Birdie's New Mexico Time Machine

Time and Fortune

by Birdie Jaworski

Madeline (left) and Ani help stage the play.

UWC Theatre Instructor Tim Crofton handed me a wrapped fortune cookie last Saturday night. I pierced the cellophane with my teeth, let the cookie tumble into one hand. Sixty pairs of nervous eyes watched as I cracked the brittle treat and read the message out loud.

"Look at the moon. Show only your bright side to the world."

I handed the slip of paper to second-year UWC student and budding playwright Holly Jones. She raised her eyebrows above black rimmed glasses. The room echoed with the laughter of writers, directors, and actors as each fortune was read. In twenty-four hours eleven cookies would grow into eleven original written and staged performances. I would direct Jones' play exactly twenty-four hours after meeting her, twelve hours after being handed her brand-new script.

Some say God swept His hand through the void, creating firmament and fire. He had seven days, though, 168 leisurely hours to mold something from abject nothing. Crofton's writers had but twelve overnight hours and one cryptic Chinese phrase. Writers know what it is to gather expelled breath, knit it into a hope-spiked scarf. To do this under pressure, in twelve hours better spent in study, in dream, is quite another thing.

Cookie crumbs gathered under a growing disarray of gray folding chairs. A forgotten brown blazer rested on scarred wooden floorboards near the velvet curtains. Some playwrights retired to their dorm rooms. Some found cozy corners in the UWC campus and hunkered down with tall shot cans of Starbucks espresso. Jones made her way to familiar quarters, my fortune in the pocket of her plaid pajama pants. I watched her saunter out the double door, her blonde bob swinging in a declaration of bravado.

Twelve hours later, red-eyed writers filed into Kluge Auditorium. I sat with the two youngest actors in the event, my son Louis Jencka, 13, and his friend Max Robertson, 12. Jones arrived early. She handed me her script - two filled sides of one paper with the enigmatic title "Don't Look at My Finger; Look at the Moon."

I quickly read both sides of the page. I read it again, slowly, tried to make sense of the Kafka-esque storyline. A woman sits in confession with her priest. He is bug-like - literally bug-like - with antenna and a penchant for scurrying across the floor on all fours. The woman has an affair with her student. Her husband finds out, calls the police. A wandering angel in white steps onto stage, spouting words not-quite-from-the-bible. The woman is silenced by the Hand of God, the angel standing above her lifeless body. At least I thought that was the sequence of events. Told in flashback from the confessional, the dialogue only hinted at what transpired. I glanced at Jones, wondering what midnight terrors fell from our combined fortune. She smiled.

"Directors! Cast your plays!"

Crofton's voice boomed across the hall. More than once exhausted writer winced. I consulted with Jones, and cast UWC students Madeline Noteware as the fallen teacher, Eldar Undheim as the priest, Carlos Grandet as the student, Anirudh Baveja as the mysterious angel, and my own young, yet incredibly tall, son as the husband. We were off and running!

Two hours into rehearsal, my team realized that Jones' script was simply too unusual. Off came the priest's antennae. We erased his floor-scuttling behavior and replaced it with a traditional cleric's collar and the sign of the cross. Young Max Robertson passed us in the hall as we rummaged for props and costumes.

"I'm the Radiation Kid. I think it's a science fiction play. It's weird," he explained.

"You don't know weird." Louis muttered his response, his mind clearly challenged by our racy, avant-guard dialogue.

I struggled with the role of Director, with whether to play it serious or camp. Noteware pointed out that if we delivered our lines without irony, it would probably be funnier. She borrowed clothes to dress her part - a button-down sweater and a librarian's skirt. Baveja added one special low-tech effect - a flaming cross meant to represent the swift justice of the Lord.

During technical check, we watched the ten other five-minute plays. It became obvious that ours was the most unusual, the most controversial, the one play that might offend and bewilder the audience. We continued to rehearse, refining line and movement, until our play became a synchronized swim of confession and flashback.

"Maybe this isn't so bad," I giggled, after one particularly good run through the script. "At least our actors are pretty good."

"Mom, I still don't get the play." Louis raised eyebrows in perfect mimic of our playwright.

At 8 p.m. Sunday, exactly 24 hours after opening the cookies, the auditorium was packed with UWC students and a few people from outside campus. It felt like a week since we first met, since we first read Jones' play. We waited in the wings, pushed our makeshift confessional onto Stage Left when it was our turn. Undheim responded to his sinner with expertly acted furtive glances, with a quick thumb through his bible. Noteware fluttered mooning eyes at Grandet. The audience giggled. Baveja stood backstage with me, waiting his cue to take the floor with his winged majesty, his glowing cross. As he strode to Center Stage, one hand lifted in flaming splendor, the audience held a collective breath.

The curtain fell on our strange morality lesson. I wandered to the audience with my actors. I caught Jones' face in profile as I found my seat. She smiled, the same knowing look she gave me when I first read her work, and I realized she discovered what it meant to swipe one's hand through the void, to collect the light from the moon.

LVAC and NMHU Sponsor High School Art Competition

David Escudero's studio breathes studied light, displays canvas layered in the colors of San Miguel County's jasper-speckled earth. Escudero sat at a simple wooden table, a sketch of geometrical shapes filled with hand-drawn parallel lines to one side. He pointed to the white paper, the not-quite-perfect lines of black ink.

"Art isn't part of the standard curriculum in most school systems anymore, and I think it's a big detriment to the students who don't always succeed in tests and in the so-called sports arena. These students may not become artists, but doing art develops certain parts of their brain." Escudero paused. "Not only in the visual arts, but in arts and crafts. Manipulating materials is important for brain development. Everyone has a potential to succeed in the arts, and everyone has talent. It needs to be fostered and developed."

Escudero's passion isn't simply a set of well-worn phrases. For the past three years he has organized the annual Las Vegas Arts Council High School Art Competition. The 2008 exhibition, being held February 11 to 25, 2008, is co-sponsored by NMHU's Art Department. In its fifteenth year, the event consists of artworks created by students from West Las Vegas High School, Robertson High School, and high school students from Mora and Pecos.

"This year we've invited Wagon Mound to participate," explains Escudero. "We're doing the legwork and going to these places and visiting people. Even if these schools don't have a formal art program, they have students who have the heart of an artist. We want all high school students to feel comfortable enough to submit a piece."

Each year, six selections are chosen to receive a prize. Three pieces are awarded Honorable Mentions. The artist who places third wins fifty dollars, second place wins seventy-five dollars, with the top prize winning one-hundred dollars. Judges are prominent artists from the community, including gallery owners and museum curators.

"We normally have 84 to 100 artworks. Most of the students work on their pieces in school and their art instructors help them prepare their artwork for presentation, but we will hang it no matter how it arrives. We make a good presentation for everyone," says Escudero. "This year NMHU is providing us with Burris Hall, which is a fabulous space. We will fill that space, too."

The artists' reception and funds for the prizes are donated by the Las Vegas Arts Council and established art businesses in the community. Volunteers are needed to act as docents during the two-week show. Exhibiting students are invited to attend the artists' reception with their families. For most students, this event is the first time their artwork is displayed in an exhibition setting with a reception event.

Escudero smiled as he described his favorite piece from a past show. "It was Christ on the Cross by Eric Sandoval, an abstract. It was not only a painting but it was a three-dimensional work, almost sculptural in relief. It had many influences - from local santero artwork to modern aspects. His work made a big impression on me even though it did not win a prize. Every judge that judges works of art has their particular likes or dislikes. And that's a fact even with curators in museums. It's a good lesson for young artists to learn."

Browns, greens, silver, the colors of ancient life infected with Escudero's exuberance reflected the setting sun through a chiseled glass window. He clasped his hands together in an expression of hope and sincerity.

"The arts should be a part of the development of every young person's life. At the very least, every child should be given the chance to experience art in all of its forms."

Las Vegas Arts Council High School Art Competition
February 11, 2008 to February 25, 2008
New Mexico Highlands University, Burris Hall

This is the 15th annual high school student art show which is sponsored by the Las Vegas Arts Council.  Students are asked to submit their art work to compete for the following prizes:  1st Place $100, 2nd Place $75, and 3rd Place $50; also, three honorable mention certificates are given to three students.  Local area high schools from Las Vegas, Pecos and Mora are invited to participate in the show.

The Colors of Peace

King David with Harp, lithograph, Marc Chagall

In the midst of dark, war-torn 1939, artist Marc Chagall feared his days were numbered. The Nazis marched toward Paris, toward the small enclave of artists and intellectuals housing the middle-aged Russian Jew. Chagall hid his works as best he could; he placed his etchings on Biblical themes - the beginnings of a series he started after a visit to Palestine - in a locked trunk and shipped them to a Swiss friend.

"These thoughts occurred to me many years ago when I first stepped on biblical ground preparing to create etchings for the Bible," Chagall mused, many years later. "And they emboldened me to bring my modest gift to the Jewish people which always dreamed of biblical love, of friendship and peace among all peoples."

Chagall was saved by an American journalist, in one of the most extraordinary sagas of World War II. Varian Fry, a classical scholar and writer, met with Eleanor Roosevelt with a plan to find many of the century's most famous artists and intellectuals and helping them escape from Nazi-occupied France. He arrived in the French port city of Marseilles armed with only three thousand dollars and a list of two hundred names. Fry set to work, manufacturing sets of false identification, and setting up a careful escape route through the patrolled countryside.

In a rescue operation unprecedented in modern times, Fry managed to save a virtual roll call of twentieth-century genius. Among the lucky, including Chagall, were the artists Marcel Duchamp, Andre Masson, and Max Ernst; writers Franz Werfel and Heinrich Mann; Nobel Prize winner Otto Meyerhof; and musicians Erich Itor-Kahn and Wanda Landowska. Alma Mahler also escaped, bringing with her original scores composed by her first husband, Gustav Mahler, and manuscript symphonies by Georg Bruckner.

Chagall's works were forever changed by Fry's bravery. He retrieved his unfinished works and began to paint, adding bold splashes of color that spoke of joy, of a deep inner belief in peace.

"Will God or someone give me the power to breathe my sigh into my canvases, the sigh of prayer and sadness, the prayer of salvation, of rebirth?" Chagall mused after his escape.

Chagall finished his Bible series, a set of color lithographs, in 1956, and continued to paint for thirty-nine more years until his death in 1985 at the age of 97. The Ray Drew Gallery at NMHU is showing an exhibition of these lithographs through December 18.

Chagall's work shows great sensitivity to his subjects. King David's face turns to one side, captured in muted pinks, a gesture of submission to a higher force. Angels are seemingly sketched with pen somehow above paper, the delicate lines giving flight to invisible wings.

Chagall never denied his religious faith, and the ways it inspired his work. "Ever since my earliest youth I have been fascinated by the Bible. I have always believed that it is the greatest source of poetry of all time," said Chagall. "The Bible is an echo of nature, and this I have endeavoured to transmit. In art everything is possible, so long as it is based on love."

The Bible, lithographs by Marc Chagall, exhibit at the Ray Drew Gallery, Las Vegas, New Mexico. The Ray Drew Gallery is on the first floor of the Donnelly Library on the NMHU campus, and is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

This article first appeared in the Las Vegas Optic.

Raptors Descend on Las Vegas, New Mexico

Laura Swartz stretches the wing of a red-tailed hawk

Laura Swartz lifted her arm parallel to floor. A red-tailed hawk dug into her long-sleeved shirt. The steady arch of his beak feigned nonchalance, but his eyes captured every tiny motion in the room. Swartz wore a heavy canvas glove for protection. Her movements were sure, rehearsed. She spread the hawk's right wing. An audience of forty Las Vegas residents leaned forward to examine the raptor's plumage.

"Look at his gorgeous feathers. They're considered sacred by some Native American tribes, and are used in religious ceremonies," lectured Swartz. "These feathers are designed for conservation of energy during flight. Red-tailed hawks will hover and ride the thermals as much as they can. Their active flight is slow and ponderous, but even so they typically travel 20 to 40 miles per hour."

Swartz paused to relax the hawk's wing. He lunged, one leg rising from her arm, talons ready to slash in defensive reflex. The afternoon spring sun cast feathered shadows against the full conference room, making the hawk appear six times his already large size. The audience gasped.

"He's a fiesty one," laughed Swartz. "It's hard to believe he was brought into the Center half alive after being hit by a car."

Swartz is an educator and wildlife specialist at The Santa Fe Raptor Center, a non-profit organization which assists in the rehabilitation, release and preservation of New Mexico's native wild birds. The Raptor Center's special focus is on the treatment of injured and orphaned birds of prey. Last year, 201 wild songbirds were cared for by the Center's trained rehabbers. Of these, 110 were released into appropriate environments. Nineteen raptors - injured or orphaned - were taken in, and eleven of them were released back into the wild.

"We can't release every raptor we save," explained Swartz. "We do our best. Some birds come to us with catastrophic injuries that take months of care and rehab to cure. It's ultimately not our decision which birds can be released; it's up to the bird himself as well as the New Mexico Game and Fish Department. It's illegal for any person or group to keep a raptor without a special reason and permit. This is one of the reasons why this program is so special."

This Sunday, the Friends of the Las Vegas Wildlife Refuge will host The Santa Fe Raptor Center in a live raptor presentation at the refuge headquarters. Laura and Blair Swartz of Los Alamos along with Lori Paras of Eldorado will show a red-tailed hawk, a tiny flammulated owl, as well as several "surprise" birds.

"This is the third time we've hosted The Santa Fe Raptor Center," said Jan Arrott, the Friends' President.  "They put on an excellent program. The community is invited to attend, but please be aware that seating is limited to forty individuals. This is an incredible show for children as well as adults. You won't get the chance to see these gorgeous birds so close in any other setting."

During the last Las Vegas program, Blair Swartz held a flammulated owl in one hand. The bird twisted his head in the strange 180-degree curve only owls know. Swartz scratched the owl between the twin tufts of feathers on his head.

"That owl was so cute!" exclaimed Jacob Denkins, age 11, after the program. "I thought this would be boring, but I'm glad I came. I learned about all kinds of raptors and how to take care of one if I find one hurt on the road. I'm definitely coming back."

Santa Fe Raptor Center program at the Las Vegas New Mexico National Wildlife Refuge, Sunday Nov. 25, noon and 1:30 p.m. Seating is limited to 40; please come early! Free!