Soaking It Up

Meet Ruth Armitage

Witchy Good

Tis the season…

No, definitely not that season! I don’t know which is worse, commercials with a Christmas theme before Halloween or a skinny Santa in those commercials before Halloween!

No matter that’s not the season I was thinking about. I was thinking about the second most important celebration on the calendar, Halloween.

Now there are those who believe with strong religious conviction that Easter is the second most important celebration on the calendar and I would dare say nothing against those with such convictions even though I think that the bunny thing except where Hugh Hefner is involved has been over done, but for folks with a less convicted view of celebration you have to admit hat the season of spookiness in just about the bestest thing since indoor plumbing. (Anyone who doubts the wisdom of indoor plumbing just get nekkid at three AM and trot out into Nature and spend a bracing ten or fifteen minutes in a sitting position in our delightful Oregon climate and see how wonderful you think outdoor plumbing really is!) So next to indoor plumbing Halloween is just about the funest thing there is and if you think that the fun part is limited to children you have never really spent a dark and stormy night with Elvira: Mistress of the Dark and some terrible horror movies or gone to a costume party for adults and if you think about it one of the funest parts of going to a costume party for non-kids is seeing just how much wildness is left in those non-kid type female, lady women and how they want to shuck off the drab dress of ordinary life and put on some glad rags of a less PTA approved sort and get their Ghostess with the Mostest, (although Marion Kirby was always very tasteful and stylish and never ever showed any slink or kink but was a spooktacular spirit anyway), going on in the most wild and crazy sort of way and that is why the non-kids can have a lot of funest good times on Halloween and perhaps it is a good thing that the kids have been sent to bed or off to a PTA approved Halloween party were they are supervised by Tarsus the Good and not filled with worthless high-sugar treats and allowed to get wild and crazy with the adults in their party clothes or lack of clothes depending on how wild and crazy the non-kid sorts get.

But let’s suppose you want to stay within the confines of the PTA approved, Tarsus the Good sort of Halloween celebration and yet still be part of the funest sort of good times, then what you can do without ever leaving your own living room, is watch the Good Witch movies on the Hallmark Channel.

The Good Witch movies star Catherine Bell which is in itself a pretty good reason to watch the Good Witch movies, unless you don’t like female, lady women sorts of persons in which case there is a pretty good chance that you aren’t going to get approved by the PTA or Tarsus the Good so you can go ahead and stop reading right here. But if you do like female, lady women sorts of people then the Good Witch will be right down your alley.

The Good Witch movies are right out of Frank Capra’s universe and if you don’t know who that is then you are probably too young to understand the rest of what I am going to say anyway, so back to Frank Capra who told gentler stories in a time before The Bomb and serial killers and the Good Witch movies are just the sort of story Frank Capra would be telling if Frank Capra were telling stories today.

You see Cassie Nightingale might be a witch…but she might not and that is part of the magic of the Good Witch movies, you just won’t ever know and like Miracle on 34^th Street, the only true and absolutely necessary Christmas movie, you just don’t know and that is why it is such fun to watch.

Now here is the Ron-Bob disclaimer and if you don’t get that then you have never heard of Joe-Bob Briggs and this will be completely lost on you but for those in the know, there are no breasts, no bombs, no car-chases, no creatures, no witch-foo, just magic, magic everywhere and Ron-Bob says check it out!

There is no violence, everything gets resolved without threats and meanness and when something odd happens you, the viewer has to engage your brain and decide if it was magic or just one of those things.  

I know that’s a lot more work than you expect out of an evening of watching television. But it is really worth it. And I am not the only one who thinks so because there are seven Good Witch movies in the can and an eighth scheduled for 2014. Somebody has to be watching.

Maybe you gave up believing in Santa Claus a long time ago and with the way Congress does business I can understand why you might be cynical. But don’t let the way some people behave steal the joy of child-like belief from your heart.

Make popcorn, hot chocolate, put on warm socks, get out a fuzzy blanket and settle down in front of the telly and let magic, pure magic fill your night with joy. Sure it’s simplistic and optimistic and maybe, just maybe there’s a touch of magic.

The Morning After The Night Before

If you missed the Chair-ity Event at Pony Village Mall then you wasted a perfectly good Friday night doing something pointless like making out in a parked car on some deserted lane where The Hook was lurking and probably got you and the other person you were there making out with (Yes person cause it is entirely possible that that person was a person of the same gender as the person on the other side of the parked car and that is why you have to say person and not identify it by some degrading classification like sex which has nothing to do with identification but is probably why you were out in that parked car doing God alone knows what when you could have been getting your horizon's expanded and your mind engaged instead of doing something entirely physical and distracting and not at all intellectual and educational which brings us back to the persons in that parked car where you were last night!) and that is why you won't be reading this post and will miss out on a nifty, neat and cool site where you can read some really top notch poetry.

http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/58

So go take a cold shower and then come back and take the link to Poet.org and get some real improvements to your mind and then when Sunday comes around you will not feel like you have to go to church t make up for what you were doing in that parked car when you could have been at the Chair-ity Event.

And for those of you who did go, good on you and you got to hear the Ole Trawler recite and that is of course one of the most enlightening, mind expanding things you can do on any night much less a Friday night when you wouldn't be doing anything except making out with some stranger anyway.

So make up for all of that time you spent groping and panting in that parked car call Stephenie Donaldson and sponsor one of the chairs that has not yet been sponsored and then you will feel your heart swell with the Milk of Human Kindness long before the three ghosts of Christmas are scheduled to make their next appearance and you will not have to go to church with all of that guilt which you got doing that stuff you were doing in the parked car when you should have been at the Chair-ity Event!

Art Happenings

There will be no  Friday, October 25, 2013  edition of Art Happenings  as I have been (and am still) working on details for  the Chair~ity Event at  Pony Village Mall (10/25/13  from 5:00 pm - 7:30 pm). Hope to see you there!!!

Turning the Corner

When you are walking the things that you do seem automatic, stepping, stopping, not getting run over by a buss, you know all of the stuff that you have been doing since way back before the invention of the printing press and you’ve got it down pat on account of you’ve been doing it since way back before the invention of the printing press and you don’t need any help you just do it and so why bother talking about it at all.

Because along with all of that automatic stuff there is a whole lot going on that you know about but you just don’t think about cause its automatic which means that you don’t have to think about it and that’s why it’s automatic.

Like turning a corner…

There is a lot of brain power involved in doing that one simple thing. How come you went that way instead of this? And how come you crossed the street at that point and not at the crosswalk where you are supposed to on account of giving the guys in those great big heavy hard to stop cars a bit of a warning instead of just stepping out off the curb and going willy-nilly across the street any which way you want making them lean down on the brake and pull back on the steering wheel and praying that they can stop before you run their insurance rates sky high.

So what does all of this have to do with art and why am I boring you with this instead of telling you about some important art event on the South Coast and why have you bothered to read this blog if all it is going to talk about is walking, talking and thinking?

Because I haven’t been doing a lot of thinking for the last eighteen months or so.

When you find out that you have an illness that needs ongoing treatment and it will make you go places you don’t want to go and do things that you don’t want to do, (No that is not like taking out the trash or putting the can out on the road on trash day), it sucks up all of the extra brain power that you might have had free to think about art.

Just keeping up with the blog on a semi-regular basis has been challenging. I have posted as often as I could between appointments at the Croakers and I have sought out and posted art events which many of you have kindly passed along to me but I haven’t really put my nose to the grindstone for the last six months.

All of which means that I have lost my moxie when it comes to the blog and I have to get back in the groove and hit it every day so that I can get my moxie back cause being without your moxie, which is a soft drink peculiar to Washington state and Maine but also a slang term for smarts and cunning which is the moxie I am talking about is a very bad thing, that refers back to the part about being without your moxie just in case you got lost in the sentence structure which Mrs. Kaidenhead swore I never really understood and then my Freshman English instructor said that everyone had learned how to write a simple English sentence except the Ole Trawler so you could have gotten lost seeing as how the subject was so far remove from the predicate but the whole point is it is a bad thing to be without your moxie.

Now I plan to get back into the grove and get my moxie back but it may take a while so bear with me. I was shocked when I looked at the calendar and saw that it didn’t have any appointments with the Quack scheduled and you can see how that might throw off a guy who has been bouncing back and forth between the Quack and the Croaker for the last eight or nine months, twice a week and extra on Sundays.

And the reason is that on my last visit Dr. Ross in concurrence with Dr. Goenenne said that the problem was completely resolved which is doctor speak for done.

So you can see how that might throw me off my game cause with all the free time not having to visit the Croaker or the Quack I was a bit lost. Now there is good news on the horizon, I have dentist appointments to ease my way back into “Real Life” so I can count on that for a little break from all of this troublesome free time, but it won’t last forever.

And that means I will have to divert some of that idle brain power away from walking down the street and back to writing the blog.

It may actually take a few weeks to get my moxie back but if you have lasted with me this long, what’s a few more weeks?

Now on to the important part and it could be fun cause I have a special favor to ask you that will be fun for you cause it always was for me back before I became sickly and old and the Quack said I couldn’t do it any more on account of being a Diabetic and it being really not at all a good idea for Diabetics to drinks so I’m asking you to take up the slack and get in there and drink your share and mine when Seven Devil’s brewery opens its doors!

I think taking the time to master all of the intricacies of learning how, getting the equipment, find the right receipt and getting funding and then trying to encourage the public, that’s you, to do something they are dead set against like having fun and drinking beer is a terribly brave and artsy thing to do.

So prove to me that you have the community spirit and the will to support the Arts in Coos County and bring you bottles and buckets and troughs and bladders down to Seven Devils brewery and form a long line so that the owners, those brave and artsy folks don’t have to give up their beer making and go find a real job!

It’s a hard thing to ask but I’m betting that the arts community of Coos County can belly up to the bar with the bets of them. Remember you’re drinking for the Ole Trawler too so make it a pint/glass of Seven Devils finest!

Little Dickens Show

October 12, 2013

Call for Art: Little Dickens Show

By Backstreet Gallery

Backstreet Galley invites all artists to participate in the juried “Little Dickens” Miniature Art Show.
Judging will take place on December 6. Backstreet is honored to have  Jan Jagoe as our judge.  Jagoe is a noted Florence artist and owner of The River Gallery on Bay Street. 
Entry forms and complete information are available at Backstreet Gallery and our website, the Florence Events Center, and Old Town Coffee and Gallery. Entry forms and fees are due by 5:00 PM, November 27. 
Artists can enter up to two pieces in any media, 2-D and/or 3-D.  2-D images must not exceed 35 square inches.  3-D art must be within 64 cubic inches.  Entry fee is $5.00 per piece of art.  The art need not be for sale.  November 30, 5:00 PM is the deadline for delivery of art to Backstreet Gallery. 
Best of Show award-winning artists in 2-D and 3-D will be Featured Artists at Backstreet Gallery, in April 2014. 

• Entry forms & fees due by Nov. 27th, art to be delivered to the gallery before 5pm on Nov. 29th +30th.
• The show hangs Dec. 3rd to Jan. 4th.
• Judging takes place Dec. 6th.
• Artist’s Reception, Dec. 14th  3-5pm.

Click below to download & print the
show rules & application PDFs:

Little Dickens Rules 2013

Little Dickens Entry Form 2013

If you need to download the free Adobe® Reader, click here.

If you have any questions, please call the gallery instead of asking in the comments section, so that we can answer you right away.  Happy creating!

Art by the Sea

Collage Tag-Book Play Day

With Susan Lehman

Sunday, October 27, 2013 from 1-4 p.m.

Come and play-- Make a simple fun book using collage techniques!Everything provided/$16 each

Art by the Sea Gallery and Studio

In the Continuum Center

Old Town Bandon

541-347-5355

Dress for Mess;
Acrylics are being used!

Dave Bown Projects - 7th Semiannual Competition

  Dave Bown Projects seeks entries for an online exhibition. Awards: $10,000 USD (1 artist will receive $5,000 USD and 5 artists will each receive $1,000 USD), and purchases. Jurors: Jeremy Adams, CUE Art Foundation, New York; Janet Dees, SITE Santa Fe; David S. Rubin, San Antonio Museum of Art. This competition is open to all artists 18 years of age or older. All styles and mediums are eligible. 4 images for $40 USD, 7 images for $60 USD, 12 images for $90 USD. Deadline: November 30, 2013. Visit website for details. Questions? Please contact Dave Bown at info@davebownprojects.com or call (917) 365-5265.

"Wood" call for entries

 Gallery 263 in Cambridge, MA announces a call to artists for a national juried exhibition, December 12-January 4, 2014. Juror: Katherine French, Executive Director, Danforth Museum of Art. To celebrate our fifth anniversary, we are hosting a national wood exhibition, the traditional fifth anniversary gift. Made of wood. Made with wood. Made on wood. Made about wood. Please show us your wood! Works must be original, created within the last 5 years and complete. Multiple entries accepted. Online submissions only. 1-3 images, $25; 4-6 images, $40. Deadline: November 22, 2013. Questions? Please email the gallery at contact@gallery263.com

trees

A Smith Gallery in Johnson City, TX seeks entries for an international juried photography exhibition, January 3 to February 9, 2014. $825 in awards. Juror: Ellen Jantzen. Open to all photographers working in all mediums. $30 for first 5 images, $6 for each additional image. Deadline: November 18, 2013. Visit website for prospectus. Questions? Please contact Amanda Smith at amanda@asmithgallery.com

Art Happenings

Here's how...
Send a high quality image (no less than 600px wide x any height) to info@artliaisonconcepts.com.
  

In the body of the email include:

• your name
• title of the artwork
• media. 

Please make sure the image is oriented correctly.
Do not include text or watermarks.

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Share your art info!
Announcements, accomplishments, exhibits, classes & workshops, calls to artists....
If you are interested in spreading the word about your event or art venue,
use the submission form at http://artliaisonconcepts.com/art_happenings/ or email info@artliaisonconcepts.com.
Art Happenings is published weekly. Emailed version and printed copies distributed on Fridays.
NEWSLETTER Deadline: Tuesdays 11:59 PST for Friday same week publication.
Editor reserves the right to modify content for layout purposes.

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This newsletter is funded in part by a grant from the Coos County Cultural Coalition.

Click this link for active .pdf

Click image for larger view

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Copyright © 2013 Art Liaison Concepts, LLC, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to Ava Richey's art newsletter titled "Art Happenings", you signed up via the Art Liaison Concepts, LLC website, or you signed up via the MailChimp subscription form. If you have received this email in error, click the Unsubscribe link provided within this email. Our mailing address is: Art Liaison Concepts, LLC PO Box 643 Coquille, OR 97423 Add us to your address book
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Woodblock Printmaking Workshop

Dear CAM Friends, Members, Artists and Want-to-be Artist,

Please find the attached registration and information sheet on the upcoming:

Multicolor Woodblock Printmaking Workshop by Walt Padgett.

Now is your chance to learn something new or improve on something you have done before.

We only  have a couple of spaces left, so please copy the attachment and return it to Coos Art Museum or go online at:

www.coosart.org

You can also reserve your spot by call 541-267-3901 or emailing: khammer@coosart.org

You can even email me: dbeebe@coosart.org and I will get the information to Karen.

Sincerely,

Deryl L. Beebe

“Art For All”

Sage Advice

Hello Sage Friends and Bead Lovers!

Just wanted to catch up with a reminder that Wild Things Beads is in town this week for a final 2013 Trunk Show at Sage Place.  They have brought along all kinds of intersting things, new, vintage, beads, buttons, bone, wood, findings, glass and whatever else you can dream about!

Hope you can join us and share the word with your friends too!

11am - 5 pm Wed. Oct 16th and Thurs. Oct. 17th.  Sage Place, 525 11th St. SE, Bandon. 

Also, just a quick update on upcoming classes:  

Sherri is back with her fabulous "Etched Cuff Bracelet", Tues. Oct. 29th, 1-4 pm  and will also be joining us for another "Cold Enameling"  class on Tues. Nov. 12, 1-4 pm.

Roxanne Evans Stout returns for fun with "Encaustics - Triptych Panel" on Sat. Nov. 9th.

Robin is bringing Holiday fun to the fusing studio, with a "Holiday Wave" slumped glass workshop on Fri. Nov. 15th.

See you at the TRUNK SHOW!    Anne  (541) 329-0303

Coming Soon

Neighbor to Neighbor Mediation Services will present the 5th Annual Chair~ity Event on Friday, October 25, 2013 from 5:00 to 7:30 p.m next to Payless Shoes in Pony Village Mall, North Bend.  Poets and artists from as far away as Eugene and Port Orford will converge in an evening of poetry reading, exhibition of artwork and decorated chairs.  Music, appetizers and refreshments will be provided.  This event is free and open to the public.

Decorated chairs may be purchased or sponsored for a $100 donation to Neighbor to Neighbor (N2N), a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.  Please visit the display at Pony Village Mall to make your selection.  Proceeds from this event benefit the Youth Conflict and Violence Prevention Program taught in local schools by Neighbor to Neighbor (N2N) Mediation Services. To purchase or sponsor a chair contact Char Luther at (541) 751-9666.

N2N has been serving Coos and Douglas County communities since 1996. The organization's mission is to advocate for collaborative conflict resolution by providing education and affordable mediation services. For additional information about Neighbor to Neighbor or the 5th Annual Chair~ity Event, please visit www.n2nmediation.com.

***************************

Attachments:

Chair by Sherry Howk titled, "Dare to Dream"

Chair by S L Donaldson titled, "Bandon's Coquille River Lighthouse"

Event Poster

Sponsorship Form

Approximately half of the chair entries have already been dropped off at Pony Village Mall and are displayed in the windows of the former Performance Sound store next to Payless Shoes.

Submitted by:
S L Donaldson
Neighbor to Neighbor Board Member
Chair~ity Event Curator
(541) 404-9511
info@sldonaldsonfineart.com

Animal Fairy Tales, Fables, Fact Or Fiction

 Las Laguna Gallery in Laguna Beach, CA seeks entries for an upcoming exhibition, December 5-21, 2013. Throughout the history of the world in cultures near and far, animals have played a huge part in the world of art. This exhibition will explore a wide range of animal depictions in art. We will explore how artists continue to draw from past stories as well as create new narratives as characters in their art take on animal traits, and new creatures are imagined. The work must be able to be hung on a wall to be considered. Limited to 48in. No work that requires special installation or instructions will be accepted. Deadline: November 16, 2013. $35 for one image, $5 for additional images (max 15). Visit website for prospectus, or send a SASE to: 815 Laguna Canyon Rd, Laguna Beach, CA 92651. Questions? Please contact Lori McBride at laslagunagallery@gmail.com or call 949-667-1803.

Yosemite Renaissance XXIX

Yosemite Renaissance XXIX is an international art competition, on exhibit in Yosemite, California Feb. 28 to May 11, 2014 and traveling. $4,000 in awards. Open to all living artists. Subject matter is limited to recent works on the landscape, environment, wildlife and people of Yosemite or the environment of the Sierra. Both representational and non-representational submissions are accepted. Original artwork may be in any medium: Painting; Photography/Digital; and Other (All other media, including drawings, pastels, printmaking, textiles, and all 3-dimensional works). Size is limited to works that can be shipped in a container not exceeding maximum U.P.S. dimensions of 130 inches, length and girth combined (girth is the distance around the package). Each artist is limited to eight entries. No more than two entries from any artist will be included in the exhibit. $15 per entry. Visit website for prospectus. Deadline: November 16, 2013. Questions? Contact Yosemite Renaissance at info@yosemiterenaissance.org

Photographic Being

 Jeffrey Leder Gallery in New York City, NY seeks entries for a juried photography exhibition, Dec 8, 2013 - Jan 12, 2014. Jurors: Jeffrey Leder, Gallery Director & Orestes Gonzalez, Photographer/Architect. Open to all artists, American and International, who have created photographic works of art. Each work will be considered based on the merit of each single piece. All artwork submitted must be no more than 3 feet in any direction. Deadline: November 15, 2013. $40 for up to 5 images, $10 for each additional image entered. Visit website for more information. Questions? Contact Matthew Stefani at mtstefani@gmail.com or call 917-767-1734.

Art by the Sea

Art by the Sea Gallery and Studio

In the Continuum Center

Old Town Bandon

541-347-5355

Sandra Schroeder, show chairperson

 The art is up; the juror has made his decisions!

Art by the Sea Gallery and Studio in the Continuum Center in Old Town Bandon is inviting the public to vote for a “People’s Choice” in their 3-D Sculpture and Small Quilt Show that opens this week. Everyone is encouraged to view the entries and to meet David Woof, a local potter and educator, who will announce the ribbon prizes at the Friday, October 18^th Alive After Five. The Art Walk is from 5-7 pm; Woof’s presentation is at 6 pm.

The Gary Robertson Trio will be playing for the reception; refreshments are being provided by Pacific Blues.

Art by the Sea Gallery and Studio is open daily from 11-5 through October; in November they are open 6 days a week from 11-4, closed on Tuesdays. Any questions, the Gallery’s phone number is 541-347-5355.

OCCA Offers Free Arts Website Listings

The Oregon Coast Council for the Arts (OCCA) is offering free learning sessions on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, October 28^th, 29^th, and 30^th , to all Coos and Douglas County artists, gallery owners, presenters of arts-related events, and arts, heritage and humanities organizations, to learn how to input their information on OCCA’s new website, www.coastarts.org. This website is the only one of its kind devoted exclusively to promoting coastal Oregon arts.

These easy and free sessions teach people how to enter, at no cost, arts-related events, classes, workshops, auditions, receptions, artists’ profiles into our website, and become part of OCCA’s coastal Events and Arts Directory.  Artists, public relations, executive directors, event coordinators, marketing people, and volunteers, who handle their organization’s press releases, will want to attend.

Through a grant from Meyer Memorial Trust, OCCA redesigned its coastarts.org website, and the Oregon Community Foundation grant from the Fred Fields Fund, is allowing OCCA to create its Coastal Arts Network Design and Optimization (CAN DO) initiative to teach organizations and artists to input their information and keep it current.

The OCCA buys local, regional and national advertising to promote and drive people to coastarts.org and the site is quickly found with common search tools of the Internet. The site has a built-in refined search capability to allow anyone to find the art resource quickly and timely, whether it be an event, gallery, artist, venue, or art organization. More importantly, if you are an artist, performer, or event coordinator for art events on the coast, you will have a special ability to submit the content of your listings at this site easily online anytime at will, making it the freshest list of culturally fun and interesting things to do.

OCCA’s CAN DO Outreach and Education Representative (OER), Ernest Brown, conducts these free learning sessions. Pre-registration by Tuesday, October 22nd, is required as space is limited.  If you have a laptop or tablet computer, please bring it to the session; however it is not a requirement for participation.

In Reedsport a learning session will occur at the Umpqua Discovery Center on Monday, October 28th, 1 pm to 3 pm.

In Coos Bay, choose from the two learning sessions being offered at the Coos Bay Library on Monday, October 28th, 6 pm to 8 pm and again on Tuesday, October 29th, 10:00 am to 12:00 noon.

In Bandon, choose from the two learning sessions being offered at the Bandon Conference and Community Center on Tuesday, October 29th, 6 pm to 8 pm and again on Wednesday, October 30th, 1 pm to 3 pm.

In Winchester Bay a learning session will occur at the Winchester Bay Community Center on Wednesday, October 30th, 6 pm to 8 pm.

To register for a free session, please call Ernest Brown at 541-574-2650 or email him at occa-can_do@coastarts.org.

OCCA, as the nonprofit regional arts council for the Oregon coast, promotes and provides high caliber arts experiences on the Oregon coast. It is the “go to” source for information connecting residents and visitors in an easy, accessible manner.

Contact: Ernest Brown                                                                                                                       

Outreach Education Representative

Oregon Coast Council for the Arts

  (Nonprofit 501(c)3 Organization)

                                                                                                                                              

Telephone: 541-574-2650

Cell Phone: 541-351-1624

Email: occc-can_do@coastart.org

 

Art Happenings

Show off your talent!

Paintings, collage, photography, sculpture, pottery, fiber, etc....

If you are interested in having your artwork featured as the header for the emailed edition of Art Happenings newsletter,

please send a high quality image (no less than 600px wide x any height) to info@artliaisonconcepts.com.  

In the body of the email include your name, the title of the artwork and the media.  Please make sure the image is oriented correctly.  Do not include text or watermarks.

 

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Share your art info!
Announcements, accomplishments, exhibits, classes & workshops, calls to artists....
If you are interested in spreading the word about your event or art venue,
use the submission form at http://artliaisonconcepts.com/art_happenings/ or email info@artliaisonconcepts.com.
Art Happenings is published weekly. Emailed version and printed copies distributed on Fridays.
NEWSLETTER Deadline: Tuesdays 11:59 PST for Friday same week publication.
Editor reserves the right to modify content for layout purposes.

---

This newsletter is funded in part by a grant from the Coos County Cultural Coalition.

Click image for active .pdf

Click image for larger view

SUBMIT NEWSLETTER INFO   SEND US AN EMAIL  LIKE US ON FACEBOOK
Copyright © 2013 Art Liaison Concepts, LLC, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to Ava Richey's art newsletter titled "Art Happenings", you signed up via the Art Liaison Concepts, LLC website, or you signed up via the MailChimp subscription form. If you have received this email in error, click the Unsubscribe link provided within this email. Our mailing address is: Art Liaison Concepts, LLC PO Box 643 Coquille, OR 97423 Add us to your address book
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Losers Weepers

Were you planning to go to the Fall Fling for the Arts?

You know this is the Museums annual fund raiser and the food will be great and everyone who is anyone will be there and this is your big chance to get out and be seen and besides the Long Sufferin won’t claim you are sneaking off to the flesh pits cause they will be hardly worth the trouble so you can just get out and go and…the art on display is fantastic!

Now Stephen does a fantastic job of selecting what should go up and when and with George to artfully hanging it and the discriminating eye of Liv and Del almost everything in our museum is pretty above average but this time, with just the art donated to the museum to sell and keep the lights on and no gimlet-eyed jury lurking in the wings and no fevered, harried and exhausted director fretting over the process the art is wonderful.

Now as you might imagine if you were the imaginative type which of course you must because your are a highly skilled and incredibly innovative artist type person with a wildly creative and eclectic mind art without any sort of criteria can be a mixed bag and the art donated to the museum is just that sort of mix, but it is also wildly creative and marvelously done. I took a walk-through Wednesday and within the first fifty feet saw no less than ten I would have gladly tucked under my arm and run from the museum before anyone could catch me and that is very likely because the Ole Trawler is old and slow and has been sickly and would never pose a problem for Steve Prefontaine and just about anyone not laid up with the gout could grab me before I could get up enough momentum to make a clean get-a-way so I didn’t but I sure wanted to and so will you…

But you won’t be able to see how fantastic the art is if you don’t go. This year the museum has decided to make all of the donations a raffle premium and so there won’t be anything left because the art and the patrons who would have wanted the art couldn’t be in the same place at the same time but this time the if you aren’t there the art will go home with someone else cause they were lucky and held the right raffle ticket and you’ll be left out in the cold cause you didn’t even get to see the art before the lucky patron got to take it home!

So now that you know just what you are going to miss aren’t you planning to put down that remote control, actually put on something other than sweats and get in the car and go to the Fall Fling for the Arts?

There is no Fairy Artmother, if you don’t cough up the funds to keep the doors open and the lights on it will be your responsibility when the museum has to shut down because you would rather watch re-runs of Glee than to get out, get with it, get moving.

Now do I have your complete attention? Good, the community of Coos Bay offers so many advantages for its residents and with the cooperative weather and the wonderful people not to mention great food on every corner, it would be a terrible loss if the one and only art museum on the whole South Coast had to close because the people of Coos Bay wouldn’t come out and support it.

You don’t want folks to say the people of Coos Bay are just like Congress fighting and feuding and fuming and never getting any real work done?

No, that’s right you are not a Congressman! You deal with problems, support the community and enjoy the privileges that come with commitment.

And when you get there take a look just to the left as you enter the big gallery, there’s one of the Ole Trawler’s photographs right there and that should be enough to get you dressed and out the door if nothing else will do it!

Padding Around

So you’re sitting around staring at your living room bored to death but completely stymied and frustrated cause there is just no way you can start anything with all of the things that you have on the schedule, the Fall Fling for the Arts and The Chair-ity Event both on Saturday and trying to find time to get by Pacific Park Gallery to see all of the Ole Trawler’s fantastic photographs. (The Long Sufferin’ has photos there two and if I didn’t mention it it would be a good way to learn the lesson that John Wayne Bobbit learned the hard way and all of the Ole Trawler is pretty attached to the way it has always been attached so I’d just as soon not have anything go missing which is why I have a long and happy marriage and am mentioning that the Long Sufferin has art at Pacific Park Gallery too!) And with all of that on your plate you just can’t start anything complex and time consuming and it is a long afternoon before the new programs start and so there you sit doing nothing and listening to your arteries harden and wondering just what will keep the mildew from growing on you and not a single idea comes into your head.

But have heart; the Ole Trawler comes to the rescue.

Now I know that you have followed all of the Ole Trawler’s suggestions and have done all of the things I have asked you to do and you went to Goodwill or The South Coast Hospice or the Salvation Army store and you found a cheap flat-bed scanner and you bought it and brought it home and went online and downloaded the software and now you have a perfectly good scanner just sitting around waiting to be put to work and it can’t go out and find stuff to scan all on its own so you have to pick something and scan it and this is the perfect time, while you are sitting around listening to those arteries and suddenly it all becomes clear…you should make a mouse pad.

Sure you already have one and you like it fine and you just don’t see what the big deal is it’s just a mouse pad that you use but never really look at or think about so why should you give a toss about something that’s like trash bags which you use but don’t much care about?

Cause it will help you get from now to Saturday without mildew growing all over you and mildew is so hard to remove and you don’t want to show up at the Fall Fling for the Arts with mildew all over you so this is a good way not to have to get out the Brill-O pads and besides you have been wondering just what you would do with that scanner the Ole Trawler was so insistent that you go out and resurrect and now you do have an idea and besides with the time that you saves not having to scrub off the mildew you can go to Pacific Park Gallery and if you do it first then you will have something interesting to talk about at the Fall Fling for the Arts so you will sound like an intelligent, wise and articulate person and fit right in with all of the other glitterati.

So do this…

You’ve been scanning in all of your art so that you have a complete digital record of your work so all you have to do is pick one of the many things you have been scanning in and that will be hard because you have so many but you are a brilliant, critical and discriminating artist and you will use your finely tuned and exacting artistic taste to select one of the best of the whole mess of brilliant things you have done and that will be the basis of the mouse pad.

To do this you need just three things, an image, a whatever to print on and a foam sheet.

The image you should have because you have been scanning in all of your images and so that part is easy and you can move on to the next part which is also easy and I’ll tell you why…

The experts and the crafty people who do this all of the time say that you should use Inkjet Printable Fabric sheets which can be had at almost any office supply store or on Amazon.com where you can buy anything from napkins to elephants just in case your name is Hannibal and you need the pachyderms to march over the alps so you can certainly get a printable fabric sheet there or…

You can use what I did and run a sheet of watercolor paper through your printer. Now to do that you will have to cut it down cause most watercolor paper is very large and won’t fit in the paper tray of a printer so cut it down and run it through the printer and there you have a wonderful, personal, colorful image for your mouse pad.

Oh come on most of you have more watercolor paper lying around just waiting to be used and most of the time all it does is live in the closet and it is time for it to come out of the closet cause this is a new century and we have “Don’t ask don’t Tell” so it is okay for watercolor paper to come out and this is the perfect time.

Now you have your image and the top part of the mouse pad its time to get the foam. You can get it lots of places but one of the easiest is Wally World. They have the sheets of eighth inch thickness which is thinner than I would like but it is easy to work with so try it and it is only thirty-three cents a sheet so you can buy it and feel guilt free or if you mess up the first pass, which will be hard to do with the Ole Trawler’s guidance so why not give it the old college try?

I also bought some cork at Fred Meyers, four 12 x 12 squares for five bucks, cheap, huh? I haven’t used it yet but it should also serve. So here’s what you do, you take the print and the foam or cork and go outside unless you have a big-time cushy studio in which case you can go there cause it is your space and no one can tell you what to do in your own space so even if you do spray toxic chemicals all around and fill the air with harmful fumes they can’t bitch and whine cause it is your space so there.

And you don’t have to use harmful chemicals you can use good old fashioned rubber cement or Elmer’s glue but I used 3M Spray Mount cause I am a photographer and always have a can handy so I used it but you don’t have to just because I did and can go your own way and everything will be perfectly fine.

But if you are using 3M Spray Mount spray both the back side of the image and the top side of the foam and then mash them together. You have to be fairly precise cause the foam just doesn’t cut all that easily and if you have more of it than you do image it will stick out and give the mouse pad an unfinished, unprofessional look. The thing to do is cut the foam with a pair of really sharp scissors and fit your image to that amount. Makes everything so much better.

Once you have the foam and the image mated together you should let them dry for a few minutes or press them under a heavy book like the coffee table book of pictures of elves you bought back a few years ago when fairies were everywhere and you thought you’d paint a few, just to see if you could get the hang of it and then flack them to the silly tourists only it was harder than you thought and the silly tourists didn’t come to the edge of the earth to buy paintings of fairies so they wanted landscapes and seascapes and cloudscapes which is what you were doing all ready before you bought the silly book and now it has been lying in the closet under all of the paintings of fairies that you did but couldn’t sell so why not let it serve some useful purpose and weigh down that mouse pad until it dries and then you will finally get some use out of the book.

Once it dries it is ready to use and if you don’t like the shape you can use those extra sharp scissors to cut it into any shape you like.

And why would you do all of this?

Well for one thing it is good to learn new skills and there is always a chance that you will need a extra present for Halloween or Thanksgiving or Christmas or Guy Fawke’s Day so why not learn how to do it just in case and even if you don’t you never know when your own mouse pad will give up the ghost and maybe it will happen when Wally World is closed and you can’t just go buy a new one and wouldn’t it be handy to know how to make one?

And maybe you want to give mouse pads for Christmas gifts and Staples and VistaPrint and Zazzle will do it for you pretty darned inexpensively but you might want to make a mock up before you order just to see if the image you had in mind will work as well as you thought it would. That’s the way the Big Guys do it and they should know cause they play for high stakes and make millions and can’t afford a pluck up cause it would cost them millions and be pretty embarrassing so why not follow their example and save yourself some grief.

It’s fun, cheap and it might just give you an idea for what to do with some of those projects lurking in your closets like all of those elves that never sold and now you can get them out of the closet and away to Aunt Brownhilde who you never really met but always feel obligated to send a present and now you can and get those damned elves the hell away from your closets.