Encore April 2014

April 2014

southwest michigan’s magazine

A Different Way of Knowing Addressing autism with awareness, resources

The artistic lessons of Cindy Van Lieu

Comstock’s Community Learning Center

love where you live. kalamazoo community foundation

I WASN’T GOING TO SIT AROUND

WAITING FOR MY

BACK TO HEAL. SITTING WAS JUST TOO PAINFUL.

The act of lifting a bale of hay was merely the trigger. My doctor said the disc was already herniated. Time would determine if rest and physical therapy would take care of it. Six painful weeks went by. Then twelve. Finally, I’d had enough. I went to Bronson to talk about the one thing that pained me more than the pain itself: surgery. My fears went away when I learned minimally invasive back surgery is not like traditional back surgery. The incision was less than an inch long. Amazingly, I went from flat on my back to back on my feet in less than three hours. For that I’m thankful to my surgeon — and to Bronson, where Positivity is always part of the healing process.

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Bronson Methodist Hospital was named one of America’s 100 Best Hospitals for spine surgery.

April 2014

southwest michigan’s magazine

A Different Way of Knowing Addressing autism with awareness, resources

The artistic lessons of Cindy Van Lieu

Comstock’s Community Learning Center

Publisher

encore publications, inc.

Editor

marie lee

Designer

alexis stubelt

Photographer erik holladay

Copy Editor/Poetry Editor margaret deritter

Contributors

zinta aistars, kit almy, theresa coty o’neil, tiffany fitzgerald, marie lee

Contributing Poets

robert haight, julie stotz-ghosh

Advertising Sales krieg lee celeste statler kurt todas

Office Manager ron dundon

Encore Magazine is published 9 times yearly, September through May. Copyright 2014, Encore Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Editorial, circulation and advertising correspondence should be sent to: www.encorekalamazoo.com 117 W. Cedar St. Suite A Kalamazoo, MI 49007 Telephone: (269) 383-4433 Fax number: (269) 383-9767 E-mail: Publisher@encorekalamazoo.com

Great flavor comes from deep roots.

The staff at Encore welcomes written comment from readers, and articles and poems for submission with no obligation to print or return them.

To learn more about us or to comment, you may visit www.encorekalamazoo.com. Encore subscription rates: one year $27, two years $53, three years $78.

Current single issue and newsstand $4, $10by mail.

Back issues $6, $12 by mail. Advertising rates on request. Closing date for space is 28 days prior to publication date. Final date for print-ready copy is 21 days prior to publication date.

bellsbeer.com 4 | Encore APRIL 2014

© Bell's Brewery, Inc., Comstock, MI

since 1985

April

FEATURES A Different Way of Knowing

Those affected by autism take heart as region’s awareness and resources are building.

All About Community

Comstock Community Center creates learning center to help students and families.

Cindy Van Lieu

This Loy Norrix High School art teacher helps students see the possibilities of art.

24

CONTENTS 2014

DEPARTMENTS 6 Contributors

18

Up Front 8 Goin’ Green — Portage youth group hosts event to 10

30

12

show how easy it can be to go green.

Poetry for All — Kalamazoo Poetry Festival seeks to spotlight area’s thriving poetic community.

Savor

Midwestern Food Movement — The rest of the country is digging in to what locals already know.

Enterprise 14 ‘Everything Piano’ — Pair’s passion is restoring, reselling and promoting pianos.

16

Vivid Business — Fabric and quilt shop Lucy in the Sky thrives by being colorful.

18 Good Works

First-Time Flyers — Young Eagles program gives kids free plane rides to spark interest in flying.

46 The Last Word

You can miss so much if you don’t ‘go to more concerts.’

ARTS

34 Old Wicked Songs

Farmers Alley and The Gilmore collaborate to bring dramatic facet to this year’s keyboard fest.

36 Poetry-Inspired Art

44 poets and artists offer ‘A Sense of Place’ at Portage library.

38 Poetry 39 Events of Note On the cover: Tom Pinto, a 20-year-old with autism, with one of his friends at Lake Village Homestead.

Photo by Erik Holladay.

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CONTRIBUTORS ENCORE

Kit Almy

Zinta Aistars The research she did for her article on the area’s efforts to help those with autism gave Zinta a new perspective. “I was reminded to never judge others from a passing glimpse of their lives. We may, in fact, be witnessing the most incredible and loving parents meeting daily challenges with grace and courage,” she says. A frequent contributor to Encore, Zinta is the creative director of Z Word, LLC, a writing and editing service, the founder and editor-in-chief of the online literary magazine The Smoking Poet.

It’s a good thing Kit Almy is a poet because this month she really delved into that topic, bringing us features on the first Kalamazoo Poetry Festival and the Sense of Place exhibit that pairs poets and artists.

Kit also wrote about the Young Eagles program and the upcoming performance of Old Wicked Songs.

A regular contributor to Encore, Kit is a proud Kalamazoo College alumna who volunteers at the Kalamazoo Nature Center’s DeLano Homestead, teaching pioneer programs.

Tiffany Fitzgerald

Erik Holladay

Tiffany contributes a number of stories for us each month and always finds a surprise in every story she covers. It was the dedication of the teens behind Portage’s Green-A-Thon that caught her attention this month. “It’s easy to take teens for granted, but they are very often the driving force behind great community programs and events, like Green-A-Thon,” she says. In addition to crafting great journalism (her work has also appeared in the Denver alt-weekly Westword), she is also a freelance advertising copy and web content writer.

When it comes to kids, Erik is a magnet. While shooting photos for our feature on the Community Learning Center, crowds of little ones gathered around him asking questions and posing for photos.

He patiently let them all see and touch his equipment and took several selfies of him and the kids. Erik has that effect on adults too — he’s a sought-after wedding photographer because of his ability to catchi those intimate, special moments that a lot of less-trained eyes often overlook. We should all love our jobs so much.

GET

$350

Theresa Coty-O’Neil For more than 20 years, Theresa has written insightful stories and profiles for Encore and this issue is no different. She spotlights Loy Norrix High School art teacher Cindy Van Lieu, who approaches teaching art in an eclectic way. Outside of writing, Theresa is busy keeping up with her three children’s twin passions of music and sports and engaging in activities at her alma maters of Kalamazoo College and Western Michigan University.

Marie Lee As editor of Encore, Marie admits she learns more and more every day about the community she and her husband have called home for 17 years. “I see stories everywhere,” she admits. One of those is the Community Learning Center, which was created by the Comstock Community Center to meet the needs of struggling families and students in its area. She says it’s just one example of something she witnesses almost daily here: “People in this area will just roll up their sleeves and get things done.”

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UP FRONT ENCORE

It’s Easy Going Green

That’s the message of youth group’s Green-A-Thon by

Tiffany Fitzgerald

T

he thought of going green can be intimidating — it’s easy to get wrapped up into thinking large-scale changes are the only way to make a difference.

That’s why empowering Portage citizens to take a role, even if it is a small one, in their community and environment, is the aim of the annual Green-A-Thon on April 26, which is Earth Day. Hosted by the Portage Youth Advisory Committee in cooperation with the Park Board and Environmental Board, the Green-A-Thon features area businesses, restaurants and entertainment and is centered on promoting small changes in everyday life. The event will take place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Celery Flats, 7335 Garden Lane.

“I think a lot of people think they have to trade in whatever car they’re driving for a battery-powered car and get solar panels on their roof,” says Portage Youth Advisory Committee member Kyle Huitt.

“While those are good things to do, there are really easy and practical ways to be green too, like to start recycling or be conscious of how much power you’re using throughout your house — simple stuff like that. There are a lot of small, cheap changes you can make.”

Huitt, 18, is a dual-enrolled student at Portage Northern High School and Kalamazoo Valley Community College and has been a part of the committee since his freshman year. The committee is a group of about 35 youths from eighth to 12th grade.

“The Portage Youth Advisory Committee was started about four or five years ago by the Portage City Council,” Huitt explains. “They wanted to educate youth in the community about local government and give us a way to get involved. They wanted us to address issues

8 | Encore APRIL 2014

The Portage Youth Advisory Committee members that planned last year’s Green-A-Thon are, from left, front row, Eric Alden, Logan Wilson, Audrey Searing, Richard Phillips; back row, Humza Mirza, Abbas Shariff, Nadia Javeed, Kyle Huitt, Matthew Cartier, Mr. Crispy, Zach Stoner, Sarah Perry, Jodi Stoffer, Tori Wilson, Madeline Herringa, Adam Herringa (committee advisor), Lillian Herringa.

like substance abuse and also environmental awareness and also to put on events for teens to enjoy.”

That’s how the Green-A-Thon started, Huitt says. It’s a familyfriendly event that offers kids and teens activities, hands-on learning experiences, games, face-painting and exhibits. There’s something for the adults too, Huitt says.

“There’s always free stuff, which adults usually appreciate. And, of course, there’s always food, which tends to draw adults as well.”

To promote environmental awareness, the businesses at the GreenA-Thon will showcase ideas and do-it-yourself projects to help families conserve energy, become more involved in their ecosystems and take small steps toward eco-friendly living. And like many Earth Day events, the Green-A-Thon will offer free saplings for planting in yards and gardens.

The idea, Huitt says, is that everyone who attends the Green-AThon will leave with ideas and tools to help improve the Portage community.

“I’d love to, someday when I have kids a long, long way down the road, be able to raise them here and say, ‘Look, we have all these amazing trails and these beautiful areas where you can just go to get away from civilization a little bit,’” Huitt says. “The Green-A-Thon is a good way to keep that idea in the minds of Portage’s citizens.”

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up front encore

Poetry for All

Festival seeks to open poetry to a wider community by

Kit Almy

I

t’s no secret that poetry is alive and well in Kalamazoo — an article in the April 2013 issue of Encore extolled the area’s writing community. But organizers of the first Kalamazoo Poetry Festival believe that disparate segments of the community that are interested in poetry could be better connected and that the strong literary culture here deserves national attention.

“Over a period of time, I began to see that there was really a depth of talent here in Kalamazoo that the rest of the community and the world needed to know about,” says George Martin, who came up with the idea for the local poetry fest and is chair of its steering committee. “And it seemed to me that a festival which paid tribute to that but also connected the poets I knew about with those poets we don’t know about, or those groups that don’t necessarily interact, would be a good thing.”

The Kalamazoo Poetry Festival, set for April 4-5, during National Poetry Month, will include poetry readings, workshops and craft talks by local and visiting poets in several locations in the community (see box).

10 | Encore APRIL 2014

Martin, whose wife, Gail, is a poet, is a veteran audience member at local poetry readings. Part of his inspiration for the festival came from reading The Flowering of New England, by Van Wyck Brooks. The book discusses the many writers around Concord, Mass., who influenced American literature in the 19th century. Martin says the author “pointed out that they were part of a broader cultural scene in which it wasn’t just people in the academy who did poetry, loved poetry.

It was people of different trades, and it wasn’t just these writers that we now know pretty well, it was people in all walks of life.”

Even in Kalamazoo, he says, “I think we’ve kind of gotten away from that, and we’ve seen poetry as an activity for a select few people.” The festival is an attempt to open poetry up to the wider community.

Martin consulted with a variety of local organizations that support poetry in one way or another. The steering committee was formed in October 2012 and includes representatives from the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center, Portage District Library, Kalamazoo Public Library, Arcadia Institute

and Kalamazoo College Library. Also on the committee is retired Kalamazoo Public Schools principal Richard Pattison, whose wife, Lynn, is a poet. The Kalamazoo Poetry Festival is sponsored by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, along with other foundations, organizations, corporations and individuals.

Since diverse groups of people already participate in poetry, a big part of the festival’s mission is to bring such groups together, says Martin, who is executive director of the Arcadia Institute, which supports people with disabilities to be fully included in the community.

“The Friday kick-off event is to me a lot of what this is all about,” says Marsha Meyer, head of the festival’s program committee and the adult services librarian and program and events coordinator for the Portage District Library.

Representatives of various organizations, such as the Black Arts & Cultural Center, the Hispanic American Council and Ministry with Poets taking part in the first Kalamazoo Poetry Festival include, from left, Aracelis Girmay, John Rybicki (top), Bonnie Jo Campbell (bottom), Susan Ramsey, Denise Miller (top) and Ilya Kaminsky (bottom).

Community, will read poems at the Kalamazoo Public Library, and there will be an opportunity afterward for organizations, poets and audience members to mingle. “We’re hoping that it will be something that will pull people together,” Meyer says.

Local writers who are giving three concurrent workshops the following morning also will read at the Friday event, giving a preview of what workshop participants can expect.

On Saturday afternoon, two nationally recognized visiting poets will talk about their craft at Kalamazoo College, and that evening they will give a reading at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts. “The two poets that we chose fit in well with our idea of diversity,” Martin says. Aracelis Girmay was born and raised in Southern California, with roots in Puerto Rico and Eritrea. Ilya Kaminsky was born in the former Soviet Union and lost most of his hearing at age 4. He has been writing poetry in English since 1994, a year after his family immigrated to the U.S. Both poets have published award-winning collections and teach writing. “We specifically chose poets who really reach out to different audiences (and are) really interested in poetry and spreading the word,” Meyer says.

“We also wanted people who had exposure around the country to have a chance to see what was happening in Kalamazoo,” adds Martin. Festival organizers hope the visiting poets will give them an outsider’s perspective on the Kalamazoo poetry scene — and be impressed enough to spread the word about it further afield.

Kalamazoo Poetry Festival April 4 5-8 p.m. — Local Author Poetry Reading, Kalamazoo Public Library

April 5 10 a.m.-noon — Workshops (registration required) • Body of the Poem: Performance, Movement and Breath, featuring Danna Ephland and Denise Miller, Fire Historical & Cultural Arts Collaborative • Finding the Power in Poems, featuring John Rybicki, Washington Square Branch Library • Obsessed with Place, featuring Susan Ramsey and Bonnie Jo Campbell, Portage Senior Center 2-3 p.m. — Craft talk by Aracelis Girmay and Ilya Kaminsky, Olmsted Room, Mandelle Hall. Kalamazoo College 7-9 p.m. — Reading by Girmay and Kaminsky, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts All events are free. For more information, visit kalamazoopoetryfestival.com.

Meyer says the organizers hope that through the Poetry Festival “people will realize and have a better appreciation of the talent and the diversity and the power of poetry” and that the festival will spark more poetry events throughout the year.

“Everyone can be a poet,” she says. “It’s a phenomenal way to self-express.”

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SAVOR encore

We’re a Trend!

‘Midwestern food movement’ taking hold across country by

Tiffany Fitzgerald

At the beginning of the year, the Food Network, the Food Channel,

NPR, Whole Foods, Restaurant Hospitality Magazine and newspapers from San Francisco to New York announced the “Midwestern food movement” as one of the top five at-home and in-restaurant culinary trends of the year.

“Midwestern food” is defined by these sources as “earthy” or “hearty” foods — meat, potatoes, root vegetables, farm-fresh and local produce, casseroles, stews, soups and pickled, canned and slowcooked foods and meals. It’s an extension of the already trending “New Nordic” food movement — Scandinavian-influenced cooking techniques and ingredients and the “back to the farm” movement. Both movements work together to emphasize the national pull toward local organic produce and more sustainable cooking and food options that eliminate unnecessary waste or ingredients.

The correlation between the Midwestern trend and what’s already happening in the food industry isn’t lost on local chef Chris Kidd, the chef de cuisine at Rustica, 236 S. Kalamazoo Mall, who points out that, whether in the Midwest or out of it, “back to the farm” is an old trend that keeps picking up steam.

“This is something that’s been going on for the past 40 years,” he says. “The trend is basically citing the Slow Food movement, which started in Berkeley (Calif.), and then saying that it’s moved to the Midwest, even though it’s been here for a long time. A lot of restaurants and chefs in the area have been using local products and keeping everything fresh and small for quite a while now.”

The supposedly new Midwestern food movement is not going to change what Kidd does regularly at Rustica, he says.

“Our food is seasonal, and it changes with what’s available,” Kidd says. “We purposefully change our menu every three months to stay current with the season and what’s growing, and 80 to 90 percent of our products that we use in-house all come from within 50 miles of the restaurant.”

12 | Encore APRIL 2014

John Korycki, head chef at Zazios, 100 W. Michigan Ave., says Zazios has also been focused on using local food options and that while media discussion of a Midwestern food movement highlights an often-overlooked region, it also might boost the “back to the farm” offerings at small grocers “If anything changes with the trend, it might be the variety of local produce and local meats just becomes larger as more of the smaller farms come into the picture,” he says. “Some of the smaller shops and independent grocery stores could continue to showcase produce from local farms because you can’t go to the big supermarket and see a lot of things from local farms — it just doesn’t happen.

For example, our chicken comes from a farm about 45 minutes away, and there’s only one supermarket in town that carries that same chicken.”

Korycki seconds Kidd’s assertion that the notion of a Midwestern food movement doesn’t influence his cooking so much as encompass what he already does.

“What we’ve been doing at Zazios for nearly 10 years is using as much local produce and meats and cheeses throughout the seasons as possible,” he says.

But both chefs say the media attention has one huge upside.

“Any publicity or hype for the Midwest is great because there are some fantastic chefs here,” Kidd says. “A lot of people skip over this area for the coast and so it’s always a plus to be getting more attention.”

Farmers’ markets in Kalamazoo offer a great way to take advantage of the fresh-food movement and to take part in the “Midwestern food movement” at home. Lucy Dilley, program manager at Fair Food Matters’ Can-Do Kitchen, says that there are a lot of local fresh-food options.

“Fair Food Matters operates the Douglass Farmers’ Market, the Can-Do Kitchen and the Growing Matters Garden, which, in

different ways, make local foods available to community members, including students of Woodward Elementary and residents of the North Side neighborhood,” Dilley says.

“However, there are also a lot of options that exist independently of Fair Food Matters.”

Those options include a plethora of farmers’ markets (many allowing use of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Double Up Food Bucks to help with affordability), independent grocers who offer local fresh food, and Community Supported Agricultural programs that help make local farm produce obtainable at a local level.

Dilley says that the local food movement gains momentum as more people become educated about healthful food options and nutrition and that Fair Food Matters works to ensure that local, healthy foods outlast trends and progress into economic and cultural pockets where they aren’t readily available.

“As we’re talking about local foods and the ‘local food movement,’ it’s important for us to challenge the assumption that only white, wealthy people care about eating healthfully,” she says. “The reality is that healthful, local foods are not always easily accessible to lower-income families. There are many complicated reasons for this. This is the work we must engage in and what keeps us all moving forward together.”

Local food, Dilley says, is an important component of making sure communities have fresh eating options available. Her definition of Midwestern, and specifically Michigan, food is a bit different from the Food Network’s.

“I see ‘Michigan food’ as true food — food built around relationships and trust,” she says, “communities built around the commitment to making healthy, green, fair and affordable foods available to every single Michigander.”

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Enterprise ENCORE

‘Everything Piano’

Pair’s passion leads to restoring, reselling and promoting pianos by

Tiffany Fitzgerald

The stages of a typical piano’s life include

birth, tuning, song after song, more tuning, a move or two, more songs, fewer songs, less tuning and, finally, abandonment. Less expectedly, somewhere along the way nearly every piano acquires a collection of weird objects. At least that’s what Jessica French and Bert Ebrite, owners of the Kalamazoo Piano Co., have seen.

“This piano had several socks, a couple of pencils and a wedding ring in it,” says French, placing her hand on a piano in the front of 14 | Encore APRIL 2014

their shop at 248 N. Kalamazoo Mall. “The wedding ring was returned to the owner, of course.”

“We found this in another piano,” says Ebrite, holding a vintage powder-blue toy car.

The possibility of losing random objects in a piano might seem strange to someone who’s never owned one, but French and Ebrite know firsthand the way pianos become a part of a house. They’re bulky, beautiful and hard to move, and objects can get lost in them. Sometimes a piano becomes

Jessica French and Bert Ebrite see themselves as “matchmakers,” restoring and repairing unwanted pianos to help find the instruments new homes.

a permanent fixture like a treadmill no one is using, and that’s when the owners may start looking for new owners.

“We’re like a matchmaker for people and pianos,” says French, who, along with Ebrite, helps relieve piano owners of those unwanted pianos.

“A lot of people want their piano to go to a good home,” Ebrite says. “People have

sentimental attachments to their pianos, so if they know their piano has gone to a house where it is cherished, then they can still find gratification in that. It wasn’t just something they sold off; it was an actual heirloom that they just couldn’t keep anymore. They just wanted someone to love it.”

And pianos have a way of “finding their own homes,” Ebrite says. Often, when he and French get a call to pick up a piano, they’ll soon receive a call from a person looking for an instrument just like it. It’s that serendipity that has helped the Kalamazoo Piano Co. grow so quickly.

The Kalamazoo Piano Co., formed in the fall of 2013, is a catch-all business that provides “everything piano” — lessons, tunings, repairs, moving and restorations for resale. In addition to the services it has been providing since 2013, the company is in the process of finishing its move next door into the former Whole Act Theatre, at 246 N. Kalamazoo Mall. The space is much bigger than its former shop and allows for a workshop, more pianos, private practice rooms, storage and a dance space. French and Ebrite are planning classical open-mic nights, group workshops for young players, and dance nights. (For more information

about upcoming events, visit the Kalamazoo Piano Company page on Facebook.)

Ebrite, 21, and French, 27, met when Ebrite, who has played the piano since he was a kid, was looking for lessons to improve his playing. Ebrite is from Kalamazoo, but French is from Warren. She has been playing piano since she was 4 years old. She moved to Kalamazoo to study in Western Michigan University’s music program.

So far, business has been good for their small company. Even though piano repair and tuning aren’t usually a young person’s game, Ebrite and French say there’s a market for their services, particularly in such a music-centric town as Kalamazoo. There are many musicians who need affordable pianos, they say, and by restoring unwanted pianos, the Kalamazoo Piano Co. is able to offer affordable options.

The company also has a partnership in the works with the Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival to start a piano placement program, matching affordable pianos with piano students, with the help of funding from The Gilmore.

“We’ve been throwing this idea around, and it looks like it’s going to be pretty feasible,” Ebrite says. “(The festival) would really like

to do a project like this because they have a lot of students who, after elementary school, don’t have anything to play at home.”

The Gilmore also funded an opportunity for the Kalamazoo Piano Co. to work with the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts. Ebrite and French hosted a series of workshops for schools March 19-21 during the KIA’s Christopher Payne photography exhibit, Inside Steinway.

During the workshops, the company took apart a piano and put it back together as a hands-on, instructive experience for kids to learn about what makes a piano work.

Both French and Ebrite enjoy connecting with future pianists, through both workshops and lessons, to pass down “the obsession” they share for pianos. They know piano restoration is a dying art, but they also know a piano obsession can strike at any age and in the least expected ways — even starting with the weird little objects inside pianos.

“I used to take my piano apart as a little kid,” French says. “That’s how I started playing with them. I would get a pencil stuck inside, and, as I was practicing, the pencil would click and it would drive me nuts. So if no one was home, I would take the piano apart to get the pencil. It just kind of grew from there.”

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Enterprise ENCORE

Anticipating a Vivid Future

Fabric and quilt shop thrives by being colorful by

Tiffany Fitzgerald

L

ucy in the Sky Quilts and Fabrics opened a storefront at 839 Gull Road three years ago, but not because of the need for a walkin store or even to attract more foot traffic.

“My husband retired in September three years ago, and I bought this house in October,” owner Billie Gunderson says, laughing, as she motions around the shop, stuffed wall to wall with fabrics. “I needed my own space.”

Gunderson began her business in 1987, when she and a friend purchased a wholesale license together to attend a quilt market in Boston, where her friend lives. After they bought the license, Gunderson and her friend started buying fabrics wholesale and selling them. A decade later, Gunderson and her partner decided to form separate businesses to alleviate the stress of co-owning a business from two states. That’s when Lucy in the Sky became its own business. The name of the business is a tribute to the Beatles, whose song “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”

appeared on their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

“I’m a big Beatles fan,” Gunderson says.

“My youngest child was going to be named Lucy, but then I changed my mind. The next thing to be named was this store.”

There’s been only one drawback to the name so far. “A lot of people think my name is Lucy,” Gunderson says. “I go ahead and answer to it.”

The store name isn’t the only tribute to the Beatles. Rita, the shop cat, can be found strolling the floor, looking for a comfy place to rest in the sun, and she’s often joined by the house cat Prudence — Gunderson lives just a few doors down. She named Rita for the meter maid in “Lovely Rita,” a song that was also on the Sgt. Pepper’s album, and the other cat after “Dear Prudence,” on The White Album of 1968.

There’s a certain feel about the store — a brightly painted green and blue turn-of-thecentury home — that is also reminiscent of

the Beatles, who produced colorful album covers and movies. The fabrics Gunderson carries are deep blues, greens and violets and bright reds, oranges and yellows. It’s not your average fabric shop.

“Some people come here and they don’t like anything I have,” Gunderson says. “For instance, I have no brown section. If your taste is like my taste, then you love this place.

And if not, you hate it. I’ve heard people say that every quilt shop has its own personality, and I think they do because the owner picks the fabric.”

So how does a small-scale quilt and fabric shop based solely on the owner’s taste and nestled away in an area without foot traffic survive? Gunderson does a lot of her business on the road, at shows in Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan, and Owner Billie Gunderson (working on a quilt), daughter Willow and Rita the cat all have a hand in managing Lucy in the Sky.

the majority of her business is done online, on Etsy.

Willow Gunderson, Billie’s daughter, helps manage the Etsy account by passing all of the orders to Billie and answering all of the questions and inquiries online.

“When Willow had her son, which was about six years ago, she told me about Etsy and we thought it would be nice if she could make some money and stay at home with her son,” Billie says. “So that’s the motivation behind starting the online shop.”

Billie doesn’t own a computer, and she doesn’t plan to anytime in the future, which is why she relies on Willow to run the Etsy portion of Lucy in the Sky. It’s taken years to build up the business, though. Willow wasn’t able to make enough money off of it to stay at home, as she and Billie had hoped, so she works a full-time job as a housekeeper.

But with Lucy in the Sky notching more than 5,600 sales, 1,800 admirers and 2,200 reviews on Etsy and getting a perfect fivestar rating, that situation could change.

“I think one of the biggest reasons we’re successful on Etsy is that we’re quick,” Willow says. “I try and ship out that day or the next, and I try to get back to any questions as soon as possible. I think that’s our best reviews — how quickly everything goes.”

“That and we have nice fabric,” Billie adds.

“Of course,” Willow says. “That’s in our reviews too.”

The fact that Lucy in the Sky sells supplies influences their place on Etsy too, Willow says. A lot of Etsy members will buy from Lucy in the Sky to make the handmade crafts they sell.

“We sell things that people can’t find locally,” she says. “I think Etsy has a good community, and the website has grown over the years. It’s just a cool site to look at.”

Looking forward, Billie and Willow hope the shop continues to expand online so Willow can spend more time with Lucy in the Sky. “It would be nice,” Willow says. “It’s built more and more in the last six years, so it’s possible.”

To view Lucy in the Sky Quilt and Fabrics on Etsy, visit www.lucyintheskyquilts.etsy.com.

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good works ENCORE

First Flights

Young Eagles program gives kids free airplane rides by

Kit Almy

Volunteer pilot John Amundson, a retired Air Force pilot, prepares his passengers for an airplane ride at last year’s Young Eagles Rally. Amundson has given more than 160 Young Eagle flights.

On

May 3, the south end of the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport will teem with small airplanes taking off and landing again about 20 minutes later, each carrying a young passenger or two who may be taking their first time in their lives.

They will be participating in the Young Eagles Rally, which provides free airplane rides to kids between the ages of 8 and 17 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Air Zoo’s east campus, 3101 E. Milham Road.

The Young Eagles program was created by the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) to celebrate the centennial of the Wright brothers’ famous flight by introducing children to flying. Starting in 1992, the EAA began a quest to fly one million children by 2003. It succeeded, and the volunteer pilots enjoyed it so much they kept going. More 18 | Encore APRIL 2014

than 1.7 million kids worldwide have had this opportunity, with Kalamazoo’s EAA Chapter 221 alone having given more than 6,000 flights.

For the children who participate, it can be a brand new, even once-in-a-lifetime experience. “A lot of kids, they will never ever have an airplane ride in their life, certainly not in a little airplane,” says local Young Eagles coordinator Jim Butcher.

Patty Fleck of Fulton has flown only once in her life, so when her children Haley, 17, and Joe, 11, had the opportunity to fly as Young Eagles last May, she was glad that they not only got to experience flying but also “to see firsthand what it’s all about.”

Before each Young Eagles flight, the pilot explains the parts of the plane and may show a chart of the flight plan. “It was just so

relaxed and so nice,” Fleck says. “I mean, they described everything, they walked us up to the plane, they showed them how the wings shift and everything.”

Haley Fleck was surprised when her pilot allowed her to take the controls of his twoseater plane. “I had to keep it level…. You don’t realize how much is put into that and, like, how much the air affects it,” Haley says.

Her pilot “was really nice about it. He acted like I was doing an OK job!”

After the short flight, the Young Eagle gets a flight log book as well as access codes enabling him or her to take free online classes through EAA, which are the first steps in the process of earning a pilot’s license.

One of the volunteer pilots, Garrett Gokey, originally from Mattawan, took his first Young Eagles flight at age 8 or 9. “It was something different. I’d never really experienced it before, and I really enjoyed it. From then on, that’s what I wanted to do,” he says.

A recent graduate of Western Michigan University’s College of Aviation, Gokey is now a first officer for a freight company in Pontiac and credits EAA members with giving him the support and encouragement to successfully pursue his career. He is passionate about sharing his love of flying with others.

Although he does not have his own plane, he volunteers to fly Young Eagles when he can, borrowing his former flight instructor’s plane.

“When I was young, I didn’t realize how much (the EAA members) were going to help me in my career. Looking back on it, it was completely invaluable,” he says. “That’s why I felt like I needed to go back and give some students rides, because you never know if you’re going to influence someone to do what they love just as a hobby or do what they love as a career.”

“I learned a lot. It actually made me really interested in flying,” Haley Fleck admits. She doesn’t anticipate a career in aviation, but “if

I ever was able to do that as a hobby, I would totally love that.”

While the rally is a great way for children to be introduced to the Young Eagles program, kids can participate at any time during the year. Butcher, who can be contacted through the Kalamazoo EAA (eaa221.org), gives individual flights himself or puts would-be riders in touch with other pilots. In addition, other chapters in the region hold rallies at different times, and International Young Eagles Day is celebrated annually on the second Saturday of June at airfields across the country.

Young Eagles Rally What: Free flights for children ages 8 to 17 provided by members of the Experimental Aircraft Association

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If sending a child up in an “experimental” aircraft gives you pause, rest assured, it’s not what it sounds like. The term merely refers to a class of aircraft that, unlike commercial planes, do not have to be built and maintained using only parts and mechanics approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Most experimental craft are built from kits or blueprints and have to be certified as airworthy by the FAA. “They’re proven designs.

They’ve been tested,” Butcher says.

Since EAA pilots often build their own planes, they have a vested interest in their safety. Similarly, sharing their love of flight is not an entirely selfless act. Butcher hopes Young Eagles will remember the experience fondly as adults and want to support noncommercial aviation. If a local community is debating keeping the local airport open, he would like a former Young Eagle to say, “You know, I had a little airplane ride, and that was kind of cool, and, yeah, we probably ought to keep it.”

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by

Marie Lee

photography by

Comstock Community Center creates learning center to fill need

Preschool instructor Caroline Kerney reads to children in the Community Learning Center’s bilingual room.

20 | Encore APRIL 2014

ERIK HOLLADAY

hen Comstock has a need, its community center responds.

That was the story 44 years ago when Comstock Township residents Bill and Charlotte Courter thought the teenagers in the community needed a place to go and created a center called The Fish. The Fish soon became the Comstock Community Center and a supportive goto place with programs for kids, families and older adults aimed at improving quality of life.

For many years after the center’s formation, Comstock was a thriving community. With a General Motors plant and more than 30 plant growers within its borders, the small township east of Kalamazoo had a strong school system and was a tight-knit, mostly middle-class community. The Community Center thrived as well, expanding its offerings to a mix of community, social and educational programs.

But fortunes changed. After General Motors closed its Comstock plant in 1999 and people left with the jobs, the town noticed a shift in its population. Its residents were aging, and many of the young families that were left were struggling. The poverty rate among residents nearly tripled. The Community Center responded by providing services such as a food pantry, holiday food baskets and other assistance.

“We know that we live in a rural community where resources are limited,” says Mary Gustas, executive director of the Comstock Community Center. “I think as a community center we’re here to provide necessary services that aren’t being met in our area. Our objective is to provide a healthier community, whether that health may be exercise, grief counseling, food pantry, a child-care facility or whatever is needed to adequately meet the needs of the community.”

By 2009, Comstock saw that its most critical need was on the educational front. In the past decade, Comstock Public Schools’ enrollment decreased by 26 percent, a decline that left the district with a higher concentration of low-income students. In 2011, 70 percent of students in CPS’ students qualified for free or reducedprice school lunches based on their family incomes. The change in demographics was accompanied by a significant slide in test scores.

On top of that, the community’s families were facing somewhat of a child-care crisis. “We found that in the past five years, three childcare providers, two of them centers, in Comstock closed,” Gustas says.

“We did a needs assessment and found there was definitely a need for high-quality child care.”

It was also apparent that the community needed early-childhood education programs to prepare children for success in K-12 classes.

And so, again, the Comstock Community Center responded, and the Community Learning Center was born.

The vision for the Community Learning Center was multi-faceted.

It would provide high-quality, curriculum-based care for children 6 weeks old to fifth-graders. It would include a critically needed infant and toddler program, a preschool and support for children in kindergarten through fifth grade.

“We were told it would take two to three years to build the program we needed,” Gustas says, “but we didn’t have two or three years.” w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 21

Then came stimulus dollars.

Thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a federally funded program designed to help kick-start the national economy, the U.S. Department of Agriculture had money to lend and the Community Center’s vision for its learning center fit the criteria.

“I don’t think the USDA knew what to do with us,” Gustas says with a laugh. “We were told there was stimulus money available, and we went after it. We were ready to move and had done our homework on it.”

The USDA provided the Comstock Community Center with a $1.74 million loan to expand its learning program beyond the single preschool classroom at the center’s King Highway building.

The loan was used to purchase and renovate a 12,500-squarefoot building on River Street that formerly housed the Kalamazoo Valley Plant Growers Association. The new learning facility would eventually create more than two dozen part-time and full-time jobs.

“The USDA was very specific that the project had to be shovelready,” says Rayline Manni, who is heading the Comstock Community Center’s capital campaign. “And we were. Nine months later, we had the Community Learning Center up and running.”

It’s hard to imagine the Community Learning Center as anything but what it is now. A building that once housed offices and cubicles is now brightly painted and divided into roomy classrooms. There are rooms for infant care, toddler care, preschool, before- and after-school care, tutoring and summer programs.

In the preschool area, two large murals painted by local artist Conrad Kaufman greet the students, and each space has been planned carefully. The infant and toddler area has a separate playground with a rubberized surface for safety. Walls between classrooms are movable to allow spaces to become bigger or smaller depending on need.

22 | Encore APRIL 2014

There’s a bilingual preschool classroom to help prepare children who are primarily speakers of Spanish for kindergarten in English-speaking schools. “In the fall, the instruction in the bilingual room is 90 percent Spanish and 10 percent English. By May it will be 90 percent English and 10 percent Spanish,” Manni says.

The bilingual preschool was especially important given that the Hispanic-American population is higher on the eastern side of Kalamazoo County, including Comstock Township, according to a 2012 report by Kalamazoo County Health and Community Services. The center worked with the local Hispanic American Council to recruit families whose children would benefit from the bilingual preschool, which has a capacity of 12 students.

The Learning Center is also a Kalamazoo County Ready 4s site. Ready 4s is a program that aims to ensure that every 4-year-old has the opportunity to attend a high-quality prekindergarten program.

“Our objective is to get them when they are 6 weeks old and then we get to support them through age 12,” Gustas says. “If a child can’t read by third grade, the propensity for them to drop out as they get older is much higher. If we can prepare them to enter the K-through-12 system, they will become more successful.”

For struggling students who are already in elementary school, the Learning Center provides an afterschool tutoring program to help bring them up to grade level. The center partners with Comstock Public Schools to identify areas where students could use more support. Consistently, the greatest need has been in reading, and this year the program is working with kindergartners through fifthgraders.

Tutors for the program are volunteers from all over the area. Many are Eaton Corp. or PNC Bank employees, while others are retirees who are comfortable working with kids. Tutors are trained by Learning Center staff to understand different learning styles and work with children. The results have been more than encouraging.

“By the end of last year (May 2013), 92 percent of the students in the program had come up to reading at their grade level,” Manni says. “A third of those were reading above their grade level. That one-on-one work makes an amazing difference.”

“It makes my head spin when I look at the numbers,” Gustas says.

Beyond offering academic and child-care services, the Community Learning Center also has become a resource for at-risk families. Manni says the target market for the center is those “in-between families” – families with working parents who make too much money to qualify for public assistance but not enough to afford quality day care.

“That demographic is prevalent in Comstock,” Manni says, pointing out that the mean household income in Comstock is $45,000 to $47,000 a year, “Many families are working two jobs at minimum wage or just over and need quality child care to do it.

So we are supporting the workforce and local employers by providing high-quality child care in this part of the greater Kalamazoo area.”

The center offers privately funded scholarships to make sure no family is turned away. But part of the center’s success depends on “full-pay” families, those who don’t utilize scholarships or subsidies to pay for their child care. Manni notes that developing the Learning Center’s curriculum and amenities was done with an eye toward attracting families of all economic means.

“The economic diversity among our families is a benefit to all,” she says. “Both parents and children bring their unique experiences to the CLC, and they all learn with and from each other.” There must be something to that theory. While 70 to 75 percent of the families utilizing the Learning (continued on page 43)

Top photo: Infant room teacher Penny Hainer rocks a little girl to sleep. Center photo, from left: Comstock Community Center executive director Mary Gustas and Community Learning Center assistant directors Brooke Matyas and Mary DeHaan amid four-year-olds at play. Bottom photo: Pretend time is one of this preschooler’s favorite activities at the center.

w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 23

A Different Way of Area efforts to aid those with autism gaining ground by

Zinta Aistars

photography by

ERIK HOLLADAY

W

hen Bruce Mills, an English professor at Kalamazoo College, speaks about the experience of having a family member with autism, one of the first words he uses to describe that experience is “isolation.”

In part, that isolation once came from the choices Bruce and his wife made about their family’s social life. It was difficult to take their son, Jacob, into public places — for fear of his sometimes disruptive and socially inappropriate behavior and for fear of being judged.

“I recall going to the movies as a family, with my wife, Mary, and our daughter, Sarah, and our son, Jacob,” Mills says. “We sat in the far corner and brought various supplies along as distractions for Jacob, but at some point he got loud. Someone in front of us turned around and said, ‘If you were good parents, you’d know how to deal with this.’”

Mills sighs, remembering. “I went off on him. I felt hurt. I had begun to hope that we could be out there as a family, but we couldn’t.”

That was a long time ago. Today, Jacob is 21 years old and has earned a certificate of completion for high

24 | Encore APRIL 2014

Knowing

Jacob Mills, who has autism and his parents Mary and Bruce discuss some of the artwork he has created.

w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 25

school. He spends much of his time creating art for greeting cards. He continues to live at home. In the community around him, awareness about autism has risen, but, Mills says, there is room for more compassion and understanding.

According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, “autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a range of complex neurodevelopment disorders, characterized by social impairments, communication difficulties, and restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior. Although ASD varies significantly in character and severity, it occurs in all ethnic and socioeconomic groups and affects every age group. Experts estimate that 1 out of 88 children age 8 will have an ASD. Males are four times more likely to have an ASD than females.” The causes remain under debate, although most experts agree that there is probably a genetic component.

“Having a son with autism has affected my personal and vocational journey,” Mills says. “I consider myself an advocate for those with autism and their families.”

As for that scene at the movie theater, it was only later, after giving it more thought, that Mills realized that he shouldn’t have been so put out by the other moviegoer, he says. “Thinking about it, I realized that moviegoer had a point too. He had every right to expect to enjoy a quiet movie.” But the important lesson to be learned, Mills says, was that no one should make quick and easy assumptions about the behavior of others. A tantrum in the grocery store aisle may not mean bad parenting.

26 | Encore APRIL 2014

at the for intensive treatment assistant coordinator ony n, nth gto n-A rin Joh Car se nt Jes clie , At left h-fives Autism Treatment, hig portunities Inc., Op al nti Great Lakes Center for ide Res of CEO tt Schrum is n-Anthony’s Macaulay, 11. Above, Sco t, Carrington hugs Joh ter with WMU. At righ treatment. cen es the vid es pro rat o ope als n ich wh om Carringto brother, Joel, 8, for wh

Doing his part to help raise awareness about ASD, Mills has served in leadership roles with the Autism Society of Kalamazoo/ Battle Creek and made presentations at national conferences. He also serves as a board member of The Gray Center, a nonprofit organization based in Grandville whose mission is to assist those affected by ASD. Increasing understanding about autism drives Mills in these roles as well as in his academic work at Kalamazoo College and, most recently, as the author of An Archaeology of Yearning.

“An Archaeology of Yearning is not solely about autism, but it is about my relationship with my son,” Mills says. “As my wife and I took turns putting him to bed, I would lie there beside him thinking of stories to tell. …

There is such a beauty there. What a beauty it can be to see things a different way. His is a different way of knowing. I’m not going to say that autism is a gift, but I don’t know that I would eliminate autism. … Some of the behaviors need to be managed, but Jacob has been a gift to us.”

To help others to experience that different way of knowing, Mills teaches a writing course at Kalamazoo College called Crossing Borders: Autism and Other Ways of Knowing, in which he matches first-year students with families affected by autism for 10 weeks.

By putting students deep into the lives of others unlike themselves, he teaches them the difference between reading and writing about a topic like autism and coming to know

it up-close. “I want students to experience what it means to live with someone with special needs and not be fearful of that,” Mills says.

A center for treatment Yet there are families struggling with autism who have challenges that go beyond what Mills addresses. The Great Lakes Center for Autism Treatment and Research opened its doors at 9616 Portage Road in August 2012. The center, managed by Residential Opportunities Inc. (ROI) and Western Michigan University, provides outpatient services but also offers a residential wing to analyze and treat children from ages 6 to 17 with dangerous behavioral problems.

“We looked at the growing need in the community to provide a residential program for children exhibiting aggressive, selfinjurious behavior,” says Scott Schrum, CEO of ROI. “Our focus is on children who are ruining their families, making normal family life impossible. Our planning committee had been looking at this need for five years. We accepted our first resident the day after we opened.”

The autism center helps children with challenging behaviors develop skill sets so that they don’t have to live in institutions, Schrum explains.

“Violence and aggression are not inherent in autism,” says Calvin Gage, assistant director of Residential Services for the center.

“It develops from a lack of communication

skills in children with autism. When you can’t communicate your needs, there’s a lot of frustration. That child wants a glass of water but doesn’t know how to ask for it so ends up hitting people to get attention. Aggression becomes the way to communicate.”

What the center staff does, Schrum says, is work on language development, an area of great challenge for people with autism. “We teach a picture-exchange communication system called PECS. You look at a glass of water in a picture, put it in the child’s hands, the child shows the picture to staff — and a glass of water appears. If you want to play a game, you use a picture of a game to get access to that game.”

The diagnosis of children with autism is increasing by 10 to 17 percent every year, and the average cost to society of someone diagnosed with autism, through age 55, is currently estimated at $3.6 million. These statistics come from the Centers for Disease

Control, Autism Speaks, the National Autism Center and the Autism Alliance of Michigan, and they are shown in the margins of the local autism center’s website as a reminder to all that care for people with autism is unavoidable and on the increase.

“That cost may be even higher today,” Schrum says. “But with early diagnosis and intensive therapy, that cost can be half as much. An investment of $50,000 early on can really pay off.”

Many children are diagnosed with autism around age 2, although a pediatrician may see initial red flags when a child is 18 months old, Gage says. “New research is coming out that we may be able to diagnose autism even earlier, but it is at age 2 that there is typically an explosion of language. But in children with autism that explosion doesn’t happen.

There’s a lack of eye contact, and that may start to show up already in infancy.”

At the Great Lakes Center, among the therapies used to help children with autism is applied behavior analysis. ABA focuses on the principles that explain how learning takes place. Positive reinforcement increases useful behaviors while reducing those that may cause harm or interfere with learning.

“There’s a lot of research backing that,” Gage says. “It’s evidence-based. Depending on the child’s age and diagnosis, we help create an individualized education plan to use at school.”

“There’s a lot to learn for the parents of children with autism,” Schrum adds. “Parents are usually shocked when their child is first diagnosed. Some are embarrassed. Some jump right in to do something about it.

We encourage parents to acknowledge the

diagnosis and begin treatment. We can help.”

Carly Piacentini, the interim assistant director of outpatient services at the center, is available to help children coming in on an outpatient basis. “We use ABA too, and we can help with skill development, helping children learn about self-care, toilet training and, of course, social skills and communication skills.”

The Great Lakes Learning Center, part of the larger autism center, offers 30 hours per week of therapies, behavioral interventions and diagnostic services on site, at the child’s home or at a combination of the two places.

Rehabilitation Works, headquartered on Balch Street in Kalamazoo, also has begun to offer services at the center, providing occupational, physical and speech therapy.

“It’s easier for children with autism to get used to one place,” Piacentini says. “A family can go to our center to get all their services in one place.”

Farm therapy The one exception, perhaps, is friendship with farm animals. That’s where another nonprofit organization, AACORN Farm, steps in. AACORN stands for Autism Agricultural Community Option for Residential Needs, and the group was founded in 2011 by Catherine Pinto, the mother of a now-20year-old son, Tom, with autism, and Cindy Semark, the mother of a 40-year-old son with autism.

“Tom was diagnosed with autism before the age of 2,” Pinto says. “He’s one of the nearly 50 percent of people with autism who never develop functional language skills.

At 17, Tom developed epilepsy or seizure

er, who designed the AACORN eggs with Dr. Elizabeth Farn At left, Tom Pinto washes ism before the age of 2 and aut h wit ed nos to was diag farm program. Now 20, Pin y goat he is holding below. bab the with animals, such as communicates more easily

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disorder, which is common to more than 30 percent of people with autism. Tom lives at home and requires 24-hour supervision.

Despite his challenges, though, he really loves farm animals, and I wanted to develop a residential agricultural program where he could someday live the kind of life that he enjoys. Not everyone wants to live in an urban setting.”

While AACORN is still seeking farmland of its own, the group has partnered with the Tillers International Farm, in Scotts, and with the Lake Village Homestead, east of Kalamazoo. Adults with autism come to the farms to learn to care for the animals, tend gardens and create art projects designed specifically for them. The farm program was designed by Dr. Elizabeth “Liz” Farner, a pediatrician by training and program director for AACORN Farm.

“Liz and I nicknamed Tom the Cow Whisperer because cows are his favorite animal,” Pinto says as Tom sits beside her happily paging through an album of photos of the farm animals at Tillers. Communicating with people can be difficult for people with autism, but communicating with animals seems to be far easier for many, she says.

“Tillers has horses, oxen, donkeys, chickens, goats, sheep and turkeys, and Tom loves all of them,” Pinto says. “AACORN chose to begin doing a vocational farm program to serve adults now as we begin our journey to raise funds and someday own our very own farm.”

“I had worked with people who have disabilities on a farm before,” Farner says, “so I had long had that at the back of my mind, the huge potential of farm therapy. Animals offer an unconditional acceptance to people with autism, and acceptance is hard to find for those like Tom. On the farm, they always fit in.”

“We’ve had pushback from some autism organizations, saying that life on a farm would be too isolating, that people with autism need to live in urban settings,” Pinto says. “But on the farm Tom connects with the animals but also with the people around him.

This is his life choice. When my husband and I are no longer around to care for him, this is the kind of life that would make him happy.”

Pinto, along with the organization’s seven other board members (Pinto is president) has found herself fighting for the existence of AACORN Farm, however. “There are advocates (continued on page 42)

28 | Encore APRIL 2014

“It almost feels like I’m stealing books,” she said.

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c i t s i t r A s n o s s e L nts e d u t ss e h c a e ieu t ies of ar t L n a V Cindy e possibilit th by

A

rt instruction has evolved over the years, and few teachers have witnessed those changes as closely and personally as Loy Norrix High School art teacher Cindy Van Lieu, who has been teaching art since 1971.

Van Lieu, whose own alma mater — Constantine High School — didn’t even offer an art class, though she longed to take one, grew up surrounded by a large family of knitters, crocheters, tatters and seamstresses. “My mother was a Depression-era baby, the youngest of 12. All of her sisters, herself included, were fantastic seamstresses.”

Those traditional skills now fall into the category of fiber arts, but back then they were considered practical crafts, worthy of praise and appreciation but not necessarily of display.

Van Lieu grew up learning at the laps of her relatives and translated her talents into costume and set design for school plays and parades.

When she went away to college at the University of Michigan, her curiosity and love of learning were channeled into science — until she took an Art for Non-Art Majors course offered by the U-M Architecture and Design School, as it was called then. (Art students heading to Michigan now go to the Penny Stamp School of Art and Design.)

“In science, I was taking all the classes offered and not seeing any potential career. I took a career test, and it said research scientist or artist. Research science was what I was in, and that was boring,” Van Lieu says. “I asked my art professor if he thought I would have the ability to succeed in art school, and he responded, ‘Absolutely. Don’t even question it.’”

So her decision was made. “I still use science,” says Van Lieu, who was a ceramics/sculpture major. “I was a good math student, and you see math constantly in art. In graduate school, I studied photography, which is very scientific.”

Her background in science and math also prepared her for the cultural shift in art education’s focus. Nowadays, art class often involves design methods. The elements of design — line, shape, form, value, space, color and texture — are explored using the design principles of balance, contrast, rhythm, unity, pattern, movement and emphasis. Students must apply higher-ordered thinking skills to utilize these art concepts in their work, which is often inspired by 30 | Encore APRIL 2014

Theresa Coty-O’neil

photography by

ERIK HOLLADAY

such far-reaching and out-of-the-box thinkers as British artist and architect Thomas Heatherwick.

“In the old days you would tell someone you were an artist, and they would say, ‘Oh, so you’re a painter.’ Today the focus is on design.

They’re learning to use art in a more commercial way,” Van Lieu says.

Consequently, a new breed of artists is being born, which includes students who are entrepreneurial in their approach to art. They design industrial products, furniture, jewelry and costumes for theater and more. A current student of Van Lieu’s has translated a love of art and aquatic life into a desire to become a designer of aquatic habitat, such as what one would find at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium.

Who knew such a job existed? But artists of today are savvy, and, with instructors like Van Lieu who probe, guide and listen, they see possibilities to channel their unique interests and talents into viable, stimulating careers.

Add the Kalamazoo Promise into the mix and the potential for young artists is exponentially magnified. “I tell my students all the time, ‘You have no excuse not to major in art if you want to do so.’”

Thinking about art

For Van Lieu, who has been at Loy Norrix for 14 years, art and thought are inextricably intertwined, she says, so that when you create a piece of art, you need to know why you created it. “My students can give you a very precise explanation of why they did what they did,” she says. “’Were you looking at light and shadow? What was the reason?’ They can answer these questions in thoughtful, wellconsidered ways.”

“I’m your facilitator,” Van Lieu tells her students. “I can help you figure out what it is you need to get the idea done, but you have to have the idea.”

This method, Van Lieu acknowledges, involves “a lot of conversations, a lot of one-on-one conversations to get inside their heads to find out what’s going on, and then working with them for ways to express themselves.

“They surprise themselves sometimes. They’re shocked at what they come up with when they really consider their thoughts and their lives.”

w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 31

Cindy Van Lieu discusses a drawing with Hope Nicholas, a student in Van Lieu’s Advanced Placement Studio art class at Loy Norrix High School.

This approach is particularly useful to students in Van Lieu’s Advanced Placement Studio Art class, who have to defend their work in order to earn college credit. And it has been an undeniable reason for why so many of Van Lieu’s students, especially those in her AP Studio Art class, win prestigious scholarships and competitions and often go on to major in art and design. Her 2013 class of seniors earned $153,000 in scholarships. Her 2014 class had already earned $45,000 by early December.

Van Lieu’s art classroom is a world onto itself. It’s a visually stimulating environment with shelves filled by looms of various sizes, a yarn room with floor-to-ceiling boxes of every color imaginable, and bookcases filled to capacity with art reference books. It also includes still-life setups, individual workspaces for advanced students, and the regular art supplies necessary to do projects in a variety of media.

And there is always a bustle of activity.

Recently Loy Norrix Principal Rodney Prewitt dropped in to observe Van Lieu’s classroom. A couple of girls were painting. One student was in the back of the room designing costumes. Two others were working on photography. Later he asked Van Lieu to explain to him the day’s lesson.

“There wasn’t one lesson,” Van Lieu says, laughing. “There were 27 different lessons.”

A passion for travel

Lest Van Lieu’s contribution of energy and creativity to Loy Norrix’s art program isn’t enough, she has a complementary passion — travel — that dovetails with her interest in art. Thirteen years ago, during her second year at Loy Norrix, Van Lieu founded the Loy Norrix Travel Club, and it’s been going strong ever since, despite challenging

32 | Encore APRIL 2014

economic times that caused many other programs to abandon their overseas tours. Not only does the club visit places such as the Costa Rican rain forest, Spain, France, Peru and China, but this summer the club will go to Paris, Rome and Athens. In 2015, there is a possibility of the club going to Cuba on an art cultural exchange.

The Travel Club is for everyone, not just art students. Other teachers and even relatives of students can join. One past trip to Great Britain centered on the school’s Advanced Placement British Literature Course. The travel is funded by innovative projects, for both the group and individual students.

Last summer, Van Lieu brought home an unexpected souvenir from the club’s memorable 2013 trip to China. While climbing the Great Wall, her leg fractured. “I was climbing up the steps of the Great Wall. The steps are large, which is a lot for a short person, and I’ll never forget it. The stress on the ligament across the joint cracked the bone. I just bandaged it up and kept going. Upon returning, I had surgery.” She’s on the mend and already planning a trip to Europe this summer to study ancient architecture and foreign language.

“I’m never without a plan,” she says. For the near future, her plan includes teaching at Loy Norrix another year or two and then indulging her love of travel by teaching English in another country, perhaps Central America.

Joys and demands

Teaching, as many have said and Van Lieu agrees, keeps one youthful. “You have to think about your students’ interpretations of the world. I know the new music. I still have the pulse on what the teenagers are doing, some things of which I personally wouldn’t approve of, like twerking. In the ’60s, you would never think to do anything like that. We were more prudish.”

Yet Van Lieu loves interacting with students and loves the environment where she teaches. An urban school like Loy Norrix, she says, offers advantages to all of its students. “You get a broader understanding of people and their issues. My daughter, who’s a lawyer now, went here, and she said it taught her to get along with a lot of types of people.”

Van Lieu says the job keeps her so busy these days that she really values her down time. “There have been so many changes in the educational system in the last couple years. The demands are so immense that I don’t have as much time. I live alone. I talk to 125 people every day. I’m hoarse by the end of the day. I need my down time, time to read a book.”

As for her own art, she doesn’t do as much with ceramics anymore because she has arthritis, but, when she can, she continues to work on her own weaving and photography projects.

“I never stopped doing art. It’s my life,” she says. “And so is teaching, which is why I keep doing it. I learn something every day.

Absolutely.”

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Reading Together 2014

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Meet Novella Carpenter Tuesday, April 15, 7 pm Kalamazoo Central High School Auditorium Open seating. No ticket required.

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arts encore

Old Wicked Songs

Piano music is focal point of two-man play by

Kit almy

T

he Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival is known for the variety of musical genres represented by its concerts and master classes, but local theaters also get in on the act, presenting plays in which piano music is a focal point.

In 2012, as part of the festival, the Kalamazoo Civic Theatre presented Moisés Kaufman’s 33 Variations (inspired by Beethoven’s work of the same name). This year Farmers Alley Theatre is staging Old Wicked Songs, a 1996 Pulitzer Prize-nominated play that features Robert Schumann’s song cycle Dichterliebe. In collaboration with the Gilmore, Old Wicked Songs runs from April 25 through May 11.

The two-man play by Jon Marans tells the story of a 25-yearold American pianist once considered a prodigy who is burned out and has come to Vienna to study with a renowned piano teacher, Professor Schiller, hoping to recapture his passion for music. On arrival, the student, Stephen Hoffman, is disappointed to learn that before the famous pianist will work with him, he must first take singing lessons from the aging Professor Mashkan, in whose studio the play is set.

34 | Encore APRIL 2014

Nicholas Mueller rehearses his lines from Old Wicked Songs with the musical’s director, D. Terry Williams.

The two “lock horns immediately,” says director D. Terry Williams.

“And of course that’s essential in drama, that you have this conflict, but there’s also a tremendous amount of humor in the play.”

Schumann’s Dichterliebe, on which Marans’ play is built, is in turn based on another work — poetry, in this case. The song cycle sets Heinrich Heine’s Lyrisches Intermezzo to music. Each scene ends with a section of Dichterliebe, which means “a poet’s love.” According to Williams, the music is “almost a third character in the play. …

Schumann’s Dichterliebe drives the action. It’s the mechanism for the bonding between the professor and the student.

“The professor chooses this song primarily because it expresses the love of a young man and the love journey he goes on from joy to sadness to melancholy to fear, which the professor believes Stephen needs to experience.”

The play is set in 1986 against the political backdrop of former Nazi Kurt Waldheim’s election to the Austrian presidency. Anti-Semitism

figures in the friction between the naïve but pretentious Stephen and the jaded and lonely Mashkan. Gradually, secrets are revealed, and, through music, the professor and student come to understand and care for each other.

Williams feels very lucky to have the actors he has cast. His first coup was finding not only a veteran for the role of Mashkan, but one with special insight into the playwright’s intentions. Keith Baker, the artistic director at the Bristol Riverside Theatre in Pennsylvania, performed in a production of Old Wicked Songs directed by Marans himself.

“When you go into a production, you’re never really sure of the outcome unless you’ve worked with everybody before. But going into this, I already know. I’ve seen YouTube excerpts of Keith’s other production so that was his audition,” Williams says.

Casting the role of Stephen proved to be much more difficult. Both characters play the piano, not only Schumann’s music, but also excerpts of compositions by Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Beethoven and Bach. This being the Gilmore Festival, Williams wanted both actors to be pianists, but he found that most of the actors who had played Stephen before had used a Disklavier, an acoustic piano that can also be programmed to play itself.

Williams was beginning to despair of finding someone with the right qualifications when former Portage Northern High School

Old Wicked Songs What: A musical about a young Jewish pianist taking singing lessons from an anti-Semitic teacher When: April 25 to May 11 — 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays Where: Farmers Alley Theatre, 221 Farmers Alley Tickets: $29 Fridays and Saturdays; $27 Thursdays and Sundays music director Catherine Walker Adams suggested Nicholas Mueller, a graduate of Portage Northern and the Western Michigan University School of Music who is both an actor and a pianist.

“I (held auditions) for the young actor in New York and Chicago and found him here in Kalamazoo,” Williams says. During Mueller’s audition, “he played beautifully, he took direction beautifully. I couldn’t have asked for a better actor.”

Mueller, 22, is director of WMU’s vocal jazz ensemble Gold Company II, a member of the vocal jazz quartet Four Corners and a freelance pianist. Although he was very involved in theater in high school, the character of Stephen is his first acting role in several years.

Old Wicked Songs is quite different from anything he’s done before, Mueller says. “It’s not a musical, it’s not a song-and-dance type

of thing, but there is some very honest and sophisticated music that’s happening here.”

While Mueller doesn’t have a lot in common with his character, he can still relate to Stephen, he says. Having just spent several years in “musical academia,” he says, “I feel like I’m in a similar place that Stephen is — struggling to find musical integrity and honesty — and that’s really Stephen’s mission, I believe: just to come to terms with himself musically and also as a person.”

As part of the Gilmore Festival’s enrichment programs, WMU will present a Lifelong Learning Class exploring Schumann’s Dichterliebe in two sessions: “A Poet’s Love: Song and Drama,” 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 28 (exploring drama) and 1:30 to 3 p.m. April 30 (exploring the song cycle).

For more information, visit www. farmersalleytheatre.com and www. thegilmore.org.

w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 35

arts encore

Art Inspired by Poems

44 poets and artists offer ‘A Sense of Place’ at Portage library by

Kit Almy

An

exhibit of poetry-inspired art on display at the Portage District Library shows what visual artists can come up with when asked to create a piece based on a poem.

Exhibit curator Elaine Seaman had writers contribute poems based on the theme ”A Sense of Place,” then paired them up with artists charged with creating works inspired by the poems. The resulting exhibit consists of 22 pairs of poems and artworks in various media, including watercolor, oil, photography, fiber, glass, metal, collage and mixed media.

“The artwork and the poem hang side by side so the audience will have the full measure of the two pieces and have a better understanding of both,” says Seaman, former assistant registrar of collections at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts.

The exhibit opened last month and runs through April 30. A reception and poetry reading are scheduled for 2 p.m. April 27 at the library.

The concept of combining poetry and artwork has guided other exhibitions in the area.

Several years ago Seaman organized a group exhibition titled Second Sight—Insight, for which poets wrote poems in response to artwork, or what’s known as “ekphrastic” poetry. She says the show was popular and “the poetry enhanced the art.”

Water Street Gallery, in Douglas, had a similar show last summer, and other recent exhibitions have combined art and poetry created independently of each other. For last year’s The Hours at the Kalamazoo Book Arts Barbara Andreadis’ fiber artwork, Sentinels, was inspired by Maria Catherino’s poem “Sestina for the Desert.” The two, art and poem, are part of the A Sense of Place exhibit at the Portage District Library.

36 | Encore APRIL 2014

Center, 34 artists and writers created works inspired by the medieval tradition known as a Book of Hours.

The current show involves 44 artists and writers. “This idea of group shows is rather popular right now,” Seaman says. “It’s a friendly gesture. It’s a way to connect with the community.”

Seaman worked with Marsha Meyer, adult services librarian and program and events coordinator for the Portage District Library, to plan the Sense of Place exhibit to coincide with the Kalamazoo Poetry Festival, April 4-5.

The two women considered the precedent of ekphrastic poetry and asked, “Why not flip the idea and have artists respond to poems?”

The idea of using “A Sense of Place” as a theme came quickly, according to Seaman, who is herself a poet and a quilt-maker and has a poem in this show. “It seemed like it was a wide enough topic that it would attract a wider group of people, but because everyone has a specific place they would be thinking of, we would have a very intimate view of places too. And they do vary.”

Poets wrote about places near and far, familiar and exotic, natural and urban.

Some places are quite general (the desert,

lakes) while others are very specific (Prague, Norris Road). “Some (poets) took it more as a metaphor,” Seaman says.

Similarly, artists took different approaches in responding to the poems. For her mixedmedia sculpture Shooting Angels, Elizabeth

A Sense of Place: Poetry-Inspired Art What: An exhibit of 22 pairs of poems and artworks When: Through April 30 Where: Portage District Library Reception and poetry reading: 2 p.m. April 27

King studied the images, both literal and metaphoric, in Margaret DeRitter’s poem Mendon, Michigan. “For my own inspiration, when a phrase in the poem caught me for the third or fourth time, I knew it had to be a symbol in the artwork,” King says.

Maryellen Hains says the rural winter scene in Lynn Pattison’s poem Not to speak of

fence posts … is quite different from her own childhood memories of winter in Brooklyn.

Her response, a work of clay titled Winter Landscape, is “more abstract” and “colder” than the poem, in which the imagery “has a sense of place, of human observation and hence almost a warmth.”

“Yet the images have a universal connection,” Hains says. “It is that deep structure that engaged me.”

Hains says finding a personal connection to another work of art, whether it’s a piece of writing or a visual artwork, is essential if you are going to be able to create a work with its own artistic value. “You do not want to do an illustration of it in another medium or to interpret it in a narrow sense and create something that can wind up didactic.”

King says it’s a balancing act to reflect something of a poem while creating her own work of art. “I begin by wanting to respect the author’s intent,” she says, “but eventually I have to let that go and forge my own interpretation.”

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POETRY encore

Dark Morning

Moths on the Screen

lap me up into your starless cat-belly.

Yes, there was the hush of light rain and when the rain ended the sighs of distant birds.

I am dreaming in your nowhere light, wishing on your nothing.

There may have been a whisper of grass beginning to grow again after a month of sun an almost imperceptible exhalation like the light winds that come from a mayfly twitching its wings

Say you will braid my hair.

Feed the glassy pond inside me.

not enough to move the silver pipes of the wind chime or pull a leaf from its stem just a suggestion of breath like the presence of animals that edge at dawn and dusk from the trees to the rim of the cornfields

Two swans, three, and lilies I live among.

Plant a memory.

or those who in our silence visit us though far away or long dead.

Morning light, my mirror.

I am all sky.

— Robert Haight

— Julie Stotz-Ghosh Stotz-Ghosh teaches writing and literature at Kalamazoo Valley Community College.  Her work has appeared in various journals and anthologies, including Poetry Midwest, Quarter After Eight and Sudden Stories: The Mammoth Book of Miniscule Fiction.

Haight is the author of the poetry collections Feeding Wild Birds (Mayapple Press, 2013) and Emergences and Spinner Falls (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2002). He teaches at Kalamazoo Valley Community College and directs the college’s visiting writers series.

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April 6, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU. Free.

PERFORMING ARTS Plays King Stag — A comedic fable blending actors and puppets in which men transform into creatures and vice versa, 8 p.m.

April 3–5, 10–13; 2 p.m. April 6 & 13, Williams Theatre, Western Michigan University. 387-6222.

Boeing Boeing — An American playboy living in Paris juggles three fiancÊes, 7:30 p.m. April 4, 5, 10–12, 18, 19; 2 p.m. April 13, Civic Auditorium, 329 S. Park St. 343-1313.

Irena’s Vow — The Civic’s Senior Class Reader’s Theatre presents the true story of a woman who hides a dozen Jews in the cellar of her Nazi employer’s home, 2 p.m.

April 25 & 27; 7:30 p.m. April 26, Carver Center Studio, 426 S. Park St. 343-1313.

Musicals Between the Devil & the Deep Blue Sea — A musical comedy, 8:30 p.m. April 4, 5, 11, 12, 18, 19, 25, 26, New Vic Theatre, 134 E. Vine St. 381-3328.

Old Wicked Songs — A musical about a young Jewish pianist taking singing lessons from an anti-Semitic teacher, 8 p.m. April 25, 26, May 1–3, 8–10; 2 p.m.

April 27, May 4, 11, Farmers Alley Theatre, 221 Farmers Alley. 343-2727.

Dance Pilobolus — The avant-garde dance company, 7:30 p.m. April 15, Miller Auditorium, WMU. 387-2300.

Through the Red Door — Wellspring/Cori Terry & Dancers’ spring concert, 8 p.m. April 10–12; 2 p.m. April 13, Wellspring Theater, 359 S. Kalamazoo Mall. 387-2300.

Symphony Annual Concerto Concert — WMU’s University Symphony Orchestra, 3 p.m. April 13, Miller Auditorium, WMU. Free.

Real and Imagined Landscapes — Kalamazoo Junior Symphony concert featuring a Grieg piano concerto performed by Alon Goldstein, 4 p.m. April 27, Chenery Auditorium, 714 S. Westnedge Ave. Chamber, Jazz & Bands Guest Artist Recitals — Samuel Wells, composer/trumpeter, 2 p.m.

April 4; Mirror Image Horn Duo, 7:30 p.m. April 8, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU. Free.

Cantus Femina and Collegiate Singers — Two WMU vocal ensembles, 8 p.m. April 5, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU. Free.

University Concert Band — 3 p.m.

April 6, Miller Auditorium, WMU. Free.

Distinguished Alumni Series — Butterfat Trio, 5 p.m.

Imani Winds — This wind ensemble performs Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and more, presented by Fontana Chamber Arts, 8 p.m.

April 12, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU. 382-7774.

What a Wonderful World — The Kalamazoo Concert Band’s spring concert, 7:30 p.m. April 12, Chenery Auditorium, 714 S. Westnedge Ave. Free.

Vocal & Opera Otello — The KSO and Kalamazoo Singers present a semi-staged performance of Verdi’s opera, 8 p.m. April 4, Miller Auditorium, WMU. 349-7759.

Young Vocalists Concert — Winners of the Bach Festival’s annual Young Vocalist Competition perform, 3 p.m. April 12, Light Fine Arts Center, Kalamazoo College.

Free.

Miscellaneous All Ears Theatre — Live radio performances for later airing on WMUK -FM 102.1: Ananse — The Original Spiderman, April 5; The Swiss Family Robinson, April 19; both at 6 p.m. First Baptist Church, 315 W. Michigan Ave. Free.

Gilmore Car Museum Spring Speaker Series — John Lacko, Captured on Camera — Iconic Moments of Racing History, April 6; Tom George and Von

Washington Jr., Presidential Visits to Kalamazoo, April 13; Dave Rockwell, We Were the Ramchargers, April 27. All programs begin at 3 p.m.

Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival — Seventeen days of concerts, recitals, master classes, films and more, April 24 – May 10. www.thegilmore.org/ festival.

VISUAL ARTS Richmond Center for Visual Arts, WMU Trace & Gestures Print Portfolio — Prints by U.S. and international artists exploring how things that may seem insignificant can generate changes, through April 17, Netzorg and Kerr Gallery.

Frostic School of Art Student Exhibition — Annual juried exhibition judged by Lauren Rosati, April 3–17, Monroe-Brown Gallery.

Kalamazoo Institute of Arts Environmental Impact — An exhibit examining pressing environmental issues, through May 4.

Inside Steinway: Photographs by Christopher Payne — This New York photographer documented the process and artistry of Steinway, through May 25.

Cultural Encounters: India, Burma and Tibet — Photographs by Larry K. Snider featuring the people

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and their environments, through July 5.

High School Area Show — A juried exhibition of works by high school artists from across Southwest Michigan, April 12–May 18.

ARTbreak — Free presentations on art-related topics: Susan Badger: Watercolor En Plein Air, April 1; Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037, Part 1, documentary, April 8; Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037, Part 2, April 15; The Passenger Pigeon in Michigan, multimedia presentation, April 22; Hidden Treasures of Indian Art:

■ ■

■

Textiles, documentary, April 29.

Guests may bring a lunch to these noon sessions.

Movie and Snacks — Frozen, 3 p.m.

April 11, Powell Branch.

Portage District Library Combat Veterans Writing Group — A writing workshop for veterans who have been in combat, 6:30 p.m. April 8 & 22, West Lake Room.

LIBRARY & LITERARY EVENTS Kalamazoo Public Library Music at the Library — Great Lakes Acoustic Music Association (GLAMA) Acoustic Slow Jam, 7 p.m. April 2, Central Library.

Great Books Reading and Discussion Group — A discussion of the anthology Great Conversations II, 2 p.m. April 13 & 27, Long Lake Room.

A Celebration of Poetry and Poets — A series of readings by established poets and enthusiasts from local organizations kicks off Kalamazoo Poetry Festival, 5 p.m.

April 4, Central Library. (More on the festival, page 10.)

A Sense of Place: Poetry-Inspired Art — An exhibit of works by pairs of poets and artists, through April 30; reading by poets

participanting in the exhibit, 2 p.m. April 27, Austin and Sugarloaf rooms.

Other Kalamazoo Poetry Festival Reading — Poets Aracelis Gimay and Ilya Kaminsky, 7 p.m. April 5, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, 314 S. Park St. Novella Carpenter — The author of Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, will speak, 7 p.m.

April 15, Kalamazoo Central High School Auditorium, 2432 Drake Road; 1:15 p.m. April 16, Light Fine Arts Building, Kalamazoo College.

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MUSEUM EXHIBITS & EVENTS Kalamazoo Valley Museum How People Make Things — Learn about tools and processes used to make everyday objects, through May 26.

Michigan’s Heritage Barns: An Artist’s Perspective — A photography exhibit showcasing the state’s wide variety of barns, through June 15.

Music at the Museum — Fly Paper, part of Art Hop, 6–8 p.m. April 4, free; Lisa Can’t Sing, 7 p.m. April 11, $5; Neil Jacobs, 7 p.m. April 18, $5; Earth Day Concert by the Earthwork Music Collective, 7 p.m. April 25, $5.

Spring Break Hands-On Happenings — Handson arts and crafts and other activities for kids following the theme “Down on the Farm,” 1–4 p.m. April 7–11.

NATURE Kalamazoo Nature Center Wildflowers After Work — Learn to identify wildflowers while walking in the woods, 5:30 p.m. April 10. Meet at the sundial.

Vibrant Vegetable Gardens — Learn to create and maintain garden spaces, 6 p.m. April 17.

Earth Day Celebration — Free admission with lots of activities for all ages, 9 a.m.–5 p.m.

April 26.

Boomers and Beyond — Edible Landscaping, learn ways to beautify your yard while growing food, for adults over 50, 11 a.m.–1 p.m. April 29.

Garden Education Day — Instructional talks by experts on garden-related topics, 8:30 a.m.–3 p.m. April 26, $40, includes meals. Advance registration required. www.kbs.msu.edu or 269-671-2160.

Audubon Society of Kalamazoo Passenger Pigeons — Joel Greenberg, author of A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger

Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy Warblers and Weeds — Spot yellow-throated warblers while pulling weeds, 9 a.m.–noon April 26, Kesling Nature Preserve. Directions at www.swmlc.org/content/kesling-naturepreserve.

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W.K. Kellogg Biological Station Birds and Coffee Walk — A short hike to search for birds, followed by coffee and discussion, 9-10:30 a.m. April 9, Kellogg Bird Sanctuary, 12685 East C Ave.

Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction, will speak, 7 p.m.

April 28, People’s Church, 1758 N. 10th St.

w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 41

A BENEFIT FOR

Dining Out for Life

Autism (continued from page 28) in our state who are rigid about the fact that farms are institutions and are campaigning against us. They are seeking to write language into state and federal Medicaid rules that specifically define community as an urban setting so in essence that language would not allow AACORN to build homes in a farm setting.”

More REsources

Thursday, April 24, 2014 Dine at any of these restaurants and at least 25% of your bill will help keep your community healthy.

Kalamazoo Alamo Drafthouse Cinema* Bell’s Eccentric Café Bravo! Restaurant & Café Central City Tap House Comensoli’s Italian Bistro & Bar Confections with Convictions Cosmo’s Cucina Epic Bistro Garden Gate Café Kalamazoo Beer Exchange The London Grill Mangia Mangia Mangia Pizza & Pasta Co. Martell’s Metro 411 Club North 11 Oakwood Bistro O’Duffy’s Pub Theo & Stacy’s – Downtown Theo & Stacy’s – Westnedge The Union Cabaret & Grille The Victorian Bakery** Water Street Coffee Joint – Downtown The Wine Loft

Portage Centre Street Tap House Chocolatea Fieldstone Grill Full City Café Jac’s/Cekola’s Pizza LoDo Company Sakura 2 Theo & Stacy’s – Portage Battle Creek Arcadia Brewing Co. Fennville The HamBone Café Paw Paw La Cantina Plainwell Four Roses Café Old Mill Brewpub & Grill Saugatuck Scooters Café & Pizzeria * Special lunch in the lounge; evening screenings of “ Babette’s Feast” and “Julie & Julia” ** 35% donation for pre-orders, 25% on event day

Whatever option a family chooses, the good news is that options are increasing, although some people might argue not nearly fast enough. Pinto argues that the needs of adults with autism are not being addressed as children with autism grow into adults and graduate from the educational services provided for them.

“The problem is that local community mental health systems are funded by taxes and are limited in what funds they have,” Pinto says. “The prospect of an increased need will inundate an already strained system.”

Meanwhile, organizations and support systems for people dealing with autism are growing in number in greater Kalamazoo.

The Kalamazoo Autism Center, which opened in 2008, provides day care for children with autism and other special needs at the Child Development Center, at 110 W. Cork Street. And Kalamazoo gained an important spokesperson in R. Wayne Fuqua, chair of the department of psychology at Western Michigan University, when he was appointed to the Michigan Autism Council by Gov. Rick Snyder in July 2012.

Fuqua represents state universities on the council, which operates within the Michigan Department of Community Health to oversee Michigan’s Autism Spectrum Disorders state plan. That plan provides for comprehensive,

ee Thr

DiningOutForLife.com

lifespan support to individuals with ASD and their families through access to information and resources, coordination of services and implementation of evidence-based practices.

With the council in place, a new law has recently gone into effect requiring insurance companies to pay for ASD diagnoses and treatment for children up to age 18. It does not compel autism coverage by self-funded insurance plans, which are regulated by federal laws, but does establish an incentive program to encourage employers with selffunded insurance plans to adopt autism coverage.

Fuqua and colleague Stephanie Peterson also recently received a $500,000 grant from the Michigan Department of Community Health to expand resources for those dealing with autism by using high-tech methods to help train mental health practitioners, parents and others dealing with ASD. The grant also will allow for the continuation of the Michigan Autism Conference, held for the first time last October in Kalamazoo.

The Kalamazoo/Battle Creek Autism Society, an area nonprofit serving Kalamazoo, Calhoun, Van Buren and Allegan counties, has been around for more than three decades.

The local chapter was founded in 1982 by concerned parents seeking to develop a local support system and offer family events, support group meetings, parents’ nights out and information about resources. The society collaborates with other organizations to provide educational workshops.

While science continues to debate the causes of autism, the community at large continues to work on acknowledging, raising awareness of and supporting families dealing with autism so that no one feels isolated and every individual finds a place to fit in.

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Learning Center (continued from page 23) Center come from the east side of Kalamazoo County, the center does serve families from as far away as Mattawan, Climax and Plainwell.

“It really depends on where people are coming from and going to in their work and home commutes,” Manni says.

Now that the Community Learning Center is a reality, there’s another reality out there: having to pay off the $1.74 million USDA loan that funded the center. For the first time in its history, the Comstock Community Center has engaged in a capital campaign to raise money. The $2 million campaign, which ends in December, has raised $650,000 to date.

“The campaign is mainly for the CLC — $1.74 million is for the Community Learning Center, and $260,000 is for the Comstock Community Center building on King Highway, where adult programs are held and community services are accessed,” Manni says. “That building is now 40 years old, and improvements are needed for the restrooms, kitchen doors and to improve overall accessibility.”

Currently the Comstock Community Center’s operating revenue is a mix of funding from a tax millage, United Way, grants, program fees and fees for contract services it provides. But the Learning Center has added a new dimension — and expense — to the operating budget.

Comstock residents are used to the Community Center’s self-sufficiency, Gustas says, “so the capital campaign is a bit of a new concept for our organization, our board and the community.”

As part of its campaign, the Community Center will host a fundraising dinner and auction from 5 to 8 p.m. April 24 at River Street Flowerland, 1300 River St. Manni says the event is another way to help draw attention to the new Learning Center.

“Our challenge is that for decades the Community Center has been focused on providing services day to day and we haven’t been out in the community telling our story,” Manni says. “We’re finding we need to do a lot of education to inform and develop relationships with those who can help support the campaign and the children, families and older adults we serve.”

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Constance Brown Hearing Centers . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Cornerstone Office Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Christy’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 CTS Telecom, Inc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Dave’s Glass Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

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44 | Encore APRIL 2014

encore The Last word The Last Word (continued from page 46) to put a new reed on that saxophone you haven’t touched in 30 years and form your own garage band? Maybe it’s time for you and your favorite gal/guy to join a dance class. Or take a weekend trip to South Haven and stroll on a moonlit beach.

One of life’s beauties is that each of us can write our own play list. Maybe you mourn the passing of Yehudi Menuhin while your neighbor grieves the loss of James Brown and another is giddy that Jerry Lee Lewis, at 78, still has a “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.” Maybe you know someone who just returned from St. Louis where Chuck Berry, at 87, still hangs out with “Johnny B. Goode” and “Maybellene” at Blueberry Hill nightclub.

Maybe you’re writing a love concerto with the partner you adore. Or maybe you’ve just begun to formulate the tune, humming a few bars of passionate, harmonious melody.

The point is this: Go. Listen. Sing. Play.

Dance. Romance. While you can. While the places you yearn to see are still accessible.

While the players and performers and partners you love are still available.

And this message isn’t just for us in the socalled Golden Years with our silver slippers at the YMCA. Life is impermanent for the young too. Jackson was 50 when he died. Presley was 42. Lennon was 40. Promising athletes experience career-ending injuries in college.

Kids are diagnosed with life-changing illnesses every day. It happens.

The rock star concerts won’t last forever— except as binary code. Endangered species could disappear tomorrow—except in encyclopedia. A loved one will depart someday—guaranteed—remaining present only in memories triggered by album snapshots. And recordings, write-ups and snapshots are not the same. Not the same as being with our living, breathing beloved.

So where do you desire to go? What do you absolutely, positively, without-a-doubt long to experience? To whom do you want to say, “I love you,” and, “Won’t you please travel with me?”

The pop term for your answer is called a “bucket list”—what we wanna do before we kick the bucket. I don’t like that term.

What about calling it our “concert list?” Our individual Top Ten gotta do while we’re still alive and kickin’ up our heels list?

Well, let’s see. I was in Australia over Christmas, then New Orleans for Mardi Gras and my birthday. I’ve got plans to be with friends and family. This summer, I’m going to write a book in Alaska. And, well, that’s enough … except the Jersey Boys are calling too.

What about you?

Robert M. Weir is a writer, book editor, author’s coach and speaker who has been contributing articles to Encore since 1996. You can read Robert Weir’s travel blogs on his website: www.robertmweir.com.

Have The Last Word Have a story to tell?

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THE last word encore

See More Concerts by

Robert M. Weir

“We

regret to inform you that, due to her doctor’s recommendation, Aretha Franklin has withdrawn from her scheduled performance.” Thus began the announcement from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra that one of my all-time favorite Motown artists wouldn’t be singing at a concert for which I and a friend held tickets.

Not being able to hear the Queen of Soul got me thinking about the music icons of my youth, many of whom are no longer on stage. Or alive. Elvis and Michael, the King and the King of Pop, are dead. John Lennon was killed and The Beatles long disbanded.

Some of the original Temptations, Four Tops and Marvelettes are deceased.

Diana Ross no longer sings with The Supremes.

The Rolling Stones still tour—in their 70s; yeah, really, but it’s hard to imagine how much energy they can put into “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”

At 88, B.B. King, who often bent blues riffs on his guitar, Lucille, at the Kalamazoo State Theatre, mostly sings these days rather than play because diabetes has affected his fingers. And so it goes. And so they go.

And so I set an intention: To see more concerts. While the few remaining stars of my youth are still performing. And to include younger entertainers

46 | Encore APRIL 2014

I like. Fortunately, these are still quite numerous.

Kinetic Affect, slam poets here in Kalamazoo, come to mind. So do the Kalamazoo Ringers bell choir. The Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra is an ever-evolving entity. The musicians at the Kalamazoo Blues Fest and The 411 Club’s Thursday night jam put out terrific tunes.

Thoughts expand to other arenas and the concept of “see more concerts” takes on metaphorical proportions. The Israeli Holy Land and the Egyptian pyramids were prime tourist destinations until political unrest made those countries unsafe. The lush Yangtze River Valley in China is now covered by backwaters of the Three Gorges Dam. Earthquakes and tsunamis have wiped out alpine and beach resorts without warning.

Current events remind us to visit our wish list places—before they become bloodied by strife, deluged by development or marred by natural disasters. Travelogue speakers tell us to go an African photo safari while animals still roam free.

Friends encourage us to walk the Great Wall or The Way of St. James or the road to Mecca. To ride the Trans-Siberian Railroad or the Marrakesh Express or the Agawa Canyon Train.

Maybe your “concert” is a Hall of Fame.

Or baseball’s spring training. Or that mission in Ethiopia or India or Guatemala to which you’ve been making donations for the last 20 years.

Perhaps you don’t need to go that far. Only to watch your granddaughter play tennis at West Hills, your grandson play soccer at River Oaks Park, or the Kalamazoo Growlers at Homer Stryker Field, Is there a certain libretto you’ve been intending to borrow from your local library? A particular musical that’s coming to Miller Auditorium or being presented by the Civic Theatre?

A comedian at Farmers Alley?

Do you have an ailing friend you’ve been intending to visit? Or a particular fence in a relationship to mend—or tear down the fence and mend the relationship?

Do the “concerts” in your life involve an aria or a soliloquy that only you can perform—like painting a secluded vista or meditatively forming clay on a potter’s wheel at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts? Or is it time (continued on page 45)

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Keep your options open.

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