Mixed up Day of Client and Help with Commonwheel History
Started out with an email making me aware of what I hadn’t done properly.
I wonder if I used up all my “on track” focus last year when I relocated the Commonwheel Art Festival in just 3 weeks due to flooding.
I wanted to enter a contest for the Festival Poster and missed the deadline last week. But sent in a digital entry. For some reason I thought that would work. But in an email today, I was forgiven for the late entry, and he was looking for the physical poster. Oops! Packaged it up and mailed it off to arrive hopefully on Wednesday. Sent an email request for forgiveness and joked a bit of my loss of focus. Left it up to them if they will accept the entry. Last year’s poster was exceptionally beautifully done, so hope it does get a chance to compete . . .
At 7:35 my phone rang. I was sound asleep. I work into the midnight hour, so to get 8 hours of sleep, need to sleep past 8am. This client had an appointment tomorrow, but wanted to come today instead. She was suppose to be still camping on Pikes Peak last night, but with the threat of snow had headed down a day early. So I groggily said fine, see you in a bit, but someone else who is coming to help me with a big project may show up and I would have to work with her. This client arrived bit later than she had thought, so we started on the first piece. Computer training on how to find her downloads, or save them in a place she could find again. Her email account did this a bit differently than mine, but I figured it out. Then showed her the easiest way to find them doing a search if she just couldn’t find them any other way.
Then she wanted help ordering business cards from Vista Prints. We got that process started. She wanted a different color paper than white, so we called in to get help with that. When we saw the proof the person helping us saw a problem of a white box around the image. Not sure how that would happen in a pdf. She asked us to hold while she talked to a tech and came back and told us he fixed the problem and to proceed to checking out. So we did.
While we were on hold, my friend who was coming to help was calling in. I grabbed my cell phone to call her back. A bit of cross calling and we did connect. She was headed my way after one stop of dropping off cookies to a sick friend.
So the timing was pretty perfect. But I hadn’t gotten much of anything done that I needed to do today.
Commonwheel’s scrapbooks with history of many years in photographs, past ads for gallery shows and articles about us had been in the basement when it flooded August 8, 2014. I had collected them and put them in a big green tub, not wanting to tackle looking at them alone. My friend not only was willing to help with this project, but wants to help us get more attention for it being our 40th year in business. We laughed, and cried a bit, while working on these scrapbooks. Some pages were just not salvageable, but some were almost untouched by water. Crazy!
She began working on the one that was pretty old and cleaned up many pages. I worked on ones that were not too badly damaged and moved the pages from their ruined notebooks into cleaner notebooks. Shaking the dirt off and carefully separating pages stuck together.
There was one flyer from the first Mardi Gras, not Carnivale, that I helped create many years ago. It had the most actual floats, horses and bands of any parade Manitou Springs has ever hosted. Commonwheel had helped with some pieces of this event, and I was on City Council that year. But many of the other promoters had grandiose ideas about how many t-shirts, hurricane glasses and beads we could sell. They over reached, and it lost the enthusiasm of these folks, so there was never another Mardi Gras in Manitou Springs. Yet a few years later, a Commonwheel member engaged other artists in the community and we had the first Carnivale parade on the sidewalks. (That is another story to tell.)
So many memories . . .
We realized what a rich history Commonwheel has had in this community. Members of Commonwheel also started ClayFest. Other community members took both of these events over. Currently Carnivale is thriving and a fun event that happens in the winter to enliven our merchants and bars. Whereas ClayFest is just a ghost of its grand beginning, but still limping along as an event. The Chamber may be involved with it this year to breath new life into it.
In the first years we put on three summer art festivals and a Christmas show. Ambitious and young we were. There were awards we won, some really memorable Gallery shows and lovely articles written about our members and gallery.
A 1977 newspaper story and picture of the first gallery space with us looking like hippies and surrounded by art at our monthly meeting brings up lots of memories. Thoughts of past members, some we know where they are, some we have no idea where the are, and some have passed on. I doubt that any of us back then had the slightest idea that this group of young artists who came together to create a co-op gallery with little business sense among us would see this gallery thriving 40 years later. Or that some of us would still be a part of us. Two members in the picture are myself and Roger Tolzman who are still members of Commonwheel now.
My friend took home the oldest, most damaged and most artistic scrapbook to see what she could do to save this heirloom of Commmonwheel’s past. It has wooden covers and is an unusual size. The artist in who created it back then shines through now.
I had created a notebook for our 25th Old Spokes show which has copies of many of the really old items from the two scrapbooks she was willing to work on to save what she could. We would stop and look to see if something she found that was really damaged was in the 25th year book. Many were, which made us both smile.
I was inspired to send out an email to the membership to try and engage some more people to help Celebrate our 4oth year. I had some very clearly formed suggestions and asked for specific types of help, including helping with the scrapbook project. We have an opportunity to show in a space where financially savvy and secure people would see the work. I asked for someone to head up that show, as my hands are very full right now with the Old Spokes show in April and the Festival’s extra needs this year.
Doing my two blog posts so I can maybe make some progress on the agenda for the Festival meeting on Wednesday and have that done before tomorrow.
FantaFaces Detoured Me from Tax Prep
I had planned on getting a good start on my Taxes today.
Instead, I took photos of the masks and earrings and some feather pendants I would take to Commonwheel Gallery and put on Etsy. It always takes me longer to get everything done for selling the items than I think it will.
And it was frigid on my front porch photo studio. My fingers in my fingerless gloves felt frozen very quickly. Which made it more difficult to get the photos I wanted to take done. And I really need to figure out a backdrop that doesn’t need cleaning all the time. Black suede looks good, but getting feathers off it can be a real pain! Then I have do a bit of clean up in PhotoShop before I can post them anywhere, or it looks messy.
I did take fewer photographs than planned, but got the ones I absolutely needed. I am planning to put photos of all the masks I took to Commonwheel on my FantaFaces web site to direct people on Etsy to see more styles and playful masks I create. I can’t have the same mask for sale both on Etsy and at Commonwheel. If I make a sale at Commonwheel, and the same one sells on Etsy, I could never recreate most of them even close to the one that sold. They really are one-of-a-kind masks, as no two feathers are alike and the patterns of the eye highlight feather vary hugely from one ringneck pheasant to the next.
I created mask boards for the shop also. They are the best way to package my masks. They needed the “Care and Feeding” information printed, so knew I wanted to print them on my Laser printer, as I am getting low on color ink on the InkJet. Then realized I didn’t have any of the proper tags for the earrings printed. My laser printer gave me a few moments of worry with a technical difficulty when it didn’t start up properly. It took a couple of restarts to get it working. Glad I don’t give up easily, and believe in restarts making a difference. I am visionig it surviving a few more months, or longer, before I need to replace it. It is very old, but can print certain things better than the ink jet I share with the Festival. It only works with my older MAC, so worked on that instead of my newer MAC. Got them all printed and the earrings on their little cards with the right price tags on them.
Just watch a small spider float down onto my desk, a little to cold to capture him and take him outside. So will just ignore him for now.
Walked to Commowheel on a very chilly foggy day. At the Gallery, I had to do the tagging and inventory write up in the “cold storage” room. That room isn’t really set up to do this comfortably, but I got it done. I haven’t had the feather pendants for sale since Holiday Market ended. So made some room on the side of my display that has the Hair Clips, Hat Clips and Pins to put 9 of them there.
The member working the shop helped me do some photos for a demo of how to use the mask boards. We have had lots of new members and I am not sure how many know anything about the mask boards. So will do a page for them to see where to find them and how to package the masks properly.
The masks I made yesterday that would be priced lower than my normal masks, were hung on another side of my display. I had a sign stating that they are “Specially Priced for Carnivale”. Also put a sign in the window about Carnivale Masks being available. Want to do another one saying they are made in Manitou, but didn’t have that ready today. Realized we are missing the Artist Pictures that were hanging in the front window before Holiday Market happened, and didn’t get put back up. That was where I would normally put a couple of signs about Carnival Masks. Will have to work on that with Marketing Team . . .
Got home checked emails for the first time in two days. Then put away my photo props and started on clearing up paperwork in preparation of working on my taxes. Had dinner, watched a bit of the Olympics. I love the skaters! And a bit intrigued by the women snowboarders.
When I woke up this morning, my left leg was a more swollen than normal. That always worries me a bit. So I took a very hot shower and rubbed more essential oils on it than normal. The root cause of this swelling, (a life changing health challenge created by minor surgery gone awry) is one of the challenge stories I want to get written this year. It is my intention to share challenges I have faced in my life that I overcame by dealing with them with a solution oriented approach, rather than dwelling on the challenge.
Now quickly -right- doing my two blog posts, writing everyday! Then will see where I get working on my taxes. Tomorrow is set aside as a day to get caught up with Commonwheel Festival and Old Spokes Show tasks. A past member is going to stop by to help me look at the scrapbooks that got covered with mud last August and see what we can do with them.
Now off to the races . . . I mean taxes.
A Very Carnivale Day in FantaFaces Studio
I spent all day in my FantaFaces Studio in preparation for Carnivale in Manitou Springs.
Oh, I was tempted when the weather was predicted to be the warmest day to go for a Hike. But I resisted that temptation and got into my FantaFaces studio.
At first I was a bit distracted by doing some cleaning up, but then got motivated to create masks for upcoming Carnivale on March 1st in Manitou Springs. It is one of my better selling times in the Gallery, so that helped to motivate me also.
I always try at this time and before Halloween to use up feathers that are cut and maybe not enough of one color for a normal mask. And then there are the peacock eyes that have flaws and the numerous Ringneck Pheasant tails that are very short and can’t be used as wings. I often put them up for sale at Commonwheel Artist Co-op at a discounted rate, even though they take as much time as normal masks to make. But I get to play around to see if some new idea actually is something I can do more often in the future.
I finished a dozen masks! A few were ones I needed to replace relating to what has sold on Etsy and at the Commonwheel Gallery. But most were playful and used up many of the odd feathers hanging out in my studio.
I also needed some more colorful earrings at the Commonwheel, so ended my evening by doing 7 pairs. That felt good.
My speakers on my very old stereo seem to be dieing. At first I thought is was the tape player, but even the radio didn’t sound very good today. Tried a different small radio and tape player, and it didn’t sound any better. Also pretty old. I didn’t have another quick and easy solution, so just listened to the radio most of the day, and didn’t allow the mediocre sound stand in the way of being creative.
On another level of being “Creative” I had what I think is a couple of very good ideas for advertising the Arts Festival at the venue it needs to be at this year. I will contact the owners of a couple of businesses in the area and see if they want to do some joint advertising. As it is an area Manitou Springs City Government is trying to breathe life back into with some upgrades. And Manitou’s most loved restaurant, Adam’s Mountain Cafe, is moving onto the street one block from The Fields Park, we can use them as a focal point to help people find the park. They do lots and lots of advertising, so many people will be more familiar with the area than in year’s past.
Plus, I heard a very interesting scientific discussion that relates to Children’s books in my mind. Will see if it can inspire a book or two from the ideas I heard relating to how children learn, or discipline they could develop in early life to help them succeed in later life.
Not checking any emails today seems strange, but just going to do my other post and head to bed.
Feeling very satisfied for what I did accomplish today.
Aliens in the Movies and on a Mountain
I keep seeing alien images after watching a movie last night.
Last night my roommate again offered to fix dinner. By the time it was ready, a bit late in the evening, I finished all the “must have done” things.
I was very tired of working in my frigid office, so decided I could take the rest of the evening off and watch a movie. One of the 4 for $10 ones I had bought was a favorite of hers, and she loves to rewatch movies. So we watched “Stargate” with our dinner.
When I looked at photos to use for my other blog posting, I kept seeing Aliens in the rock formations on Cheyenne Mountain. So got a close-up image to post here. They are all different sizes and shapes. Most seem friendly, but a few have a more ferocious look that I wouldn’t want to encounter in “person” and close up.
Earlier in the day I had had to drive across town to a Doctor’s appointment to see if they could resolve my ear challenge. It was icy on the roads, but the snow had stopped and the sky was blue. I got to my appointment almost exactly on time.
I liked the new doctor, but didn’t like some of what happened at the office. While waiting for my ear to get irrigated, an odd painful thing happened. A spot in my back sometimes feels like it is on fire, and that sensation spreads up and down my body. When the nurse came back in and I told her this was happening and I was in horrible pain, needed to lay down, and have some water, she brought the water. Fortunately I know how to breath into this pain, and can usually get it to stop within a short time. And it has happened before, so I wasn’t panicked. I actually had thought it was a good thing to have it happen while at a doctor’s office. But the doctor come back in and talk to me. It was suggested I schedule another appointment to discuss this. Not sure how that will help, if it isn’t happening then . . .
My ear almost felt worse when I left. Which is what happened the last time I had this problem, so tried to just think positive about it clearing up in the next few days, as it did the last time.
Today, I had a meeting with someone to see what ideas he had to help fund the music for Commonwheel’s Arts Festival. His group is not in a position to help with that right now, as they are pretty new as a group and working on getting funds for their two projects.
He did have an interesting suggestion or two about how to go about raising the funds. Have to think about them and if either are appropriate for our Festival. One is more inline with our mission, the other could really bring in some good profit, but not something we have wanted to do in the past.
He was encouraging about the fact we were looking for a relatively small amount of funds compared to his projects. And he thought he could find us a tent for less than we paid the last few years, which would be helpful. I left his office with lots to think about and present to the Festival Committee next Wednesday.
My webinar with Tony Laidig tonight was postponed, but since I was one module behind, I just watched the one I had missed a couple of weeks ago.
In an attempt to stay on track with my web sites, I updated my excel sheet of what progress has been made on each one. Plus I canceled my NetFirms account having gotten all my domain names moved to Springs Hosting. May even get a tiny refund from them.
The really frigid temperature outside makes it even colder than normal inside my old Victorian house. This very cold office situation is very making my body a bit achy, so I am going to head off to bed a bit earlier than normal tonight.
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Computer Never Shut Down Takes A Visit to My Favorite Tech
What did I say at the end of yesterday?
“Tomorrow is another day, and I hope to be more on track for what I need to get done again.”
Well, that didn’t happen quite as I had hoped!
I didn’t realize my computer never shut off last night. And this was the second time it did this little glitch thing. So, I called my favorite Computer tech at Computers ‘N’ Music. Lee couldn’t tell me what to do by phone, which he often can, so even though it was snowing we took a ride across town. The roads were much clearer in Colorado Springs than in Manitou Springs, which I was very thankful.
He couldn’t actually figure out why it didn’t shut down, but did see some things that could cause the problem and changed those settings. I have known Lee for almost as long as I have had computers. He works on Macs and PCs, so he has helped me and Commonwheel find good deals and kept computers running for many a year.
I decided to do another errand while out and the roads were good. Something drew me to stop at the Bargain Mart. Not much in the way of bargain foods, but they had a deal of 4 CDs or DVDs for $10.00. There were some movies I had wanted to see in the mix of really stupid movies or gory ones. I did find 4, and figured going to see even one movie these days could cost that much.
Did my other appointed errand and drove home through a eerily foggy Garden of the Gods. That always uplifts my spirit to see such beautiful natural landscape that changes depending on the weather and light.
My ear was really bothering me by the time I got home, but didn’t have much time to attend to it. Still did put a hot pack on it for a short time, and that did help. I am sure being out in the cold didn’t help heal it any.
My roommate earlier had said she would make us dinner tonight, so I didn’t have to think about that at all. We later had a lovely dinner with her cooking an artichoke for the first time. I hadn’t realized she had never cooked one before as I have cooked hundreds of them.
Got information off to two people that had inquired about Structured Water Filters. That felt good, as we had talked last Friday about this.
Had an great webinar with Tony Laidig. I have so many things I could do using his trainings and the Public Domain items I have in my possession, time is just a problem right now. Was going to include an affiliate link here, but can’t find it quickly, so will move on and look for it another time.
Just as the webinar ended, and before dinner was ready, my phone rang. It was the cottage tenant. Rarely a good thing. She can’t get her heater to work. And it is very cold out tonight. Went over, and I couldn’t get it to light the pilot light either. Dang! Called my favorite plumber and he can drop by tomorrow morning. I seem to be financing his winter with many jobs at my property. I had a couple of the oil based heaters, so we carried them over to her cottage to keep her and her kitties warm during the night.
The book I had thought was all finished for my CreateSpace client, had a couple of formatting things she didn’t like when she saw the physical proof copy. And then she also found one typo. Fixed those all up and put it back up on CreateSpace for her to review.
My brother had a whole bunch of dates for his band, Parish Gap, that he wanted on their web site. Had a moment of challenge trying to figure out how to add more lines to the table that looked like the other ones, but did figure it out.
Had a few moments of wondering why I committed to posting here daily for a year. Not doing the training type of information posts that I had hoped to do. But that will come I am sure. Just journaling and showing the world I can conquer challenges thrown my way with a solution based approach. Some days it seems like I have an extraordinary amount of challenges to overcome compared to other people’s lives. Just keep moving forward as best I can.
And then there is the challenge of how to do a hike in this cold weather and with my ear not in perfect health this week.
Waxy Ear Turns into Earache and Distraction
I am not a good “sick” person or patient.
Or maybe I am, as I still got quite a lot accomplished today, just not what I planned. And am wearing down now . . .
When I went to do a hearing test last week, one of my ears was judged to have too much wax to do the test. I needed to go to a regular Doctor to get that removed and fixed. I have not signed up with a GP since my doctor of over 25 years went into very private practice. So needed to find a doctor in the system of healthcare I am accepted in currently.
Once before this has happened, and I was able to get the wax out by myself. But what I have tried so far, has made it a bit more painful, but not giving up on these methods and have an appointment on Wednesday morning – At frigging 9 AM! – with a GP. So if not better by then, I am sure he will have a solution.
I didn’t get moving very quickly this morning, as I tried heat and Colloidal Silver to get the wax out. Then with the pain not really dissipating, I was moving slow. Decided if I wasn’t able to actually work on the computer, I would vacuum my bedroom and office. Discovered the bag was full and the brush was filled with hair. Argh! I don’t like dealing with hair. That is one of my few “phobias” that color my world. But I couldn’t vacuum if I didn’t. So toughed it out.
Had Chicken Wings delivered by a friend, leftover from their party yesterday for me to have for lunch, and another friend had given me some cornbread yesterday. So that was a nice and easy meal. Had leftovers from Saturday’s dinner for dinner tonight. So I did eat well without much effort. Grateful for that.
Our monthly meeting was called off since so many of us had spent all day at the Retreat. So I didn’t have to go out in the cold, other than to take out the recycling and trash when it was sunny.
Decided to do FaceBook posts and Tweets for pay, for the 20% Off Sale starting at Commonwheel this weekend. I had pictures of the “Display It Again” Secondary Art Market in our Gallery this month, so did some more FB posts and Tweets for that. And since I was on a roll, did a couple for my FantaFaces masks that need a push for people to purchase for Manitou Springs Carnivale happening on March 1st. Really Soon! Hey! might as well self-promote while I am in charge of those FaceBook pages, and its good for the whole Co-op to get people in there for any reason.
Are you ready to let your Alter Ego come out and Play?
Had a few more people respond about the Old Spokes Show which was good news.
Set a date for meeting with someone who might be able to help fund the music for Commonwheel’s Arts & Crafts Festival. That would be so very good for our bottom line after having to add Shuttles and new Insurance policy to the mix last year, and this year also.
What I didn’t get done was the new promotional invitation to sponsors or call Sam about this. Her eyes are bad, and my ear hurts. Another day.
Nor did I send out info about Structured Water. But I did hear back with the author of that book and he explained how busy with big projects he has been the last few weeks.
Tomorrow is another day, and I hope to be more on track for what I need to get done again. At least I get paid for the Commonwheel marketing work I did today. So that is a big plus and immediate gratification . . . or on the next payday which is sooner than other work I have been doing has paid in the past . . .
Squirrely Day at My House and For the Broncos
A Squirrel on my Porch Demanded to be Fed.
There is one squirrel at my house that has a cataract in one eye, so he doesn’t see very well.
But he is very bold about wanting to get fed. And he is the only one we purposely feed.
It was very sunny and warm around noon in Manitou Springs, so got dressed to go out to shovel the snow on my front public sidewalk.When I stepped out my front door, I was greeted by this little guy.
I could almost hear him say “Those are all empty, its cold, and I am very hungry.”
So I gave him some without the shells. And he thought “Ah, that’s much better.”
He finished those very quickly and looked up at me saying, “More, please.” And so I gave him a few more, then headed out to the sidewalk to shovel.
My first attempt didn’t work very well. So I walked back and got a heavier shovel that had a flat blade but isn’t an actual snow shovel.
That shovel worked much better. The snow actually chipped away from the sidewalk which made it much easier to remove.
One isn’t suppose to toss snow from a sidewalk into the street, so I get some extra exercise when shoveling along the fence by having to lift the shovel loaded with snow high enough to toss over the fence.
I actually don’t mind too much when the snow isn’t to heavy, as I feel the extra moisture in the garden area is better concept where it might actually get into the creek rather than just letting it drain away into the sewer.
It was such a beautiful day I walked up the street a bit and took some other snowy day photos, then came back and ate lunch on my front porch. I love my south facing porch that warms up enough even on days with snow on the ground that I can eat on it and bask in sunlight.
Got some work done on my Commonwheel Gallery show invites. Found some emails of past members I was missing and messaged some others on FaceBook in hopes of inviting them.
Watched the Broncos play the worst game of their season and lose to Seattle in the Super Bowl. At halftime, I ate a silly popcorn and cake dinner, with a bit of Tequila to sooth the pain of watching the Broncos play so badly. During the second half, I cut out newspaper articles that I wanted to use for information on other blogs.
Finishing up with my daily posts.
Snowy Day Commonwheel Retreat
It had snowed another 4 inches during the night.
I was grateful it had stopped snowing when I looked out the front door.
So I cleared the stairs and brushed the snow off my car to prepare to drive to the day long Retreat for Commonwheel Artists Co-op members.
I had another member who needed a ride, as her home was very high up on many very steep and curvy streets. She walked to my house wearing her YakTrax.
It was pretty mild in temperature and the roads were pretty clear, so we had an uneventful drive to the venue.
There was a really good turn out of the membership.
Everyone there fully participated in the process.
We had a very delicious potluck at lunch time. Soups, salads, breads, cookies with many gluten-free and vegetarian offerings that satisfied everyone’s special food considerations.
One member brought homemade chocolate that melted in one’s mouth. Yum!
We had some interesting conversations that brought up where some of the splits in the membership reside. How we will mend those in the coming year is still something we need to work on. Mostly people were positive and had ideas that we all listened to politely.
I did have to take some deep breathes before speaking after some people talked about the Arts Festival in ways that I didn’t agree with, or were going off information that was not accurate. Luckily a couple of other members also spoke up to share more accurate information and make some points the other members were not aware of about the value of the Arts Festival for the Co-op.
Plus some people didn’t totally demonstrate that they understand the concept of “speaking in pearls” and got rather long-winded at times, especially near the end.
Still we came away with a better understanding of how different members thought and ideas of where we would like to go as a business in the future.
Unfortunately we ran out of time before we got to the exercise for creating an actual action plan to reach goals we envisioned. Something we will need to work on at a future date without an outside facilitator.
Yet, we were all glad to end when we did as it was snowing again. And not the fluffy snow of the last days, but one that was immediately crusting on our windows. So we all had to do a bit of scraping before we could head home.
Moments after I got home and my passenger got her YakTrax back on for her trek home, my phone rang. My roommate was calling to say she and her boyfriend were on there way to the house to cook dinner for all of us. And she said she had invited the young boy from next door to join us.
The dinner was sort of celebration of her birthday a week late and his a few days early.
That was fun and another tasty meal for me that I had to do little except to enjoy.
This was the third morning I had to get up early for me, and I am fading now.
Second Snowy Day of a Winter Storm
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.