Season of the beatnik
Last June, I received a letter from Victoria Pendragon, an artist and writer, active with the Hampshire County Arts Council. I hope that Ms. Pendragon doesn’t mind my responding publicly to her letter but I’ve had some long held thoughts on the subject that the letter addresses.
Having had the federal funding pulled and the subsequent cancellation of a PBS documentary that I was hosting, I can see the need now, more than ever, to keep the arts alive on the grass roots level even if it means hanging paintings on trees along the roadside and creating nude snow sculptures rather than the usual snowmen.
(My father was exceptionally good at creating these sculptures — another reason to be thankful that our house was a quarter mile from the road) The letter primarily concerned the HCAC’s literary offshoot known as Ice Mountain writers. I have never been a member of this organization, nor have I ever attended one of their meetings. However, I did read aloud a couple of pieces at an Arts Council gathering at a coffee house in Romney. I had
a blast.
