Where I've been – art and life

I didn’t mean to be gone all week without posting, but sometimes life decides to take over and give you…a life, and blogging gets moved because of this weird thing called sleep and exhaustion.
– Monday and Tuesday I tried to just take it easy, I didn’t do the whole wake-up-and-exercise-thing because I wasn’t sure if I was coming down with something, and with a trip on Wednesday I didn’t want to overexert myself. I did, however, carve pumpkins on Sunday night and walk around town like someone from Harry Potter on Halloween.
-Wednesday (what I really want to get to) I, and a bunch of other artists/groups from Maine went down to Worcester, MA for the 10th “Idea Swap” put on by NEFA. It was my groups’ first time going and there were three of us in the van with a bunch of other Maine-ers. I didn’t really know what to expect when we got there, but the experience and mingling and finding out what kinds of (preforming) art other people from all over New England were working on bringing to their communities was great.
It was also very interesting to get a sort of “inside look” at what it takes to feasibly bring events, and people, and ideas to New England, and that’s kind of what NEFA helps with (to the best that I understood it). And also to find out what kinds of things people want to bring – some of the ones that caught my attention were Silents are Golden, A Tribute to Benny Goodman (and the guy who presented that brought packets with CDs ^.^), and one that is a multi-media piece of art that has dancing and film and…everything, and can be displayed in galleries *and* preformed (as I understand it) – the name of that one is currently alluding me.
Another important aspect that the meeting focused on was the level of community involvement that would be brought as a result of having the artist/groups come, and the various things that the performers themselves could do for and with the community/area they were showing in. Silents are Golden goes to schools and I believe does segments on silent acting and/or pantomime. I found this intriguing because aside from the obvious commercial part of bringing acts to New England (getting people to come and pay to see the various things) they’re trying to bring it into the community in a more hands on/educational way. I’m not sure how standard that is, (because for me, it was like sitting in on a board room or business meeting where most of the stuff goes way over your head, but you try to take in as much as you can and get the general idea of what exactly is going on) but I imagine it’s not particularly uncommon either.
It was really quite fascinating, and the people themselves were great to talk to. We sat with some really interesting people who try to bring art/theater into the more…ghetto-ey? (for lack of a better term) areas of Boston, and it was just amazing to talk to them and hear their story and goals (I really hope that it all goes well) too.