Published Articles 5/21/12 – 5/25/12

Here are my published articles from this week.

The Jersey City Independent:

News:

• Burst Water Pipe Knocks Out Lights at Ferris High School, Kids To Be Dismissed Early
• Ferris H.S. Students Now in Classrooms, Will Still Be Dismissed Early
• St. Peter’s College Graduates 872 Students at PNC Bank Arts Center
• City Hall Becomes First ‘Heart Safe’ Municipal Building in Jersey City
• Trader Joe’s Not Coming to Jersey City Despite Rumors
• Noise, Odor Complaints Continue at Jersey City Recycling Centers
• More Taxi Licenses Proposed as Solution to Journal Square Riders’ Woes
• Waste Free JC Education Campaign Aims to Reduce Plastic Bag Waste
• Program Linking Jersey City Public Schools and Local Leaders Kicks Off
• Pools, Sprinklers to Keep Kids Cool Starting Memorial Day Weekend
• New Restaurant VB3 Offers Dishes on National Burger Day, May 28
• Torico’s Ice Cream Parlor Reopening June 1st

Art/Entertainment:

• Kit Sailer, Winner of Governor’s Award in Arts Education
• PHOTOS: Everything Jersey City Festival 2012
• Art Exhibit in Jersey City Features Artist Who Colors With Light
• Submissions Sought for Your Move 2012 Dance Festival
• Santacruzan Procession and Street Fair Celebrates Filipino Culture
• Art Exhibit Draws Inspiration From Dreams, Spirituality
• Woolpunk Studios Celebrates First Anniversary
• Filmmakers Raising Funds for Indie Rom-Com Set, Shot in Jersey City
• Busking Saxophonists Bring Joy, Songs to City Streets
• Traditional Technique, Modern Elements Mix in Jersey City Art Exhibit
• Mr. Mustart to Show Recent Works at White Star in Jersey City
• Bryant Park Quartet to Play St. Paul’s Lutheran in Jersey City
• Liberty Science Center Summer Exhibits Explore Energy, the Dark
• Artist Robert Piersanti Explores New Territory in LITM Exhibit

The Jersey Journal:

• Jersey City photographer uses ‘light painting’ technique to capture fireworks

Busking Saxophonists Dusty Rhodes, Mike Hanley Bring Joy to Streets

So a while ago I posted some pictures I took of the awesome Dusty Rhodes, a street musician who plays on Newark Avenue in Jersey City between Grove and Erie streets.

This week, my article featuring Rhodes and another busking saxophonist, Mike Hanley, who lives in Jersey City and plays in New York City, went online at The Jersey City Independent. Here it is.

Busking Saxophonists Bring Joy, Songs to City Streets

Life on the streets isn’t always rough. For busking saxophonist Dusty Rhodes, it’s a smooth, soulful road to joy.

People know him best as the street musician on Newark Avenue between Grove and Erie streets. At his spot, he makes about $80 to $100 a day playing what he calls “Black music.”

“Black music has consistently, from idiom to idiom, touched the world, whether it’s spirituals, blues, gospel, jazz, or R&B, it has touched the globe. Hip-hop, house, disco, dance – all that shit. Look how it has truly impacted the world,” says the 44-year-old, who adds that Blacks were instrumental in the development of the currently White-dominated rock and roll. “White people stole it,” he says jokingly.

Rhodes started playing various wind instruments in school while growing up in Newark and picked up sax in his second year at Arts High School.

“I love the sound of the saxophone,” he says. “They say the violin and the sax are closest to the human voice.” He has a long history with his old saxophone which he’s outfitted with a complex system of rubber bands that holds everything in place and keeps it sounding like new. …

Read the full article from The Jersey City Independent.

Governor’s Award in Arts Education winner Kit Sailer on octopuses, landscapes, teaching

So when I went to speak at this year’s ceremony for the Governor’s Award in Arts Education, I got to meet some awesome people, including this woman, Kit Sailer. She’s a painter from Jersey City who received an award for her outstanding work as a teaching artist. I visited her studio to interview her to write an article for The Jersey City Independent.

Pictures by me. Mouse-over for full captions.

Kit Sailer, Winner of Governor’s Award in Arts Education

Jersey City’s Kit Sailer is many things – a carpenter, an educator, a fine artist, and most recently, a winner of the Governor’s Award in Arts Education for her work as a teaching artist.

As a fine artist, the 55-year-old works in periods.

She spent a decade painting, drawing and making prints of sea creatures – everything from seahorses and sea lilies to her favorite, octopuses. Then, after Sailer painted an oil landscape in preparation to teach a class on the medium, she got hooked and has been painting farms, fields and mountains for the past five years. Sailer’s work is a study of natural forms and rhythms.

“I’m very interested in the natural form, the patterns that the natural forms create and movement,” said the Syracuse University graduate. “I love moving, rolling and dramatic compositions like the trees, the farmland and then the fields that are flat and facing south – there’s a pattern and you can see how the land is used impacts the terrain.”

She saw the same appeal in the natural shape of one of her first loves, the octopus.

“There was a starburst shape I was using over and over [in my work] and I thought, ‘I should probably do an octopus,’ so I did. I’ve done hundreds of drawings, paintings, sketches and prints of the octopus…It’s about its rhythm and movement, not the burst. It’s the reaching out,” she says.

“From the octopus it went to the seahorse and then I got into the underwater world. Crinoids, gorgonians, coral forms…I opened up this energetic world that was a combination of the real and the fantastic wrapped into one,” she says.

She discovered the same magic in Montana when she tagged along with her husband Charlie Trowbridge on a business trip. In one week, Sailer produced five oil paintings, four watercolors and several drawings.

“I fell in love with the idea of seeing the landscape as a natural pattern, how it changes and what it meant to the land,” she says. “At the time I was doing coral landscapes and I loved how each coral grew in its own way – this was the exact same thing!” She gestures excitedly to one of several landscapes hanging on the wall of her New York Avenue studio, showing how each tree and hill has a shape and movement of its own.

Sitting down, Sailer says she’s learned to talk freely and enthusiastically about art through teaching. …

Read the full article here on The Jersey City Independent.

Check out photos from my visit to Kit’s studio in the Jersey City Heights neighborhood.

Short story: ‘Lost Love Song’

I think working out of a Moleskine has pushed me into a more poetic phase. Wrote this a while ago but never got around to typing it up and posting it.

This is an old friend’s story and a very raw draft.

Lost Love Song

In my blue dreams, we reunite on the beach after years of separation. It’s a gloomy morning and I’m walking to clear my head. I spot you further down the shore, watching the sun rise slowly over the rim of the ocean’s cup. The trouble in your eyes grieves my heart. I remember cradling your head in my arms when things went unwell and how in return, you became my body’s second home and my soul’s first. I can’t stop myself; I run toward you as fast as my fragile legs can carry me. A shell – or a stone, I can’t tell – cuts me, but I ignore the pain in my sole. Time grows thick as I slowly stumble through the sand. I only push harder.

Finally, I am beside you, holding your face, looking into the forever in your beady, bright eyes. I kiss you on the forehead, on the cheeks, on the eyelids, on the lips, loud and long – I miss every inch of you. You grab my shoulders to stop me so you can get a good look at my face. Without saying anything, we know we are thinking the exact same thoughts. We can’t help but smile.

You are like my forefathers, for you have made me who I am. You are like the children I have yet to bear, for I love you unconditionally. You are like my very self, for I look at you and see everything I have been, am and could be.

In my orange dreams, we speed recklessly down the road in your brand new car, tops down. We whizz through Downtown on your bike – I sit behind you with my hands around your waist and press my face into the back of your neck. We run and run and run through the countryside until we collapse from exhaustion. Together, we lie down in a meadow where we are surrounded by flowers and tall grass. The whole world is ours.

As we lay in the meadow or stare at each other on the beach or do whatever draws us together in my mind, my heart fills with something strange and intangible that almost renders it senseless, the way the nose is overwhelmed by an impending sneeze.

“I can’t believe we’ve gone on so long without ever uttering a word to each other,” you say.

“I wish I knew about you since the day I was born. I would’ve known to seek you then. I would’ve spent my life doing it,” I say.

“But you did.”

I was impatient but now we’re here, closer than ever before. Honey, we can go out ice skating tonight. We’ve never done it before, but we can learn and try.
I want to feed you sweet things and fruit so my fingers can accidentally brush your lips.
I want to feel the warmth of your skin against my skin under the coolness of the sheets.
We can cuddle up under a blanket on your sofa, sipping soup and watching cable TV, just like you always imagined.
I can learn to be better for you, if you just give me a chance.
You can learn how to play the guitar again, so you don’t have to pretend like you never knew how.
Our lives will never be perfect but they will be so much better than either of us expected.

Can’t you see where we’re coming from? And where we’re going now? Where I’ll end up if you discard me? How you’ll feel at night if I finally forget you?

You turned away so coldly when I saw you last. Now I move only in my mind – exploring the world with you, reuniting on the beach. Exploring on the beach, reuniting with you again. Hey – who are we, again?

Published Articles 5/14/12 – 5/19/12; guest blog for NJ Young Playwrights Fest Blog

This was my first week news blogging for The Jersey City Independent, where I wrote several blog posts. I’m still trying to find my footing and blogging style for JCI and am also getting used to their style. So far, I’m really enjoying myself!

I also advanced the Everything Jersey City Festival for The Jersey Journal and was a guest blogger for the New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival Blog. Overall, a pretty awesome week!

P.S. Some people have been confused – I am currently still freelancing arts articles for The Jersey Journal.

The Jersey City Independent

• ‘Principal For a Day’ Offers Inside Look at Jersey City Schools
• Art Show to Feature Doodle Artist Jon Burgerman and Pizza-Tossing Prodigy
• Free Ferry Rides For Military Personnel and Veterans During Fleet Week
• 90′s Pop Culture Tributes Sought for Art Show
• Jersey City Slam Prepares for National Poetry Slam in Charlotte
• Video Highlights Pushin’ Up The Daisies Festival
• Art Social Lets Artists Interact and Collaborate
• Jehovah’s Witnesses Kick Off Convention Series in Journal Square
• LGBT Film Festival to Screen Movie on Novelist Isherwood at LITM
• Report of Suspicious Package Jams Traffic on Grove
• Guardian Angels Program Could Improve Public Safety in Jersey City, Says Lopez
• ‘Taste of the Heights’ Kickoff Potluck Aims to Bond Neighbors
• Author Speaks on Holland Tunnel’s History at Barrow Mansion
• Over 900 to Graduate at HCCC Commencement, Local Developer to Be Honored
• PS 3 Kids Present Music Concert, Performance of Musical ‘Aladdin’

The Jersey Journal

• Everything Jersey City Festival Saturday on Central Avenue
• Marcos Garcia a.k.a. Chico Mann to perform at Everything Jersey City Festival Saturday
• AudioBodies to perform their urban world music Saturday at the Everything Jersey City Festival

Also, here is an excerpt from my blog post for the NJYPF blog:

My name is Summer Dawn Hortillosa and I’m a 21-year-old playwright and journalist from Jersey City. In 2007, I won the New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest with my fractured fairy tale comedy, The Not-So-Lovely Tale of Strawberry Fructose. Recently, I directed a production of the latest play I’ve written, Secrets; Love, which was selected for the Downtown Urban Theater Festival (DUTF) in New York City.

Simply winning the contest doesn’t necessarily launch you into the world of theater, but PTNJ offers valuable experience and inspiration for many young playwrights, including myself.

There was something so magical about seeing my characters come to life, feeling the energy buzzing in the room because of my words and hearing the audience laugh at my jokes. I saw my idea completely realized – it grew in my brain, budded on the page and was born on the stage. Many young playwrights don’t ever get this chance; it’s something every festival selection’s writer should savor.

After the festival, I decided I wanted to be involved in theater in any way I could and ended up being involved in six productions that year – writing, directing, producing, acting, whatever I could.

Read the full article here.

‘Rhythm and Movement’ art exhibit at Lana Santorelli Gallery in Hoboken

I visited one of my favorite places, the Lana Santorelli Gallery, 628 Washington St., Hoboken, today. Here are some shots from their current show “Rhythm and Movement,” which features art inspired by music and dance.

I wrote an article advancing the show’s opening for The Jersey Journal.

The show runs through June 24 and will be part of 3rd Sundays, a Hoboken gallery walk, this weekend. The gallery walk features 10 venues and features a guided tour which will cover half of the venues each Sunday and alternate each month. This Sunday, the west side of the city will be featured.

At LSG, Erik Sheets – one of the artists featured in “Rhythm and Movement” – will be live drawing and talking about his work this Sunday.

These were some of my favorites. Mouse-over for full captions.

Daily blogging for The Jersey City Independent; follow me on Twitter!

So today was my first day doing my full duties at The Jersey City Independent and I put up a few blog posts. So far, I’m enjoying the lighter, more casual and intimate vibe of the whole publication. It still does, however, feature quality writing and some really good journalism and isn’t an alt talking down to the people or exploiting their biggest political concerns without any care for the community’s real needs.

Oh, in case you were wondering what my blog posts were, here they are:

• ‘Principal For a Day’ Offers Inside Look at Jersey City Schools
• Art Show to Feature Doodle Artist Jon Burgerman and Pizza-Tossing Prodigy
• Free Ferry Rides For Military Personnel and Veterans During Fleet Week
• 90′s Pop Culture Tributes Sought for Art Show
• Jersey City Slam Prepares for National Poetry Slam in Charlotte
• Video Highlights Pushin’ Up The Daisies Festival

I’m still getting the hang of it but I’m doing my best to learn about JCI’s style and tastes as quickly as possible. So far, my coworkers have been super supportive and helpful in getting me trained and ready for my job. Woohoo!

Also, I now have Twitter! To hear my random musings and get the latest on art, music, theater, writing (and maybe even some news), follow me @SummerHort!