Category: Newsletter

Kukuki Velarde created a delicate whimsical, ode to her little girl Vida. Line drawings on paper, cut out and layered in three dimensions told the beautifully crafted, artfully re‐imagined story of how her little daughter came to be. A fairy baring an egg metaphorically gave a gift to Kukuli that started Vida’s life.

This work intended for a children’s book was a departure from her critically acclaimed ceramic work expressing the struggles of the indigenous people of Peru.

June is family residency month. Hermitage babysitters allow artist‐parents the freedom to create at an intense pace between tranquil family playtimes on the beach.

Oscar Bettison, here with his sweet baby daughter Paloma, came to write a commission for an Amsterdam ensemble.

His warm comfortable British accent seemed at home in the Hermitage living room when we gathered in the house to chat after his composer‐talk was rained out on the beach. A conversation evolved about his way of composing music.

He told us he liked to be challenged, like when a pianist/percussionist asked him to write a solo piece. Together they had to invent ways the pianist could play percussion with his feet while still manning the keyboard.

He wrote a piece with the violin strings all tuned to D (when usually the four strings are tuned to GDAE). We watched a young virtuoso play the piece on youtube. If many of us had heard this piece on a car radio, we might have changed the channel, but after learning its origin, appreciating the difficulty and understanding the pattern, listeners were fascinated.

Oscar doesn’t go with the first idea he has for a piece. He gets more ideas, then, if the first one is still exciting, he goes with it. A writer agreed she works the same way. An artist later chimed in that Oscar’s work is like the collage she makes. Everyone heard something in his music to relate and memorable ah‐ha discourse.

Baby Paloma’s father had sat on the old wooden Hermitage floor helping her learn her first words in the morning. That evening in the same spot Englewood’s literati (decades older than Paloma) still with curious, open minds, learned a new language too, the language of 21st century musical composition.

By Marianne Schafer, Coordinator of the Friends of the Hermitage

The February meeting of the Friends of the Hermitage was well attended, informative and fun. Thanks to those of you who brought food to be shared before Sharyn Lonsdale welcomed us. It was good to have our friends Eleanor Hodges and Florine Broden back with us again.

Patricia Caswell gave us a head’s up on what’s happening in the next month. Then we went on a “field trip” to the banyan tree in the side lawn where visual artist Felix de la Concha was painting a study of sunlight on palm trees with the Whitney and the cisterns in the background. We also visited the studio where several of his paintings weredisplayed.

Friends were thanked for their volunteerism: Gladys Varga for adding new books to the compilation for the Fellows Library, Mike Schafer and Don Morrison, for assembling a new bookshelf for that expanding library, and Jacobina Trump for tending to it. Mike Schafer also helped out at a surprise event for Annette Dignam in honor of an endowment named for her.

Special thanks were given to the following Friends who staffed the beach events in January: Linda Schilke, Audrey Snyder, Peggy Parker, Velvet Wildermuth, Bob Kinsey, Sarita Kruysman, Kay Rihn, Dale Mancini, Robert Jackson, Rosalie Conlon, Mike Schafer, Tom and Annette Dignam.

Kay Rihn presented a Certificate of Recognition to Mike Schafer “for services above and beyond” when he took on a job cleaning her community’s traffic cones to be used at the Artful Lobster. (They really were a mess)

A watercolor by Jackie Parsons was displayed and an invitation was extended for Friends to show and share their art at future meetings.

The meeting ended with visual artist James Esber discussing and answering questions about his work entitled “PPS—Painting Perpetually Shown”.

Being a part of the Friends of the Hermitage and attending meetings has some wonderful perks. One of the best is spending individual or small-group time with our artists while they are in residence. The February meeting provided those of us present with that kind of quality time that is so enriching.

It’s great when Friends like Mary Clement, Richard Mueller and Linda Schilke remember the Hermitage Wish List. Richard donated a bookshelf that will house the overflow from the Reading for Pleasure Library, and Mary donated a cooler and small fridge. Linda is a frequent donor of household items she finds in yard sales. When organizing or cleaning your home, please keep the Hermitage in mind for those new or seldom-used articles you don’t want any more. They may be exactly what the Hermitage needs to make our artists’ visits more comfortable.

There’s lots for you to do at the Hermitage in the coming weeks including a session of jewelry making for beginners on up at noon on Feb. 25, community programs (the next one is Feb. 27) and the next Friends Meeting scheduled for Wednesday, March 11th at 10:30 a.m.. So watch the website for updates and more information.

Hermitage Trustee Ellen Berman began visiting Sarasota in 2007 and instantly became involved in the Sarasota County arts scene. Her introduction came via the 2007 Ringing International Design Summit. As the founding and very recently retired president of the nonprofit Consumer Energy Council of America, Ellen volunteered to bring in the keynote speaker to that conference and served as co-chair of the event. There she met then Jim Ley and his wife Tamara. They in turn invited Ellen to the Hermitage. After a tour of the campus and a “great chat” with Executive Director Bruce Rodgers, she was hooked. “I just loved what they did.” Within a year she was invited to serve on The Board of Trustees.

Meanwhile Ellen decided to split her time between DC and Sarasota and set down roots here. “It is such a community of interested and involved people and cultural institutions with such a beautiful climate,” says Ellen.

Ellen’s interest in the arts goes beyond the Hermitage. She grew up in Danville, VA and graduated from Barnard College with a major in Russian. As soon as she drew a paycheck she began collecting art and even planned to open her own gallery. But after working in an art gallery, and starting her new career in energy policy, Ellen said she realized that she would not have the time to devote to a gallery of her own. Instead she became a consultant to businesses in the market for art for their offices.

For the past 20 years she’s also been very involved in theater. Along with Jeffrey Richards and Richard Gross, she produced the Tony Award-nominated play “Enchanted April,” and “The Compleat Wrks of Wilm Shkspr (Abridged)”. Her latest project “Operation Epsilon,”” marries her love of arts and science. With the help of Michael Donald Edwards, and the cast of 12 Angry Men, she produced a reading of the play at the Historic Asolo Theatre, as well as readings in New York and an award-winning two month run at the Nora Theatre Company in Cambridge, MA. She is now working on casting this “science play” for a production in New York.

Ellen tries not to miss any of the big Hermitage events and was there at the first Greenfield Prize Dinner. “It was the best event in town. People were so excited and everything was perfect. David Lang’s talk was fantastic.” Ellen believes Hermitage programs like the talks by Hermitage Fellows Nico Muhly and Lera Auerbach, provide “A fantastic opportunity to the public to appreciate what the artist has done.””

“The opportunities that the Hermitage creates are really remarkable and worthwhile, to the artists who create their art and to the public to appreciate what the artist has done. In the case of the Greenfield Prize, it gives the artist the chance to create a new work that is produced locally before it goes national.. It’s what’s rewarding to me as a member of the community and of the Board.”