Kudos to fellow local artist and musician, Rene West for posting a fascinating link to a Washington Post article on famed virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell’s incognito experiment as a busker in DC.
The full article [complete with video clips] can be found here. It’s a great read, and raises several interesting points about expression, genius, public priorities, and our knack for overlooking the sublime; even when it’s right under our collective noses.
As an artist, I found that the article resonated with me on several levels — granted, I’m no musical juggernaut of Bell’s caliber, but I can identify with the weird conflicting auras of interest vs. non-interest that happen when I choose to work in a public place.
There’s a local pub here that I often retreat to when I start to get stir crazy in the studio. When I’m sick of pacing around like a caged panther in the tiny second bedroom that is the optimistically aforementioned “studio”, I venture out to sketch in this dimly lit, well-run establishment a few miles from home. There’s a motley crew of regulars, plus the ever-shifting crowd of college kids, bikers, pre-professionals, religious students, dart players, and of course, musicians.
I usually opt for a snug little table for two under [if memory serves] a John Bull Beer sign. My back is tucked against a wall, and I have a good view of the passing street traffic and the jukebox, which is customarily throbbing with anything from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Frank Sinatra. The house music is rife with jigs, reels, and often heavily peppered with bagpipe tunes, should no one wish to spend the exorbitant sum of a dollar for three songs on the juke.
I sidle up to the bar, say my round of hellos to familiar faces, procure an adult beverage, and proceed to lay out a few choice pens and pencils on the table, leaving my black sketchbook unopened at this point. So far so good. Few notice. If it’s a quiet night, no one will notice.
I like the quiet nights.
If it’s a busier night, I take my time fidgeting with the ice in my glass, relaxing — just watching the social dynamics play out. A few people generally notice me in a very fleeting fashion — afterall, I’m a girl sitting alone at a table. I can practically see the thoughts flit across their mind: Is she waiting for someone? Is she a student? Look at all those pens… The eye contact is brief, unconcerned, and frequently not repeated. I become part of the wallpaper to most; until I open the sketchbook and begin working, that is.
Almost imperceptibly the frequency of slightly curious glances increases; people’s eyes linger on me for fractionally longer periods of time as they shuffle past my table on the way to refresh their drinks. Some actually crane their necks to get a better look at what I might be sketching [which is usually just simplified forms, say of the curve of two people being indecisive with the jukebox, for example]. Sometimes I’ve lost myself in what I’m doing; distilling the surreal social environment into line, pondering the fractal patterns that to me are a perfect symbol for the nexus of so many lives in the confined space of this little pub, and revelling in the elegantly simple complexity of it all.
It’s at this point the first brave one of the crowd decides to ask: “Are you an artist?” or “What are you drawing?” And there’s always one. Always. But only if there’s a sufficient threshold density of people in the place — and I have yet to determine what that magic number is precisely, but I’m confident it exists. It’s this unknown number that makes me think of the swirling pedestrian masses of DC, and Joshua Bell’s incognito experiment — if there are enough people, one will stop, if only out of mere curiosity. What if he played there consistently for a week? Would the word spread via the mouths of the Ones Who Stopped?
Perhaps I’ve been watching too many Kung Fu movies lately involving pebbles, still waters, and outward ripples…
But just to twist your noodle a bit further, dear reader, consider this: One night in this same establishment, I was sans artgear; incognito as it were — just another work-weary person enjoying a nightcap, when I found myself in casual conversation with the bartendress [what IS the proper term for a female bartender, anyway?] and another patron.
I was waiting for a refill, when I was introduced to this rather handsome, and soft-spoken fellow; not as an artist, but as a cellist. [For the record, I am by no stretch of the imagination a cellist; I simply muck around with one in a local weekly song circle, and occasionally record bit parts for friends' albums...]. Anyway, I find that I’m face to face with Curt Thompson, a concert violinist, founder and executive director of the Mimir Chamber Music Festival, and all around nice guy.
Brace yourself — this part gets convoluted.
It turns out that Curt knows Stephen Rose [principle second violinist of the Cleveland Orchestra], who happens to be the son of Richard Rose, former cello prof at the university I attended. Mr. Rose, Sr. is the cellist in the Back Porch Band, of which Dr. Bill Bryant [the former coordinator of the visual arts program at my university, and excellent friend] is a member. Dr. Bryant’s daughter, Emily, is a member of the band Gallus. One of the members of Gallus is a part-time bartender at the place where I regularly play cello.
Feel the ripples yet? 
And to bring things full circle, Curt is good friends with Joshua Bell, whom he refers to without pretense as simply ‘Josh’.
The moral of the story? Perhaps we’re all incognito.
Why not open your eyes and find the hidden genius around you?
