It snowed during the night again.
I have never been a fan of winter. It’s pretty and all when the snow is untouched.
But then one must get out and drive or walk in it.
Also I need to clear the public sidewalk for others to safely walk in front of my house.
Just getting down my stairs means sweeping it away so I don’t fall. Though I was grateful that someone had tossed my newspaper onto my porch, so I didn’t have to go down the stairs until I was dressed and ready to be out in the cold.
I had an Art “Coalition” meeting this morning. So this was also day two for this night person to have to be somewhere by 9am. I am not at my best in the morning, as I can’t seem to get to sleep before midnight, and sometimes after that. So to get 8 hours of sleep, one must sleep past 8am. It takes me more than an hour to get out my door, so didn’t get the 8 hours of sleep last night I usually need.
Luckily, I was able to walk to the meeting. Its about a half mile from my home, at the Manitou Art Center, which is the same place as the Green Cities Coalition event was held last night.
The walk in the brisk winter air helped to wake me up.
I found myself full of ideas and insights that others could use or build upon at this meeting. Always have been good at brainstorming and sharing ideas.
Manitou Springs is applying to be a Creative District. One of the participants at this meeting is willing to spearhead the effort. This is exciting for our town and the artists who live and show here. And all the art organizations, galleries and historic buildings will benefit from this designation.
We also discussed that we could just declare ourselves a Creative District, with or without funding from the state and get the energy rolling on that path.
I suggested we use something like the markers I saw on my hike yesterday in Cheyenne Canyon State Park, and everyone got excited about this. The Concrete Couch representative suggested it might be a project for their Wednesday Fab Lab. I promised to send photos of the “lollipop” signs for them to all get an idea of what we could do.
I brought up the project I wanted help with for getting signs painted to show visitors that something exciting was happening in a Park away from Downtown and a couple of people had ideas for how to get this done. Commonwheel Artists Festival has 8-10 plywood 4′x4′ A-Frames that we would like to re-purpose from being used for parking signs to painted images that would attract people to see what they were about. We would have small text on the bottom directing them to the shuttles and the Arts & Crafts Festival. (Later when I went to Manitou Springs City Hall I ran into one of the administrators and asked him about who I would need to talk to about putting such signs on sidewalks and in the park we couldn’t use. Since it might involve more than one department, he said he would try to set up a meeting. Good chance encounter.)
I walked down the back street – Lover’s Lane – instead of the main street to head home. This was a beautiful winter image of Red Mountain that showed the next storm coming our way.
Made a stop at the Commonwheel Gallery to take some pictures for FaceBook of the current show. I don’t think there was an opening tonight, as no one answered the phone at that time, but they could have been on the phone . . . Just after I got home, it began to snow again. Road conditions were icy and probably many people just headed home, rather than to any art gallery if they didn’t absolutely need to be out this evening.
Of course I am a bit stressed about driving to the Commonwheel Retreat across town tomorrow morning. I will have a passenger, as another member can’t get down and/or back up her high hill that she lives on. She can walk to my house, but just doesn’t want to drive down the hills to get to the main street.
And that will be the third morning in a row I have to be out my door or at a class by or before 9am. Should be interesting.