Dana Cunningham performs on piano as Blair Folts presents Mongolia Sketchbooks

November may be a time of grayer skies and darkening days, but consider a green landscape surrounded by a cobalt blue sky that stretches 360 degrees where blue Buddhist prayer scarves cover rock cairns and instill feelings at great hope. In the summer at 2006, Blair Folts traveled across Mongolia and recorded in journals and sketchbooks the landscape, images and poetic voices found in that visually and spiritually inspiring setting. On Thursday evening, November l5th 2007 at 7pm in the Effingham Public Library, Dana Cunningham accompanied Blair Folts as she presents the words and images tram her Mongolia journals.

Blair’s work is inspired by the powers at nature and her connection to the earth. She has traveled extensively in remote areas to seemingly inaccessible peaks that make her heart sing and her soul want to wander. Through her art, she hopes to “convey the peacefulness and strength Found in nature.” Blair writes that Art is about passion and trying to capture and convey one moment that you want to share. Her writing is equally visual, passionate, and conveys a sense at peace and strength amid the struggle to find one’s own personal place amongst our rapidly changing Earth.

In her presentation at Writers’ Night, Blair reads poems and shares paintings inspired from a month long trip across Mongolia in 2006. Why Mongolia? Blair explains that intellectually she has always been drawn to China and Mongolia. Her paternal grandparents lived in China From 1922-1949 and she grew up surrounded by “exotic tales.” Spiritually, Blair has also been attracted to Asia from a lite long interest in Buddhism. More recently, an attraction to the nomadic population and their deep connection to living in balance with Nature has inspired her to want to study this culture. “Visually”, she explains, “Mongolia has tugged at my landscape passion. As a painter at open empty space, l have sought a landscape still void of cityscapes and towns. As an environmentalist, l was also excited to find a country where the land is still open tor its people to share—no one is allowed to own land on the Steppe—it is tor everyone.”

Dana Cunningham is an instrumental pianist living and composing in the mountains at New g Hampshire. Her primary interest is in performing her original piano compositions and the poetry of Rumi, Rilke, David Whyte, Mary Oliver and others, in concert and retreat settings. Dana has a degree in Communication From Vanderbilt University where she also studied piano at Blair School at Music. Comments about her music range from “deeply moving” and “soul-treeing” to “transcendent” and “centering.” In the words of the artist, “My intention is toward cultivating a greater sense of the present moment, and inviting the listener to open more Fully to his or her own experience.”