Monday, February 23, 2009

February's Goings On

This has been quite a month.  I haven't done an entry to this blog as I have been so darn busy with other things!  And birthdays...  It was Joey's birthday on the 7th and Jordan's birthday on the 21st, so we had a couple family celebrations along the way too.

Placerville Art Walk

We have had an event downtown for years on the 3rd Saturday of each month where some of the galleries and businesses stay open from 6-9 pm and serve munchies and some have wine and such and live music sometimes.  It's just been called "Third Saturday" for a long time.

Our Arts Council (El Dorado Arts Council) is spearheading an effort to enliven and enhance 3rd Saturday and to that end there was a committee formed (I'm a member) and we have been working on the "new and improved" (and renamed) Placerville Art Walk. Gold Country Artists Gallery is one of the major sponsors, along with the City of Placerville, Placerville Downtown Association and others. It will really get going once the weather gets nicer (April-May) with music, more promotion, and (hopefully) more businesses staying open for the event each month. I'll keep you posted about it.

Banners on Parade 2009

As in the past 4 years, we are having art downtown from June through September. The overall effort is named Art on Parade, with banners being the types of art this year (and over the past two years). The application information is out now to people who might be interested. Last year we had 30 banners up in the downtown area. The banners are 30"w x 60"h and each is hand-painted by an artist.

My main job with this effort has been to be the photographer of the banners once they are completed. The photographs are then used for the brochure and other items that we produce. You can see 2008 banners on the PDA website (and previous year's Art on Parade items).

The pic above on the left (Alchemy by Tracy Lewis) is one from last year's Banners on Parade and one of my favorites.

Flower Power

Nope, you aren't having a 60's flashback—I did say "Flower Power"! We have an effort in Placerville by some folks to have hanging flower baskets on all the light poles downtown, and this year we will have 22 of them hanging in the downtown area thanks to a very successful fundraiser last year.

The effort started with 4 baskets in 2007 and 8 baskets in 2008. After the fundraiser last year we had enough money to fund 14 more baskets for a total of 22 this year! We're planning another fundraiser for May 1 and hope to raise more money for more baskets.

The pic on the left is one I took of the baskets hanging on the Bell Tower in downtown Placerville last summer.

As in past years, the baskets will go up on Earth Day, April 22. And how beautiful they are!

Joey & Jordan's Birthday

Our nephew and niece celebrated their birthdays this month. Joey was 3 on February 7 and Jordan was 6 on February 21. For Joey's birthday, we went to the Folsom Zoo and had a picnic outside; for Jordan's birthday, we tried to get into a Chucky Cheese in Sacramento, but it was so darn busy we just gave up and went to a Round Table Pizza in Cameron Park and had her party there.

Here are two pics from their birthdays: Joey on the left and Jordan on the right on their special days.


Getting Ready for March

Finally, I'm working on some photographs that I took in January at Tahoe (see my previous post on this blog) for my Featured Artist stint at Gold Country Artists Gallery in March. I, along with Valerie Bye, will be one of the Featured Artists for the entire month at the Gallery. So, I'm madly working on a lot of new pics from the mountains (mostly Tahoe) for that show. I'll have more to put up here from my show pretty soon.  You can also always see my work on my Gold Country Artists Gallery webpage.

Finally

Census stuff... I have been doing my "Recruiting Assistant thing" for the U.S. Census Bureau and so far have tested almost 400 people in the Placerville area.  I only have two more weeks that I will be doing testing, then I will be going into training for a Crew Leader position—once I find out what that is all about, I'll let you know!

That's it for now!