What I Love About Coming to Work

Actually, it's a lot of different things. This morning, it was getting to talk with Tamara, our business manager, before anyone else had arrived.  Then, it was hearing the syncopated rhythms of Tina and Jacob's feet (our choreographer and dance captain for Chicago) as they worked through a new bit. And then it was having lunch with Waylon, one of my dearest friends, who I met when he wandered in to volunteer.

Junior Prom by Mary Charles Griffin. Oil on canvas. 6 panels. 108 x 96

But the first thing that struck me this morning, this beautiful, sunny, non-February-in-the-mountains morning, was the artwork that's currently hanging in our lobby.

Excuse my photo, because it doesn't do justice to the incredible blast of vividity that is this painting. The painting is 9 feet tall and 8 feet wide - 72 square feet of pulsating color (and, incidentally, the approximate size of my 2 bathrooms put together).

The artist is Mary Charles Griffin, called "Charlie" by most everyone who knows her.  Her studio is based in the River Arts District, and I am profoundly grateful to have a job where I am greeted by 10 of her gorgeous paintings. This show will be up through the end of March. And then I will be lucky enough to be greeted by a new show featuring the work of a local painter, or photographer, or jewelry maker.  Who knows?

Sara LeDonne does.  A long-time volunteer at ACT, she curates the Lobby Gallery (she also builds and paints sets, designs and decorates for fundraising events, creates frames and shadowboxes for displaying theatre memories, runs light boards and sound boards, and gives out kooky socks for Christmas).  She is dedicated to featuring the work of Asheville-based artists, sharing and showcasing their work with patrons who buy tickets at our Box Office, with parents dropping their children off for after-school classes, with casts who rehearse in the lobby while the stage is being painted.

She shares this work with me. And I am thankful!