Staff & Palette | “BECOMING: LESSONS FROM SPRING

19 Jun “BECOMING: LESSONS FROM SPRING – OFFICIAL VIDEO RELEASE 2025

Posted at 18:39h in Blog by staffandpalette 0 Comments

“BECOMING: LESSONS FROM SPRING” – OFFICIAL VIDEO RELEASE

SATURDAY, JUNE 21, 2025, 7 PM CT

Original Oil Paintings, Accompanying Poetry, Classical Vocal Performance

Featuring Artist in Paint, Poetry, and Voice: Rina Lucas – staffandpalette.com

With Virtual Piano by Composer: Arshak Sirunyan – www.arshaksirunyan.com

Saturday, June 21, 2025: 7 pm CT

Filmed at: Artsy Heart – theartsyheart.com

Photography and Videography by –Kathleen Hinkel

Staff & Palette is so excited to announce that the Official World Premiere Video Release of “BECOMING: LESSONS FROM SPRING” will take place this Saturday, June 21st, 2025 at 7 pm CT.

As Spring saunters into Summer at the Solstice, it is my hope that she will impact us with the strength of her softness, encouraging us to walk gently on this good earth as a reminder of who we are and also as a form of resistance to any arc that would be harsh in its effort to bend away from what is just and true.

I dedicate this multimedia program to the memory of my dear Grandmother, Myrtle Ida Basham Boone, whose essence I sought to emulate during my youth and as I shared this performance, and to our beloved Eli who became part of our family on the Summer Solstice of 2017 bringing us light and laughter for the past seven years prior to his recent passing.

Many thanks to Renee Edmondson and her son Matt of Artsy Heart for graciously hosting this live event, to Kathleen Hinkel for so masterfully capturing it, to Arshak Sirunyan for his brilliant virtual piano accompaniment, to my husband Dr. John Lucas for running sound as well as a variety of logistical tasks, and to all of you for faithfully following my artistic journey. There are many ways to support the work of an artist. Sharing this premiere and watching it with us as it is released is an important and encouraging act of kindness to those who created it. To make your experience more meaningful, below you will find the program, detailed program notes with transcription, insider information, and photos from the performance and exhibit. Hope to see you this Saturday as we watch the Premiere of “Becoming: Lessons From Spring” together! – Rina Lucas, Staff & Palette

Staff & Palette was delighted to bring an original multimedia show “Becoming: Lessons From Spring” featuring the paint, poetry, and voice of Rina Lucas to ARTSY HEART, an innovative, eclectic gallery shop in upscale Glen Town Center just outside Chicago in Glenview, Illinois for their First Friday 2025 event line up. Filmed the evening of May 2nd, 2025, patrons were treated to an elegant wine and cheese reception hosted by the gallery owners while chatting with the artist before and after her live performance. Rina’s own paintings, spoken word poetry, and classical voice engaged the audience and sought to tell a story with seasonal metaphors for life transitions.

Program:

Welcome/Artist Introduction: Renee Edmondson, Owner of Artsy Heart

“Becoming: Lessons From Spring” Multimedia Performance by Rina Lucas

Prelude:

“Alleluia” from Exultate, Jubilate, K. 165 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)

Prologue:

The Velveteen Rabbit (Excerpt) Margery Williams Bianco (1881 – 1944)

Act I: Blossom – The Strength of Softness

“Wild Iris in bloom on the Palmetto Trail” Painting and Poem by Rina Lucas

“Die Lotosblume” Robert Schumann (1810 -1856)

Act II: Metamorphosis – The Synergy with Stillness

“Becoming” Painting and Poem by Rina Lucas

“Simple Song #3” from YOUTH David Lang (1957)

Act III: Flight – The Songs that Soar

“Swallowtail in flight atop Mt. Elbert” Painting and Poem by Rina Lucas

“Love Went A-Riding” Frank Bridge (1879 -1941)

Artist Statement

“At each stage of life we continue to evolve into the person we are meant to be, the best version of our authentic selves. I’ve learned in Spring to find my strength in softness and stillness, as do the blossoms and butterflies. Their wisdom endures through the plenty of Summer and the want of Winter. As Autumn’s splendor provides reason to reflect where we have come thus far, so the soaring song of Spring’s renewal reminds us of where we want to go. Spring shows us who we are becoming as new blooms burst forth.” – Rina Lucas, Staff & Palette

Artist Bio

Soprano Rina Lucas is known for her powerful instrument, effortless range, and musical versatility. Comfortable in multiple genres, she has performed as a soloist with the Charleston Symphony, with the Lowcountry Voices, during the televised Spotlight Awards, in her own multimedia Piccolo Spoleto productions in SC alongside pianist and composer Arshak Sirunyan, and in her original virtual and live shows at The Moss Center and the Floyd Center for the Arts in VA. In addition to her accomplishments as a vocalist, Rina is also a gifted poet and visual artist working in oils. All of her paintings, rich and diverse in subject and style, are accompanied by poetry and signed in Hebrew as a nod to her roots. She has been featured in numerous juried exhibitions along the East Coast and beyond. Her interdisciplinary work has also been recognized by Artistonish Magazine, Classical Singer Music Magazine, Medici International Music Competition, Music International Grand Prix, National Association of Teachers of Singing, and TERAVARNA. With a Bachelor of Science from James Madison University and a Master of Physical Therapy from Gannon University, Rina’s path to performance has been nontraditional, having turned to the arts full time in 2012 after a career as a Physical Therapist. Since that time, she has developed her talents with several excellent mentors including: Professors of Voice – Sandra Barnhardt, Patricia Clevenger, Dr. Jill Terhaar Lewis, and Ariana Wyatt, Artists – Michael Farrar, Z.L. Feng, Jonathan Green, and Terry Lyon, as well as the former Poet Laureate of Charleston, SC, Marcus Amaker. She owns Staff & Palette, her studio for paint, poetry, and voice in the Greater Chicago area where she has recently relocated with her husband John and their beloved pups, Ariel and Eli.

“BECOMING: LESSONS FROM SPRING” – OFFICIAL PROGRAM NOTES

Artist Introduction: Renee Edmondson

Prelude:

“Alleluia” from Exsultate, jubilate – Amadeus Mozart

Prologue:

GREETINGS EVERYONE!

I wanted to open tonight’s program with a joyful song that would usher in the essence of Spring and literally exult in the lessons that she has to teach us with all of her hues and fragrances and feelings. Spring is not just about the time of year we find ourselves on the calendar. For me personally, it’s a season to celebrate that we never stop becoming who we are meant to be. The renewal process is ongoing. We keep evolving and growing and changing…There is a wonderful quote from “The Velveteen Rabbit” that will help illustrate what I mean:

With this program, “Becoming: Lessons from Spring”, using my paintings, poetry, and voice, I want to look at three stages of my own journey, still in process, to becoming…

Act I: Blossom – The Strength of Softness

We begin by celebrating the seemingly fragile blossom…but when I think of the life force found in flowers…it becomes clear how powerful they actually are…to stimulate the senses…to offer hope and nourishment to body and soul…to literally sustain the planet…but their immense, authentic action is spoken softly…and if we let them…they become our gentle and generous teachers…

Wild Iris in bloom on the Palmetto Trail

Painting and Poem by Rina Lucas

What persistence and strength

Such energy and courage

Ah the exquisite vulnerability and faith

It takes

To bloom.

Die Lotosblume

Robert Schumann

Regarded among the greatest composers of the Romantic era, Schumann, born in the Rhine Province of Prussia, set to music in 1840 a poem written by Heinrich Heine, of German-Jewish heritage. He speaks of the blooming lotus flower, who hides from the sun, and only reveals herself to her lover, the moon, at night. There is wisdom and bravery in waiting for the right time to offer one’s most fragrant bloom.

(trans. Arthur Westbrook)

The Lotus flower doth languish under the sun’s fierce light;

With drooping head she waits, She dreamily waits for the night.

The moon is her true lover, He wakes her with fond embrace;

For him she gladly unveils her sweet and flower like face.

She blooms and glows and brightens, and mutely gazes above;

She weeps and exhales and trembles with love and the sorrows of love,

With love and the sorrows of love.

Act II: Metamorphosis – The Synergy with Stillness

This flexibility, strength that is also soft, takes a long time to form, therefore patience in the process…some seasons spent sitting in stillness…is part of it. For blossoms, butterflies, and people alike, perhaps some of our greatest transformations begin while waiting for them to happen…

“Becoming” – Painting and Poem by Rina Lucas

Simple Song #3 from YOUTH

David Lang

This deceptively difficult modern classical piece, fictionally performed for Queen Elizabeth at the completion of Paolo Sorrentino’s 2015 Film YOUTH by soprano Sumi Jo accompanied by violinist Viktoria Mullova, the BBC Concert Orchestra, and the Berlin Radio Choir, was written by American composer David Lang and nominated for multiple awards. In the film it is the culmination of the life’s work of a retired composer/conductor whose wife, once a celebrated soprano but now ill with dementia, was his muse and always the soloist for his masterpieces until she was no longer able to physically sing. Though he is reluctant to have any other soprano sing in her place, somehow the ongoing performance of this piece written especially for her frees his heart from grief and allows the song of her spirit to continue to soar.

I feel complete

I lose all control

I respond

I feel chills

I break

I know on those lonely nights

I know everything

I lose all control

I get a chill

I know on those lonely nights

I die

I hear all that is left to be heard

I wish you would never stop

I’ve got a feeling

I’ll be right there

I’ll never forget you

I will leave lessons behind

I feel complete

I’ve got a feeling

I wish your body like rain

I’ll be there

I lose all control

When you whisper my name…

Act III: Flight – The Songs that Soar

I have been on a healing journey with my art for some time now…and I am finding…as I become…allowing my strength to be soft…to be still…with practice it sets the stage for my song to soar…But I am still recovering…like most of us…from a lifetime of learning painful lessons…at times folded within myself, not in control, and wondering if I was ever even meant to fly…and when standing on stage…its tempting to try to hide the fact that…I don’t have everything together…maybe none of us do? Yet…as I wait…embracing authenticity…vulnerability…patience…even in the struggle…all these things begin to take shape in my voice…in my presence…its not perfection…even when I wish it would be…its just real…or at least that’s what I’m going for…and though sometimes society tries to convince us that these raw things about us…are somehow unseemly…remember the Velveteen Rabbit…when we have the courage to become…the very things we think may be ugly about ourselves…are actually beautiful…they help us to find our wings…

“Swallowtail in flight atop Mt. Elbert” – Painting and Poem by Rina Lucas

Love Went A-Riding

Frank Bridge

Frank Bridge was an English composer, violinist, and conductor who had strong pacifist convictions after having been deeply disturbed by the First World War. He seemed to find solace in creating compositions that would evoke spiritual and pastoral imagery such as this powerful selection where winter melts into spring as Providence rides through the countryside bringing new life. But in this piece composed in May 1914, the Divine asks us to have courage and faith to bloom, even when He seemingly departs for a time. (Text by Mary Coleridge)

Love went a riding

Love went a riding over the earth

On Pegasus he rode

The flowers before him sprang to birth

And the frozen rivers flowed

Then all the youths and the maidens cried

“Stay here with us, stay here with us King of kings!”

But Love said “No! For the horse I ride, for the horse I ride has wings!”

Love went a riding

Love went a riding over the earth

On Pegasus

He rode!

There is power that elevates in a gentle action…I want to leave you with an example that I hope will tie together everything that we’ve touched on in the program…something I saw my Grandmother do repeatedly in my youth…whenever she would find little insects inside where they shouldn’t be…small and helpless…often misunderstood yet innocent…rather than using her size…or her fear…to conveniently crush them…She instead chose to carefully take them outside…helping them on their journey as they took flight from her tender hands…there is dignity here…there is grace…there is love…These are the things I want informing my might. Strength like my Grandmother had. So with Spring as my guide, surrounded by her images of brave blooms and delicate winged things…I will keep choosing to express my strength in softness…in stillness…trusting this awakening to authenticity…this pure patience…will produce the wings I am waiting for…and while waiting, it just may be that I find those wings are already in forward flight…

I hope you enjoyed this evening’s artistic journey through Spring. I want to take a moment to thank our gracious hosts, Renee and Matt Edmondson of Artsy Heart, whose time, efforts, and resources have made tonight’s event possible. They are simply amazing people who do so much for local artists on a regular basis. Would you join me in showing appreciation for all they do? I would love to meet each of you if I have not already and answer any questions you might have about my work. There are original oil paintings, prints, and CD’s available for purchase if you are interested in taking home a piece of what you experienced this evening. The CD’s feature my voice, both classical and jazz/blues, along with the accompaniment of brilliant composer and pianist, Arshak Sirunyan, whom you heard virtually tonight during this show. Again I thank you for being here with us. I know there are a lot of places to be on a Friday night in Chicagoland, and I am so honored and grateful that you spent it here at Artsy Heart with me.