By now, regular visitors to the BOA blog know about next week's "Poetry Is Jazz" event. We've been working for a while on getting BOA poet Sean Thomas Dougherty together with our amazing RPO/Eastman musicians Mark Kellogg, Jim Doser, Chris Assara, and Geoff Saunders. The event was already going to be cool. Then we bumped up the cool factor yet another notch. Local painter Steve Smock is one of our favorite local painters. And it's not just because he's designed some outstanding BOA book covers, including Sean Thomas Dougherty's first BOA book cover, Broken Hallelujahs. In fact, not only did Steve create the cover, but he painted the artwork on the cover - a brilliant, large canvas that's currently hanging in the Artisan Works gallery. Steve has an amazing way of isolating a single figure and distorting their features in a way that fleshes out personality, emotion, and action. His backgrounds generally consist of subtle geometrical layers in earth tones that compliment the figures without overwhelming them. The end result is a feeling that you are peeking into a private, intimate, isolated moment in this character's life. In short, viewing a Steve Smock painting is like reading a short story in paint and canvas.   So we're going to try a little experiment during Poetry Is Jazz! Steve Smock is going to set up his easle in the front window of Rochester Contemporary Art Center and he's going to create a painting while the reading and music are taking place. Steve will create a unique, one-of-a-kind painting based on the event and it will be complete by the end of the night. Then we are going to auction off the painting during BOA's annual Dine & Rhyme event on October 16th. This shall heretofore be known as The Steve Smock Art Experiment. To recap: poetry, jazz, and live painting in one of Rochester's most vibrant art gallerys, deep in the heart of the Rochester International Jazz Festival on East Avenue. Oh yeah, and it's free.  Drum roll please...