It came at the end of the first item on her program, Mendelssohn's "Fantasy on 'The Last Rose of Summer,'" an unfamiliar work based on a very familiar tune that ends quietly with slow spaces between the final notes.
Never heard it before? Apparently neither had any of the 100 or more people on hand, which included several of the most accomplished pianists in town.
Exactly one person clapped, and that person clapped exactly once then stopped, apparently thinking he or she was out of order. Meanwhile, the rest of us were too tardy to realize that the piece was over until Fukasawa went ahead and started the next piece. The event sounded like this:
Second to last note. Silence. Last note. Silence. CLAP! Silence. First note of the next piece.
Which was Liszt's paraphrase of a theme from Beethoven's song cycle, "An die ferne Geliebte," a generally more entertaining composition that concluded in such a way as to have the crowd applauding heartily in the normal fashion.
The full review is posted at adn.com/artsnob.
The next event in the Recital Hall takes place 4 p.m. today when Alaska Pro Musica -- violinist Walter Olivares, pianist Timothy Smith and clarinetist Mark Wolbers -- present a recital of works by, among others, Franz Liszt. If you feel like applauding, follow your instincts. The experts aren't always right.
Looks better in daylight
I liked "Translations," Sandy Gillespie's solo show at the Anchorage Museum, a lot more the second time around. My initial viewing came at the First Friday opening on Nov. 6. But "viewing" isn't the right term; the best I could hope for in the crowd was a glimpse or close up inspection.
The exhibit presents three groups of work by the Fairbanks area artist, large oil paintings, small encaustics and stark, pale collages/mixed media pieces. Initially I found the latter to be the most interesting, the oil abstracts repetitive and the encaustics "perfunctory and uninspired." (See "First Friday Rambles" at adn.com/artsnob.)
A daytime visit last week, when I was just about alone in the galleries, caused me to flip some of those opinions.
The oils, which Gillespie has named the "trans" series, consist of thickly placed squiggles -- cusp and hook forms, mostly -- in which a different color dominates in each painting. That's the main difference one notes at first: Similar patterns copied in pink, green, red. Only one, "The Blank Page," has a stark color contrast, a blaze of red running horizontally through the mostly yellow field. But without the throng, you can take it in from a distance. From that vantage another color and shape begins to emerge, a field of brown sweeping down from the upper left corner to fill in the bottom.
Re-viewing the others, one discovers borders and shapes -- perhaps the silhouette of a bird in "Housekeeping" -- within the deceptively monochromatic canvases.
I was particularly struck by "Death Comes for the Archbishop." (After Willa Cather's novel; each painting and the mixed media work are titled after a work of literature, with the authors, all women, identified in parentheses.)
This study in blues looks much like the others, but its "hidden" feature, which pops out when you view it from the opposite wall, might be a cross, a human in a coffin with it's head toward the upper right, or a body under the ice, with the legs spread and the head facing the other direction.
"Death," especially, reminded me of the last Mark Rothko paintings, where suggestions of imagery, the sense of someone or something trapped on the other side of the paint, present themselves only after a period of calm looking.
It's possible that the time I saw them made a difference too; though there are no direct windows in the gallery, ambient daylight from around the corner could still be noted and probably drew out some of subtlties.
In comparison, the collages, several of which incorporated mostly illegible words, now seemed less remarkable. I still admired the meticulous technique by which they were assembled, but they lacked the palpable magic of the oils.
One might still perceive the shadow of shadows within them, however, notably in "When We Dead Awake," in which spikes (nails?) through a mesh create a separate form within the construction.
My original impression of the encaustics remains. The show will be on display through Dec. 31.
Crafts weekend coming up
Speaking of the museum, there'll be free admission on Friday and Saturday, as well as next Sunday, for the Crafts Weekend and ReadAlaska Book Fair, with selected beaders, jewelers, weavers, potters, authors and so forth selling their goods.
A portion of the sales helps fund museum programs and exhibitions.
It's a good opportunity to check out Gillespie's work and also to see the Earth, Fire and Fibre show, on display at the very tip top of the new building, before it closes on Dec. 6.
Storied artists
One of the winners in the Earth, Fire and Fibre show was Wendy Smith-Wood. I found some of her exquisite silk pieces, which can properly be called wearable art, at 2 Friends, 341 East Benson Blvd.
The gallery also has newly received work by important Alaskan artists increasingly considered to have been masters -- Claire Fejes and Alex Combs, for example -- that I had not seen before.
Each one seems to come with a story. So even if you're not in the market for something, it's worth stopping in and asking a question about something that strikes your fancy.
Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332.
Important warning about e-mails purporting to be from the adn.com staff.