Once Upon a Time, September 1997

Like every mother, I can’t help but marvel that this “baby” of mine is just beginning its twenty-third year. HiArt!’s first semester consisted of one good-natured two-year old and his parents, my daughter, my husband and me in a dingy midtown dance studio. Everything we needed for class had to come, each week, with me. Picture this: tv with built-in vhs player, boom box, cassettes (yes, it was 1997) and my gigantic shopping bags of art supplies piled into one overflowing shopping cart. No doubt I was the bane of every cab driver in New York City: an art-crazed bag lady loading this huge cartful of supplies in and out of a taxi smack in the middle of midtown traffic. But once unpacked, we had the grandest of times.  Dancing and collaging, inspired by Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, we created spectacular art drawn from the images of fallible saints and the angels watching over them. 

In 2002 we lucked into the most stunning studio in the Starrett Lehigh Building.  Brimming with art supplies and overlooking the Hudson River, we danced on sparkling floors then gleefully spread out our tarps and filled the space with masses of paint and glitter.  The entire city was our art-oyster: whether Chelsea, Brooklyn, or uptown at the Guggenheim – HiArt! kids didn’t just look at art, they “climbed inside of it.” We danced to Pipilotti Rist, jumped under Christo’s gates, participated in of Albert Maysles documentary, made animations from food, chatted with Thomas Struth at Marion Goodman’s, worked on a community mosaic in Harlem, been backstage – so many times – of the New York City Opera and immersed ourselves in the brilliant music of composers from Rameau to Prokofiev, from Schoenberg to Babbit, and from to Shostakovich to Massenet.