MoaBlog

This elaborate red-and-white quilt, which was hand-stitched by members of a local quilting club, will be raffled off on Valentines Day. Marion sold raffle tickets for $1 each at the Holiday Gift Fair held recently.

Fiddler Paul Woodiel (left) is joined by fellow musician Christopher Layer on the bagpipes during the Moab Music Festival's free family picnic concert on Labor Day, Monday afternoon. Dozens of people brought along their blankets and lawn chairs (bottom photo) to hear musicians perform works by composers such as Schubert, Dvorak, and Lecuouna. It is the 17th season for the annual festival, which features performances by professional musicians from all around the world.

A quartet of Cuban musicians known as the Chuchito Valdes Quartet performed at the local high school today as part of the annual Moab Music Festival, now in its 17th year. Emilio Valdes is the drummer (top photo), Sandy Perez is on congas and Rene Camacho on bass (middle photo), and Chuchito Valdes is on the piano (bottom photo). The group's lively Cuban jazz music was well-appreciated by the students and staff at the school.

Prior to last Friday's game, quarterback Trevor had someone write the following verse from the Bible on his forearm, to help motivate himself for the game (which the Red Devils ended up winning, 14-0). The version of Ezekiel 25:17 as written on Trevor's arm reads as follows: "And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee." The King James version of Ezekiel 25:17 is translated a bit differently: "And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them."

Penny made London a quilt for her bed and gave it to her as a Christmas present. The quilt has a colorful sunflower pattern and color scheme, and took many hours of stitching and sewing. Penny finished the project late on Christmas Eve, just in time to wrap it and place it under the tree.

Jeff's dad Frank (who lives in Salt Lake) crocheted a new pink afghan for his 5-month-old granddaughter Geneva. He finished it yesterday and sent it in the mail, and it arrived today. Geneva likes it!

Mary had the opportunity to stop at a park in Olso and view sculptures created by Gustav Vigeland (1869-1943), a famed Norwegian sculptor. Later in life, Vigeland sought to capture the human experience from life to death through a series of sculptures which are displayed at the park.

River and her fellow Girl Scouts created flower patterned artwork this past Saturday. The girls pounded flower petals with a hammer, transferring the plants' natural dye onto white fabric, which was then cut and sewed onto a background. River's design featured two intertwined hearts.

Jeff's daughters spent a recent afternoon drawing pictures, cutting out valentines, and making scrapbook pages.

This year at the Utah Shakespearean Festival, Sam saw three plays: Twelfth Night, Coriolanus, and King Lear. This photo shows a statue of King Lear in the famous storm scene where he says:

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulph'rous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o' th' world,
Crack Nature's moulds, all germains spill at once,
That makes ingrateful man!

Approximately 150,000 people visit The Utah Shakespearean Festival each year. About 60 percent of the festival’s audience comes from Utah; 24 percent from Nevada; 6 percent from Arizona; 6 percent from California; and 4 percent from other areas throughout the world. This photo shows a statue of the character Sir John Falstaff. Here is one of his famous speeches:

If sack and sugar be a fault,
God help the wicked! if to be old and merry be a
sin, then many an old host that I know is damned: if
to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh's lean kine
are to be loved. No, my good lord; banish Peto,
banish Bardolph, banish Poins: but for sweet Jack
Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff,
valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant,
being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banish not him
thy Harry's company, banish not him thy Harry's
company: banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.

The Utah Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City, Utah is one of the oldest and largest Shakespearean festivals in North America. Its first season was in 1962. On the grounds of the Festival there are several statues of Shakespearean Characters. This photo shows the statue of Juliet from the play Romeo and Juliet. Here are some of Juliet’s most famous lines:

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

Local high school students enjoy making their own pottery in art class. The bottom photo shows a sampling of various types of pottery pieces that have already been fired.

Seven-year-old River also won second prize at the Moab Western Stars Cowboy Poetry Gathering last weekend for her painting of a cowgirl.

At the local high school's wood shop classes, various students are finishing their woodworking projects. From top, Sheen and his cabinet, Caleb and his gun rack, and Kerby and his octogonal poker table.

One of the more elaborate jack o'lanterns seen on Halloween night was this devil's face carved into a pumpkin, along with the words "Go Devils!" in support of the local high school, whose mascot is the Red Devils.

Sam and Virginia attended the Utah Festival Opera in Logan, Utah, where they saw three productions. On the first night they attended a performance of the popular Mozart opera “The Marriage of Figaro”. Called “Le Nozze di Figaro” in Italian, this piece is a comic opera about a couple preparing for marriage, and how they have to contend with the count’s desire for the young lady. This opera was chosen because 2006 is the year celebrating the anniversary of Mozart’s 250th birthday.

The next day, they saw the popular Meredith Wilson musical comedy “The Music Man”. That night, Giacomo Puccini’s masterpiece “La Boheme” was presented. This sorrowful love story is Sam’s favorite opera. It is based on Murger’s novel “Scenes de la vie Boheme." Originally written in French, the story was adapted into an Italian libretto for this composition.

During a recent visit to the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Sam and Virginia viewed "Thomas Moran: Painting the Parks," consisting of paintings and drawings that the artist did while accompanying the Hayden Geological Survey to the Yellowstone and Grand Teton areas of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana in 1871. Moran's depictions familiarized Americans with the treasures of the area and encouraged Congress to create Yellowstone National Park in 1872, America's first national park.

Other exhibits at the museum included a wonderfully lifelike collection of bison paintings, and other pieces showing bighorn sheep, wolves, and bears, along with local pictures from a children's art contest.

The renowned Shidara taiko drumming group from Toei, Japan peformed back-to-back in-school assemblies for nearly 1,500 schoolchildren and teachers in Moab yesterday. The highly entertaining musicians played with amazing expertise and precision, and the audiences greatly enjoyed both performances. Tonight, the group will perform a sold-out concert at the high school and then stay one more night in Moab before traveling back to California to continue their six-city U.S. tour. Check out the group's website at www.shidara.co.jp for more information.

Jeff's dad, who works as a pharmacist in Salt Lake, likes to crochet in his spare time. These photos show two of the three afghans that he recently completed to give as gifts to neighbors. Each afghan took about 30 hours of crocheting to complete.

On a barren stretch of the Utah Salt Flats, just north of the freeway between Salt Lake City and Wendover, stands a colorful cement treelike sculpture 87 feet tall and weighing over 90 tons. The sculpture was envisioned and created in the early 1980s by Karl Momen, a Swedish artist born in Iran. Its official title is "Metaphor: the Tree of Life," but many people simply call it "Tree of Utah."

River and London made fancy "dragon eggs" last week as part of the local library's summer reading program. It's easy to make one -- simply take a small balloon and wrap it with string soaked in white glue. Next, apply shreds of colored tissue paper, glitter, and other decorative objects. When the balloon dries, pop it with a pin and you'll have a delicate dragon egg!

In her spare time, Jacci paints decorative panels. She uses acrylic paints on 1/4 inch masonite. The two panels pictured here are quite large (37 inches wide by 59 inches high, or 94 cm by 150 cm). They depict scenes in a mountainous region of eastern Idaho. They will be displayed in a cabin in that area.

Moonstone Gallery, an outdoor patio located on Moab's Center Street recently had a new sign sculpture added (top photo). The gallery is a beautifully landscaped area between the Center Street Gym and the old middle school building, which is being renovated to become the new Moab City Hall (middle photo). Another sculpture in the gallery is a 10-foot high cat with a metal vane on its back (bottom photo).

A silhouette is an outline (usually of a person’s head) that is filled with a solid color. Most silhouettes (like this self-portrait made by Brooklyn at school) are black on a white background. In this example, the shadow of Brooklyn’s profile was traced on the black paper, cut out, and then pasted onto the white page. Silhouettes date back as far as Stone Age cave paintings, but the term “silhouette” itself originated in 18th century when a Frenchman named Etienne de Silhouette achieved fame for his skill in producing such pictures.