Tuesday, July 28, 2009

We Need YOU!!!!


We need all crafty/artsy people to get out your art supplies grab an old chair and decorate it for our 2009 Chairs for Charity Auction. The auction will be on Saturday November 21st at the Rahr West Museum with doors opening at 5pm! We will be accepting tastefully decorated chairs until November 9th but would love to display them sooner to spread the word about this fun event. If you have a chair to donate just bring it to Persimmons at 314 N 8th Street. IF you have old chairs but don't have any artistic ability we will take plain chairs too for artists to work their magic on! Proceeds for this event will go for art scholarships for Manitowoc County young artists, to the Rahr West Museum, a little goes to Art and About for future events and hopefully we can raise even more to donate to a worthy local cause. It is up to everyone to make this a wildly successful event! So come on and grab that paint and brushes and create for art's sake!
(chair in photo was a donation from our first 2007 event from the lovely and talented Gail Reibe)

Monday, April 20, 2009

Spring Art Tour 2009

Come join us for a weekend of art and fun for the 2009 Spring Art Tour. The tour will be starting off with an open reception at We Are Art at Brenda Lynn Burtard Studios at 1006 Margaretha Street in Two Rivers. The reception will feature music by Pick and Squeeze, refreshments, and great art. There will also be a silent auction of original birdhouses created by members of Art and About. Prior to the event you can see the birdhouses on display at the Rahr West Museum. The proceeds for the birdhouse auction will be donated to Hayden's Hope. Hours for the opening reception are 6pm-9pm.

On Saturday you can tour 9 local galleries/studios. Take a peek into the environment where artists create their works! With demonstrations throughout the day you will get to see the techniques and materials used to create beautiful works of art that will also be available to purchase. For exact demonstration times and locations you can pick up your map and tour guide and any of the galleries/studios listed below! Many of the participating galleries and studios will also have a giveaway for a chance to win art originals! It is a great FREE event that is very family friendly. Hours for the Saturday tour are 10am-4pm. Hope to see you there!


The Dolan Gallery....4910 Nicyssa Lane, Manitowoc
Petals Plus Gallery and Gifts....7014 Center Road, Manitowoc
Full Circle Products...1332 S 26th St., Manitowoc
Gallery East...930 S 7th St., Manitowoc
Best Western Lakefront Hotel Cafe...101 Maritime Dr., Manitowoc
Persimmons...314 N 8th St., Manitowoc
Evans Custome Jewelry...1119 N 12th St., Manitowoc
Martin Pottery Studio & Gallery, LLC...1304 Memorial Drive, Manitowoc
We Are Art...1006 Margaretha St., Two Rivers

Monday, March 2, 2009

February Meeting notes.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009


Art and About met at the Rahr-West Art Museum at 6:00 P.M with 22 current and / or new members present—one of our biggest meetings so far.

Chairs for Charity
§ We discussed this year’s up and coming Chairs for Charity event on November 21st, 2009 at the Rahr-West.
§ Chairs should be delivered to the museum NO LATER THAN November 9th and will be on display until the time of the auction. HOWEVER, please start those chairs now! We would like to have them on display throughout the spring / summer / and up till November 9th. The more we have out—the more successful the event will be.
§ All Manitowoc county high school art departments are invited to have their students design a new logo for this year’s Chairs for Charity event. The logo / poster contest will offer a $100.00 cash prize to the winning design and a companion prize of a $50.00 gift card to Hobby Lobby to the winning designer’s teacher / mentor. Contest committee members include Jo Woodcock, Amy Zander, Bonnie Loeh, and Paula Radl.
§ At this point there are two main committees needed for the Chairs for Charity event. The first is a press / media committee—to handle press coverage of the event including newspaper advertising, radio, et cetera; and a contacts committee—to contact local businesses to participate in the event by either donating items such as refreshments for the reception, possible matching funds, or offering their business for chair display. There was a sign up sheet passed around for at the meeting—there were many volunteers thus far however, if you were not at the meeting but would like to be a part of a committee, please consider what you will be willing to do for this year’s event.
§ By next month’s meeting, Heather and Kim will provide each group with a more complete list of committee expectations.
§ We also discussed the reception and would like to lengthen the reception time as well as offer free wine along with the hors douvres. Free wine makes for holey pockets!
Spring Tour:
§ Brenda Ricky will be the host for the spring tour on May 15th and 16th. She would like commitments by next month as artists and studios that will be participating. If there are any artists who do not have a studio but would like a display space please contact Brenda at 920-553-2787 and matches will be made.
§ The fee for studio participation in the tour is $40.00 the first year to cover sign costs and $25.00 thereafter. There was some discussion whether or not independent artists should pay a fee to display at someone else’s gallery and it was decided that each artist could discuss the issue with their host and work out something on a case-to-case basis.

Fall Tour:
§ Just a note that the fall tour is on October 23, 24, 2009.
§ No one has yet to volunteered to host—anyone interested?

Farmers Market:
§ Exciting news for the farmers market—there will be a Tuesday evening slot this year! The Tuesday time slot will be from 3:00 to 8:00 PM and will run from June 16th to October 20th.
§ Saturdays will remain at 7:00 AM to 1:00 PM and will begin May 15th.
§ One of the great perks of being an Art & About member is that any paid member may sign up to exhibit at the farmers market—free of charge! The club pays the $100.00 yearly fee and Art & About members may use the space.
§ We would like as many, if not all, of the time slots to be filled—you may have the space to yourself or you may share with another member. Just remember to display the Art & About sign at your booth / table.
§ Sign up will begin next month, as Barb will bring a sign up sheet to the next meeting. Please see Barb for any questions about the farmers market and PLEASE do not just show up to the market—make arrangements with her. She is our spokesperson and all assignments must go through Barb.

Directory:
Heidi Dahlberg has been kind enough to put together an Art & About directory--which looks great, by the way! If you haven’t already contacted Heidi with your info—please do so. Thanks!

Dues
§ Art & About dues is due at anytime. Please either pay your dues at our next meeting or send the yearly fee of $25.00 ($15.00 for students) to Bonnie Loeh. You can contact Bonnie at: bnloeh@lsol.net

Other news:
§ Amy Zander’s new studio is up and running. It is located in her backyard! Her husband built it for her—what a nice guy!
§ Also, Tom Chermake, who organizes Metro Jam, would like to have an art component to this year’s Jam. It is usually around the second weekend in June. If anyone would be interested in doing something like that—contact Tom Chermake or speak to Kim.
§ The Bead and Button Show will be in Milwaukee on June 14th. According to Kim it is a lots of fun and just plain crazy-good if you are a bead lover. A number of people already said they would like to go—we are planning to have several van-fulls of people. If you’d like to go, or drive, let us know. Still lots of time before June, but according to Kim, you better save up now!
§ Paula Radl brought up a very cool thing she has come across—using old cigarette machines as art vending! What a cool idea! She is going to look into finding one that the group can purchase / restore and maybe we could do something with it!
§ Kim is looking into buying the group a domain name so we don’t have to have such a big handle for our blogspot—which is: www.artandabout54220.blogspot.com I’d personally like to see the zip code removed—as many of our members do not actually live in the city of Manitowoc.
§ Go to Stump-Jack’s to see Nate Walkner’s show—opening this weekend. Something with the word ‘orama’ in it—should be good.
§ Also, if you’d like a little night music—go to the Courthouse Pub on February 20th beginning at 10:00 PM to see Adam Morantez per his wife Dani who will hopefully be a new member of the group. Also, they will both be at the Health and Wellness fair.
§ Art & About will have a booth at the UW extension on April 18th from 10 – 2. The booth will be about recycled art and there will be a recycle-type art project for people to make—paper beads.
§ Kim was invited to participate in the “All things Strange and Wonderful” event at Horrace Mann middle school. She’ll be doing some cool art.

Next meeting:
§ Wednesday, March 11th at 6:00 at the Rahr-West. See you there!

That’s all for now.

Note: if there are ever any corrections or additions to be made to these notes—please let me know or feel free to email the group with the corrected information. Thanks!

Respectfully submitted by:

Jo of Art

Wednesday March 11th!

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday March 11th at 6pm at the Rahr West Museum. Hope to see you there!

Sunday, February 8, 2009

FEBRUARY MEETING

We're getting together on Wednesday, February 11th at 6:00 p.m. at the Rahr West Art Museum.

Hope to see you there.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

January minutes!

Wednesday, January 14, 2009


Art and About met at the Rahr-West Art Museum at 6:00 P.M. There were several members present including: Heather Doucette, Jo Woodcock, Paula Radl, Brenda Ricky, Amy Zander, Bonnie Loeh, Mary Kay Burish, Randy Boldt, and new members, Paige Harrington, Katie Young, and Rachel Young. I apologize if any names are spelled incorrectly—let me know. We also had Joe Metzen of the Rahr join us.

Member Exhibit:
§ Most felt the exhibit went well—nice turn out. There was something like 165 people through the museum that day.
§ Art & About agreed to pay for part of the bill for the reception and the Rahr will let us know what our portion will be.
§ The show runs through Sunday, January 25th, so please pick up your work after that date.
§ There was some miscommunication as to press on the event—we will make sure that is taken care of for our next event and be more proactive as to publicity.

Dues
§ Art & About dues is due. Please send $$$ to Bonnie Loeh or contact Bonnie for any questions at: http://us.mc391.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=bnloeh@lsol.net

Visitor:
§ Joe Metzen (the new Mary Jo) came to the meeting to pitch an idea of a Manitowoc Arts website he would like to see for the community. He envisions the site having all area art events listed in one easy location and entries / announcement of events would be free to the public / local schools. Events could include, art shows, happenings at the Rahr, shows at the Civic Center, local high school plays, etc. There could be links to websites that serve the community, local libraries, museum and gallery links, links to area artists etc. We all agreed this would be a great site and would like to be a part of it. The question is do we have anyone in the group who does this kind of work—setting up and maintaining sites—or should the work just be farmed out and paid for? We agreed Art & About would love to be a part of the site and willing to pay a fee to participate. If anyone has any comments / questions let us know or contact Joe directly at the museum: 920-683-4501 or http://us.mc391.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=jmetzen@manitowoc.org

Directory:
§ Heidi Dahlberg has been kind enough to offer to put together an Art & About directory unfortunately she is having a hard time collecting information. You can add as little or as much as you like—all your info or just your name.

Chairs for Charity:
§ We discussed this year’s up and coming Chairs for Charity event on November 21st, 2009 at the Rahr-West. We discussed whether or not we should be looking for a new logo or if we should keep what we have and use it every year. There were a variety of plusses in either case—less cost per event, recognition of design, verses, more printing costs per event, variety of design, involving the community in logo creation.
§ Those present felt we still wanted to go along with a new design and will go ahead with the logo / poster contest plan.
§ I will be sending out a letter to all local high school art departments in Manitowoc county by the end of January to announce a contest to design this year’s Chairs for Charity event. The logo / poster contest will offer a $100.00 cash prize to the winning design and a companion prize of a $50.00 gift card to Hobby Lobby to the winning designer’s teacher / mentor.
§ Anyone interested in judging the poster contest please let me know at: http://us.mc391.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=joandtim@peoplepc.com or 920-775-4953. Those already interested are: Heather Doucette, Amy Zander, Bonnie Loeh, Paula Radl, and myself.
§ We also need to form committees for the event so consider what you will be willing to or able to do for this year’s event. Our first event turned out to be much more work than was anticipated. For this year’s event we all agreed that the work should be shared more equally among the group.
§ So far, the committees needed are a media committee—to handle press coverage of the event, a contacts committee—to contact local businesses to participate in the event. There will be more to come as there are many other needs to take care of so by next month, Heather and Kim will have a more complete list of jobs needing to be done for the event.
§ Ask not what Chairs for Charity can do for you...but what YOU can do for Chairs for Charity!

Other news:

§ The Rahr-West is planning a fun bike event on June 6th when they will unveil a new artful bike rack created specifically for the Rahr-West by Paul Kaufman—an artistic welder. However Paul is in need of some old copper and is looking for an old copper lined water heater and some copper tubing—1 ¼ inch to 1/ ½ inch. If you know of anywhere he can find some or can help him out in any way, please contact the Rahr at 920-683-4501.

One more thing…
§ Kim is now the president of the Downtown Manitowoc group and recently sent an email out to all of us. The DTMG is looking for a new logo for the downtown area. Refer to the email for details or contact Kim at http://us.mc391.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=gkgeiser@yahoo.com

Spring Tour:
§ Brenda Ricky will be the host for the spring tour on May 15th and 16th. More info to come.

Next meeting:
§ Wednesday, February 11th at 6:00 at the Rahr-West. See you there!

That’s all for now.

Respectfully submitted by:
Jo of Art

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

November meeting notes

Wednesday, November 12, 2008, 2008


Art and About met at the Rahr-West Art Museum at 6:00 with a skeleton crew present. We discussed the fall tour, the Chairs for Charity poster contest, and the farmer’s market.

Fall tour:
§ We discussed how we felt the fall tour went. There was a nice turn out however not great for sales.
§ The spring tour will be May 15 and 16
§ The fall tour will be held October 23, 24, with the opening reception at We Are Art! at Brenda Lynn Burtard Studios, 1006 Margaretha St., Two Rivers

Chairs for Charity poster contest:
§ I went over the Chairs for Charity poster contest rules with the group to finalize details. Basically, we will be sending out a letter to all area high school art teachers asking them to involve their students in a poster contest to create the image we will be using for next year’s event. There will be a $100.00 top prize for the winning design. More on the contest will be coming—we will be sending out info after the first of the new year. If you have any questions or comments email me directly. Thanks. joandtim@peoplepc.com
§ I also brought a book to share that I found in our school library entitled “Speak”. It is a collaboration of children’s illustrators each offering a story about their dog and an accompanying illustration.
§ In keeping with the flavor of the book, we thought it would be a good idea for us to do something on that order—where we all contribute to a publication—in the form of a calendar. We have plenty of artists to fill 12 months. It is definitely something we want to look into for the future. We could get area businesses to sponsor a page and we could also include area goings-on and of course, our own tours and happenings. Keep it in mind—any particular month you’d like to create something for?????? I get July. It’s my favorite month.

Farmer’s Market:
§ The farmer’s market went relatively well this past year but there were a few bumps. Barb Ferguson would like any suggestions or constructive criticisms to improve things for next year. Many felt there could be better communication between exhibitors.
§ Also, we are going to skip the tent entirely. Every vendor is on their own. This way the tent and weights don’t have to be passed around.
§ We felt it may be a good idea to have some sort of signed agreement with vendors to keep things running more smoothly and establish responsibility.
§ The market starts up again in the beginning of May. And new this year—or revived this year—will be a new night. Tuesday afternoon / evenings from 3:00 – 7:00 PM the market will be open as well. they are hoping to make a little more of the event and perhaps have music etc.
§ Yearly cost for the booth remains the same.
§ Any questions or comments please contact Barb directly at: barbaraferg@comcast.net


Member Exhibit:
§ Don’t forget the Art & About member exhibit is coming up SOON—right after Christmas so be prepared! The date is January 11th – 24th at the Rahr-West Art Museum with opening reception on Sunday.
§ Work must be in to the Rahr-West by Friday, January 2nd.
§ We also thought we could use the opening day as an informal winter gathering—maybe we can go out to eat afterwards—still open for discussion…
§ Reminder that all work exhibited should be ‘family friendly’.

In other news…
§ Kim attended the recent Tannenbaum gala at the Rahr and thought that perhaps the group should do a tree next year. We could make ornaments during a meeting or two. We’ll discuss it again at a later date.
§ Also, I mentioned that I would be willing to organize a trip to the Chicago Art Institute in the spring if there is enough interest. We would most likely open the tour to the public as well. We would need enough people to fill a coach bus, which is usually 45 to 50 people. Just a thought—let me know sometime if you would be interested in a trip to Chicago. We would probably aim for a Tuesday because that is the ‘free’ day at the institute.

This weekend…
§ Holiday on the Lakeshore will be held this weekend the 14th and 15th at Fox Hills featuring, among many, two of our artists, Kim and Heather. Hours are 2 – 9 on Friday and 9 – 5 on Saturday.
§ Maybe next year Art & About could split the cost of a booth and have several artists attend.

That was about it.

Our next meeting is on December 10th at 6:00 PM at the Rahr-West Art Museum. We will be making decorative Christmas trees! They’ll be just like the ones I make with my first graders. I will bring the tree cut outs (about an 8 to 10 inch cardboard cut out) a few sparkly things, and the glue. Anyone is welcome to bring other items to share for decoration i.e. buttons, old jewelry, spangles, beads, whatever. My sister and I used to call such stuff—Geschnarell. I don’t really know what that means but it seems to work.
See you then!

Respectfully submitted by:

Jo of Art