Saturday, April 30, 2022
11:20 AM

In partnership with the Menil Collection for Neighborhood Community Day, the Rothko Chapel presents afternoon drop-in experiences featuring music in the Chapel by violinist Clara Saitkoulov and a book reading and signing of Earth Church by Jim Blackburn at the Suzanne Deal Booth Welcome House. 

11:20-11:50am: Violin performance inside the Chapel by Clara Saitkoulov, DACAMERA Young Artist
12:30pm: Earth Church Reading & Signing at the Welcome House
2-2:30pm: Violin performance inside the Chapel by Clara Saitkoulov, DACAMERA Young Artist

Enjoy an afternoon of free art, music, poetry, and family activities in celebration of our vibrant neighborhood. Participating organizations include: DACAMERA, Houston Center for Photography, Inprint, The Menil Collection, Pride Chorus Houston, Rothko Chapel, Writers in the Schools (WITS), and Watercolor Art Society. More information here.

About Earth Church
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, conservationist and environmental lawyer Jim Blackburn decided to write one poem a day on his blog. One year and 365 poems later, Blackburn’s writings inspired a community to embrace nature through a philosophy of earth-based spirituality. Earth Church features 96 of these poems, each paired with a painting by Isabelle Scurry Chapman.

About the Presenters
French-Russian born violinist Clara Saitkoulov has emerged as one of the most expressive and compelling violinists of her generation. A student of Cho-Liang Lin at Rice University and a DACAMERA Young Artist, Clara has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician in Europe, Russia, Australia and the United States. She has appeared at international festivals and has performed solo in prestigious venues such as the Munich Philharmonic, the Salle Gaveau and Philharmonie in Paris, and Carnegie Hall. Clara is the winner of the KF Wieniawski competition in New York, the Manhattan International Competition, the New York International Artists Association, the Eastern Music Festival Competition, the LMDC Records Competition (France) and the CIMES Competition for best sound recording (Slovenia).

Jim Blackburn is a long-time environmental lawyer and environmental planner who is also a Professor in the Practice of Environmental Law in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Rice University in Houston. His law firm Blackburn and Carter, PC is devoted strictly to environmental matters and his planning firm Sustainable Planning and Design specializes in sustainable development and coastal environmental planning. At Rice, Blackburn is co-director of the Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disaster (SSPEED) Center and a Faculty Scholar at the Baker Institute. He is also researching the future of the plastics industry, focusing on the circular economy, carbon neutral design and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and is a part of the SSPEED Center team developing the Galveston Bay Park Plan and Green Coast non-structural alternatives for surge damage reduction. Blackburn has had two books published by Texas A&M Press – The Book of Texas Bays, 2004 and A Texan Plan for the Texas Coast, 2017. He also co-authored two books of art and poetry about birds with artist Isabelle Scurry Chapman – Birds: A Book of Verse and Vision, 2009 and Hill Country Birds and Waters: Art and Poems, 2018. Blackburn is on the Board of Advisors to Houston Audubon Society and the Rothko Chapel.