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Saratoga Sampler
Pollock displays 25 years of photos at Gallery Saratoga
By Mary Ann Cook
SILVER ANNIVERSARY: Photographer Felicia Pollock will have a special retrospective of her work of the past 25 years at Gallery Saratoga through October. Two artist receptions will be held: on Oct. 6 and 7, 3-5 p.m., at the Big Basin Gallery.
Pollock's works include studies from all over the world--faces and places from the tombs of Egypt and Mad King Ludwig's castle to weathered faces of elderly Chinese. It's a historical overview of her travels and her growth as a photographer. "I wanted to share all these wonderful places," Pollock says.
Felicia and husband Michael are avid travelers, particularly reveling in Elderhostels. They've taken part in 50 of these travel events, they estimate. "There's nothing like travel. Each place has a story to tell," and Felicia has a camera to point to help tell that story. "Half the fun is the people you meet," the octogenarian adds.
The Pollocks have kept in touch with many of the people they've met on their journeys. Early in her photography career, Felicia was told by an instructor that she had a "square eye." In short, she could envision the finished work without resorting to cutting or cropping.
Today her work hangs in special-occasion dressing rooms in nine Nordstroms throughout the country--photographs of Japanese art. Her photos of Hakone graced NEC headquarters and she was commissioned by the city of Saratoga to execute portraits of its mayors, past and present.
So Felicia's silver anniversary finds her photos in public places, private homes.
NEW JOY: Joy Hulme's Christmas book for youngsters has been bought by Sterling and reintroduced with a new, more splendid face, full of warm watercolors to illustrate this countdown to Christmas tale titled Stable in Bethlehem.
Hulme, a Monte Sereno widow, has five children, 24 grandchildren and some 13 great-grandchildren. She turned to writing children's books some years ago when one of her children was terminally ill and she was unable to sleep. For the past 20 years, she's published at the clip of one a year, only missing one year.
At an age when most of us are content to take up residence on the lawn furniture, she has a thriving career--writing kid lit and giving presentations at book stores and schools. After all that mothering, she obviously knew what the peanut-butter set wanted to read.
Success came "when I stopped being a coward," as she puts it. In other words, when she stopped being destroyed by rejection. Just because it doesn't meet the needs of one publishing house doesn't mean it's not a good book, she finally realized.
Besides the reissue, another smash hit for Hulme is a math book called Mary Clare Likes to Share. It's a book about fractions, and Scholastic Magazine just ordered 40,000 copies for its school club, an unprecedented number. That book sold 50,000 copies in its first year of print.
Hulme's approach to children's books she describes as nonfiction in poetry. Her works qualify as supplemental enrichment in math, sciences, language arts and social studies--which sounds like the full educational gamut.
WORLD PREMIERE: The world premiere of Celebration Overture, written by Monte Serenan Lee Actor in honor of Palo Alto Philharmonic Orchestra's 20th season, will be held Oct. 20, 8 p.m., at Cubberley Theater, Palo Alto. Also on the concert agenda is Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the Cantabile Chorale.
Tickets are $20, general; $18, senior; and $10, student, and can be purchased at the door or at www.paphil.org. Actor is artist-in-residence for the PA Philharmonic. His Variations and Fugue for Orchestra was a finalist in the 2007 American Composer Competition of the Columbia Orchestra.
Other highlights this year included the world premiere of Concerto for Horn and Orchestra with the Silicon Valley Symphony. The SVS also performed Actor's Prelude to a Tragedy on the same program. The Peninsula Symphony performed Variations and Fugue at the Fox Theater, Redwood City, and at Flint Center.
The PA Philharmonic presented the world premiere of Symphony No. 2 in February at Cubberley, conducted by the composer. Actor received an ASCAPlus Award for 2006-07, the fourth consecutive year he has been so honored. The award recognizes composers whose works, though outstanding, can't be adequately compensated.
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