Jewels of the East: March 2008

We took Nico all around OKC to see the State Capitol Building, the Bombing Memorial, the Oklahoma Museum of Art. He really liked the exhibit of the "Chihuly Glass, I snapped his picture in front of one of the sculptures, and the "Paris Exhibit". Our friend Cherea went with us and I took this pic of Susan, Nico & Cherea in front of one of the optical illusion painting. We took him to the Oklahoma Symphony on Saturday night, it turned out that the Symphony was playing a selection on South American tunes, that was really just a co-incidence that Nico got to go for that. Susan and I took him back stage after the performance and introduced him to Joel Lavine, the conductor and a lot of our friends that play in the Symphony. After that was over we took him to Chili's for a "White Chocolate Molten" it was a sweet ending for a wonderful day. He really liked all of the places that we took him to eat, he kept commenting on how big the portions of food were.

On Friday night I took him to PC North High School where they were doing the musical "Fiddler on the Roof", Susan was conducting the orchestra, he got to meet some of the students that were supposed to attend his Workshop, and they brought their sketch books, Nico did a drawing in the book and signed it for them...they were so excited to meet him and tell him how much they love his Speed-Painting and how disappointed they were that the Workshop was canceled. He told them hopefully he will be back in the Fall and do the Workshop.

We truly enjoyed his visit. He is so gracious and so so smart and talented. I told him that he will be "Rich and Famous" someday....and he said.."I hope so". He speaks very good English, which was great because Susan and I neither one speak any Spanish.

Even though Nico's presentation was cancelled he still came to OKC and staid a few days with Susan and me before he went on to Long Island, New York. He is such a nice young man. Susan taught him how to play Guitar Hero on the Wii, and he and I talked "art" for hours. He burned me some CDs on my computer of his Movie and the making of the movie...he is now in production of a claymation stop action film for his theses for his degree...he will be graduating in less than a year and is very excited to get finished.