordings that John and I did in November, 2006.
To order Sound the Trumpet, visit the Hope Publishing website at http://www.hopepublishing.com/html/main.isx
Mom Barksdale Hits the Big Nine-Two
After assaulting her with birthday crazy cards for a week, I took Mom Ellen Barksdale out Wednesday, March 28, 2007, for birthday luncheon. We went to the Bexley Monk and Chef Charles Langstaff prepared a delicious fare of soups, salads and breads to go along with chocolate cake.
Mom Barksdale and I have played piano and trumpet duet concerts since the mid-1980s. We have performed at church services, community concerts, birthday celebrations, anniversary parties and for several years we made regular visit to her good friend Helen Ramsuer at Lutheran Village, entertaining the luncheon audience with religious favorites. We have also recorded a number of songs together that have appeared on two of my compact discs.
I produced a series of recordings and a compact disc for her in February, 2007. Mom Barksdale was inducted into the Columbus Senior Musicians Hall of Fame in 1999. Happy birthday from your crazy "sun."
Mom Barksdale and I have played piano and trumpet duet concerts since the mid-1980s. We have performed at church services, community concerts, birthday celebrations, anniversary parties and for several years we made regular visit to her good friend Helen Ramsuer at Lutheran Village, entertaining the luncheon audience with religious favorites. We have also recorded a number of songs together that have appeared on two of my compact discs.
I produced a series of recordings and a compact disc for her in February, 2007. Mom Barksdale was inducted into the Columbus Senior Musicians Hall of Fame in 1999. Happy birthday from your crazy "sun."
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Barbara Chavous
Greetings. It's been a long, cold winter; sorry I've been outta' touch. I heard from Marge Mitcham, my former wife, that our artistic mom, Barbara Chavous, was in a North Columbus nursing center and didn't recognize her when she visited last week. I had just gotten an e: from Dayna Jalkenen,an educator for the Columbus Museum of Art, who had googled Barbara's name and came upon a Black history blog that I had done in February, 2006.
Dayna wrote, "I’m in charge of designing and teaching a weekly program called Doodles which focuses on one artist, artwork, or art movement each month and families are encouraged to explore the artwork then create their own art work in our studio. For the month of April, I am creating a Doodles based on the Jazz Totem sculptures by Barbara Chavous that are featured in our exhibition Still I Rise. For this program, I like to give the visitors some information about the artist or artists that are that month’s focus, but I’m having a difficult time finding anything about Ms. Chavous. I saw on your 2006 Columbus Black History Blog that she was one of your mentors and that the two of you had worked together. I was wondering if you would have any additional information about her and/or her artwork that I could share with my visitors."
I returned promptly, "I searched my scrapbooks and found a 1980 article written by Cols. Dispatch Arts writer Sara Carroll, entitled "Columbus Artist Designs Owens Trophy," commemorating her design of an award presented the winners of the former Columbus Bank One Marathon.
Here is a paraphasing of the biographical info from the article.
Barbara Chavous was born and raised in Columbus in a very creative household. "I don't know that we called what we did art at the time, but we we always involved in things artistic."
She graduated from Columbus East High School, where she was involved in drama, music and she went to college at Central State University, graduating with a degree in elementary education. She met and married New York photographer Adger Cowans and had a son named Eden. She enjoyed living in New York, "A whole new world opened up to me. I felt at home there and discovered so many wonderful things about living."
She taught for ten years in the New York City School system, emphasizing visual arts. "At least once a week I took my classes somewhere. If it was not to a museum, we went to Midtown New York and strolled around looking at buildings." She continued educating herself by attending classes at the Museum of Natural History, the New York Art League and visiting galleries.
"I learned that art didn't have to be perfection; it had to do with spiritual feeling, emotions, reacting to nature and doing what comes naturally." She met and married Stanley Sourelis, a Chicago native, engineer and painter. They moved to Glassboro, New Jersey and "That's where I started making my totems."
She said, "I began to visit flea markets and wound up with a lot of junk. One day I started putting all that junk together and the education process started again. I was getting myself into wood and metal, seeing things in their natural form."
She established a circular trademark on her totems called loukoumis, named after a Greek candy that she liked (Sourelis, her husband, is from a Greek family heritage). She says that she paints the whole structure white, then adds color to it as it occurs to her. In the 1990s she discovered puff paint, a dimensional paint that expands when heated and she added a new texture and meaning to her colorful palette.
"My jazz totem art does not fit into any mold. It doesn't have limitations; one has to explore who they are. America is a creative place and we do types of work here that are not done anywhere in the world."
"What makes people important to each other and to themselves is creativity. It doesn't answer all the questions of life, but it's a start."
Dayna wrote, "I’m in charge of designing and teaching a weekly program called Doodles which focuses on one artist, artwork, or art movement each month and families are encouraged to explore the artwork then create their own art work in our studio. For the month of April, I am creating a Doodles based on the Jazz Totem sculptures by Barbara Chavous that are featured in our exhibition Still I Rise. For this program, I like to give the visitors some information about the artist or artists that are that month’s focus, but I’m having a difficult time finding anything about Ms. Chavous. I saw on your 2006 Columbus Black History Blog that she was one of your mentors and that the two of you had worked together. I was wondering if you would have any additional information about her and/or her artwork that I could share with my visitors."
I returned promptly, "I searched my scrapbooks and found a 1980 article written by Cols. Dispatch Arts writer Sara Carroll, entitled "Columbus Artist Designs Owens Trophy," commemorating her design of an award presented the winners of the former Columbus Bank One Marathon.
Here is a paraphasing of the biographical info from the article.
Barbara Chavous was born and raised in Columbus in a very creative household. "I don't know that we called what we did art at the time, but we we always involved in things artistic."
She graduated from Columbus East High School, where she was involved in drama, music and she went to college at Central State University, graduating with a degree in elementary education. She met and married New York photographer Adger Cowans and had a son named Eden. She enjoyed living in New York, "A whole new world opened up to me. I felt at home there and discovered so many wonderful things about living."
She taught for ten years in the New York City School system, emphasizing visual arts. "At least once a week I took my classes somewhere. If it was not to a museum, we went to Midtown New York and strolled around looking at buildings." She continued educating herself by attending classes at the Museum of Natural History, the New York Art League and visiting galleries.
"I learned that art didn't have to be perfection; it had to do with spiritual feeling, emotions, reacting to nature and doing what comes naturally." She met and married Stanley Sourelis, a Chicago native, engineer and painter. They moved to Glassboro, New Jersey and "That's where I started making my totems."
She said, "I began to visit flea markets and wound up with a lot of junk. One day I started putting all that junk together and the education process started again. I was getting myself into wood and metal, seeing things in their natural form."
She established a circular trademark on her totems called loukoumis, named after a Greek candy that she liked (Sourelis, her husband, is from a Greek family heritage). She says that she paints the whole structure white, then adds color to it as it occurs to her. In the 1990s she discovered puff paint, a dimensional paint that expands when heated and she added a new texture and meaning to her colorful palette.
"My jazz totem art does not fit into any mold. It doesn't have limitations; one has to explore who they are. America is a creative place and we do types of work here that are not done anywhere in the world."
"What makes people important to each other and to themselves is creativity. It doesn't answer all the questions of life, but it's a start."
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