It went on and on, flames of it, and then: it was done. I leaned to my partner but couldn’t speak. My hair somehow dislodged and fell in a cloud around me. I picked up my opera glasses and adjusted the knobs.

From Stage Left it came, sweeping across to Center, the source draped in a colorful red and navy outfit, complete with sword and knee-high boots: a uniform, although I couldn’t tell for what. “Aida, Rigoletto, La Traviata” I’d heard countless times, but not this. Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera.” It was a first for me.

I wore my beige sheath and piled my hair high on top of my head. I was sitting in the second balcony of the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. He is a deacon in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, and a professor in the art department at Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, California.The voice fell on me like a firebrand. A consideration of constrained emotion lurking in the mundane reflects his conviction that ordinary objects and everyday events are deeply charged with spiritual reality. He grew up in rural Iowa, and memories of those formative years are often reflected in his work. Two of his new short stories with illustrations were recently published in the following journals: Memorial Day in Curbside Splendor and Chopin with Chardonnay in Crux Literary Journal. In recent exhibitions at Blackfriars Gallery in Berkeley, California and Wiegand Gallery in Belmont, California, he featured monotypes, paintings, mixed media assemblage and crossover works on paper, including writing with imagery. His work has been exhibited, published and collected throughout the United States. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. They are the parents of five grown children. Leon Kortenkamp is a San Francisco Bay Area artist and writer who lives with his wife, Ginny, in Belmont, California.

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