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