Arts Alliance: online event calendar

Click to view online calendar

Here’s the Arts Alliance calendar for August 27-September 10, 2009. I stopped posting this link for a while because the arts council was also forwarding the whole long calendar email to members. Then I thought about the underlying message to readers who are not arts council members. So here it is again – with a subject to let you know what it is before opening and in a form that won’t clog your mailbox.

Still, I recommend subscribing for yourself. In addition to “Something to Do,” the Arts Alliance publishes other newsletters that might interest you. The Ethnic Calendar lists cultural events sponsored or performed by members of the many ethnic communities represented in Albuquerque. A special section contains cultural/ethnic exhibits at area museums and cultural centers. The calendar is published monthly. State of the Arts is a twice-monthly online publication that covers trends, people and news about what makes the arts and culture industry tick in the Albuquerque area and beyond.

You can read Something To Do, the Ethnic Calendar and State of the Arts on the Arts Alliance website and subscribe to any or all by clicking here.

Of particular interest in the current newsletter – and perhaps something the Mountainair art community could adapt on a limited scale: 2009 Local Treasures Artists. The Albuquerque version is limited to visual artists, but we would not have to be. Why not include writers, musicians, quilters, fiber artists, folk artists, artisans, crafters – all regardless of membership status?

hasta la vista Sunflower

Last weekend we saw the Sunflower Festival finally coming into its own as an event. It was a busy day with plenty going on at various locations from its core at Dr Saul and tunc et nunquam Town Square. Although the center of action, the Saul + Square venue was not the sole locus of happenings, events, activities, sights, exhibits, items for sale, eats & other refreshments or even media covering them, including but not limied to: Shaffer (overflowing dining room, annual Poets and Writers Picnic in garden, horse and pony rides behind the hotel), a revived and lively Art Alley with art, potter, books, reflexology, Salinas NPS area (Visitors Center, KXNM radio table, Van of Enchantment), Children's Sunflower Art Project on display in storefronts down Broadway, more from one end of Broadway to the other (sunflower window, clearance sales galore, sidewalk vendors)

@tamrahays: overheard at sunflower festival: "I heard that 10,000 people are expected today." - "no, that's 10,000 sunflowers." - "nope, 10,000 sunflower seeds."

Paining Workshop Series. Sept-Oct

Plein Air Painters of New Mexico present Open Space Workshop Series 2009! Open to all artists - any media. Limited space, so sign up quickly! Taught by noted plein air painters: Anita Louise West (Sept 8-10), Bud Edmondson (Sept 18-20), J. Waid Griffin (Oct 12-14), Lee McVey (Oct 17-18), Bill Gallen (Oct 21-23).  Further details at pleinairpaintersnm.org. About PAPNM Plein Air Painters of New Mexico (PAPNM) is an organization of artists dedicated to preserving and promoting the tradition of painting en plein air — in the open air, or outdoors. PAPNM provides regular opportunities for members to paint together at paintouts and also hosts exhibitions and workshops. PAPNM evolved from Plein Air New Mexico, founded by Deborah Paris in 2004.

Birthday!

Welsh flag / dragon birthday cake

Because today, August 24th, is my birthday today and, despite Scots patrynomic (Crary from MacQuarrie), I am more Welsh than not and than anything else. Way too few candles on the cake though. My mother a talent for unusual birthday cakes (loud, colorful, original) would have like it. No doubt, she would have altered the design by having the dragon fry St George to a crisp.

Sunflower Hat Contest Winners

Sunflower Hat Contest Winners

at the Mountainair Sunflower Festival 2009
 Manzano Mountain Arts Council (MMAC)

photo by Guy Seiler, Casa Manzano

Now if someone would please send pictures of storefront windows displaying the Children's Sunflower Art Project - and names of hat winners too for that matter, although I'll be nagging the relevant parties for names...

Public Radio KXNM 88.7 @ Sunflower

submitted by James Yeager, Torrance County Public Radio committee:

KXNM 88.7 Torrance County Public Radio to Cover Mountainair Sunflower Festival

On August 22, tune your radio to 88.7 and get a taste of our new community, public, non-commercial radio station. KXNM will transmit a low power signal on 88.7 FM during the Sunflower Festival from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Conditions and technology permitting your FM radio should receive the program in central Mountainair.

Volunteers from the KXNM Community Foundation will be located near the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument parking lot on Broadway. Visitors are encouraged to fill out a KXNM listener survey for the station to voice their preferences and radio listening interests, and hear about volunteer DJ opportunities. The volunteers operating the booth will be interviewing artists, musicians, poets, and folks in general at the Sunflower Festival.

Efforts to establish a community-based public radio station for Torrance County have been in the works for two years. The timeline for KXNM Radio projects a full powered 24/7 broadcast facility to be fully on-air by August 2011 with the 40,000-watt signal covering most of Torrance County. Stop by and check out your new public radio station!

Community Radio Talking Points

Community Radio, a user's guide to the technology (UNESCO)

Sunflwer Writing Workshop, August 22

There's still room to enroll in the Sunflower Poetry Writing Workshop!

Coming to the Poets & Writers Picnic at the Mountainair Sunflower Festival?Make it a full 3 days of poetry by signing up for the 5th Annual Sunflower Poetry Workshop held Thursday August 20 thru Saturday August 22nd at the Shaffer Hotel in Mountainair NM.

Explore poetry of place in workshop sessions, experiencing and writing at and about special places on your self-directed “poet’s tour” of Mountainair and at Gran Quivira – ancient city, pre-Columbian trading center, Pueblo community, Spanish mission, abandoned ruins.

Special guest faculty this year is Gary Mex Glazner, a favorite son, sorely missed in New Mexico as poetry instigator-in-chief. Currently living in New York City, Gary is Managing Director of the legendary Bowery Poetry Club, bringing more than 1,200 diverse performances and over 2,000 artists to the space every year.

Gary also founded and is Executive Director of the Alzheimer's Poetry Project, praised as a "best practice" by the National Endowment for the Arts. NBC’s Today Show NPR's Weekend Edition and Voice of America have featured segments on his work. Author of How to Make a Living as a Poet, Gary will share writing and performance tips with workshop participants.

Sunflower Poetry Workshop activities include plein air poetry session and at Gran Quivera, one of the Salinas Pueblo Mission Ruins, campfire storytelling at the Shaffer, and poets tours of Mountainair.

Links (online at Google Docs, login with Google or Open ID)

• Sunflower Festival Program
• Poets & Writers Picnic Schedule
• Picnic and Workshop flyer
• Sunflower Writing Workshop Brochure

Fees: Workshop registration is $125 - for writing sessions only, lodging and meals not included. Local lodging information.

Contact: Workshop Director Dale Harris, email poetdale@yahoo.com or call 505-242-4930 for more information and to enroll.

Sunflower Program

Schedules and links for MMAC's 10th Annual Mountainair Sunflower Festival

click to view schedule as larger image

And much more...

Sunflower Festival schedule in pdf to download / print

Poets and Writers Picnic reading / music schedule (tentative)

Van of Enchantment at Salinas Pueblo Missions Visitors Center

Children's Sunflower Art Project, on display in merchant storefront throughout town

Local Lodging from the Mountainair Chamber of Commerce

Sunflowers around the world: Thailand

Amazing Thailand
Originally uploaded by Araleya

Bridging the sunflower gap in preparation for our own Sunflower Festival this coming Saturday by going global with sunflowers: here's another installment of sunflowers around the world.

As the title states, amazing indeed, and, yes, that's an elephant in the field of sunflowers. Elephants + sunflowers - can't beat that combination. Don't miss the photographer's comments on this delightful scene.

Sunflower: time for hats & more

'Tis the season for collecting sunflower oddities... I've done sunflower art car, Van Gogh inspired sunflower Barbie, sunflower martini, sunflower geodesic, etc. Uncle Walter's Sunflower Babies is a perennial favorite. This year it's the sunflower hat cake, courtesy of The House of Cakes, Dubai   Are you ready for the Sunflower Hat Contest? 2:00 pm at Community Centest. Prizes in different categories, youth and adult. Have you started making your sunflower hat? Here are some ideas -  2008 Sunfower Hat Contest   2006 Sunflower A sampling of sunflower hats Sunflower 2009 Program / schedule

TWIT, tweets & other sns

TWIT = This Weekend In Torrance & tweeted in under 140 characters: circus, music in St V courtyard, Voices @ Gran Q ruins/ RRR, WW Music Fest,10th/ Tijeras Market & more. Unpacked version @ Mountainair Announcements

Local Twitter usage is less than for either Facebook or MySpace. Expect it to catch up though. Anyone with w/ cell phone can tweet (charges depend on your plan), but it's not just for cell users: you can also read, tweet & retweet from the web. Town tweets (news & announcements) @mountainair505); I'm on twitter too & tweetable @VanessaVaile

Tweet style is not new: it's the latest reincarnation of telegraph style but can carry tweets to extremes & into the unintelligible. Sometime less is more, but other times more words are needed. As my dissertation director used to say, sighing and shaking his head, let's unpack that sentence (or paragraph). But what is a tweet? Not a paragraph, not a sentence. I don't doubt but that Bob Torrance would eat nails before tweeting even if I could (doubtful at best) convince him that it is a legitimate (authentically American) literary genre, American haiku perhaps.

It's also about social networking and digital culture - eg digital ethnography. Speaking as someone who has spent a lifetime settling into different cultures, the conventional "digital natives / digital immigrants" distinction may be a useful metaphor but oversimplifies. What happens if you apply related classifications? If, for example, you are new (relatively speaking) to social networking, are you an expat, a tourist (just visiting), doing a tour of duty, going native for the long haul, a foreign resident with visa, naturalized citizen or other? Perhaps even being held hostage. At some level, we are all strangers in a strange land - even the naturalized or going native and, given the rapidly & ever-changing landscape, perhaps natives as well.

Which are you? That might make an interesting poll. Which social networking applications do you use? How do you use them?

I've been blogging for several years - or more (how time flies when you're having fun) - and suspect it may be my genre. Facebook is more recent, different but overlapping terrain. It only seems less public. I've blogged or shared links on both. Tweeting is on my mind today because I've been trying it out, seeing best applications, how useful it would be for me, whether or not I want to apply for a visa.

• Digital Ethnography
• Online Social Networking Basics
• 2009 Time magazine article about Twitter
• MySpace is to Facebook as Twitter is to _____

Now Seeking Some Local Superheroes

Rory McClannahan, Editor of the MountainView Telegraph writes:

September is the time of year that we here at the newspaper do one of my favorite things....put together our Community Assets special section....For each of the past three years, Community Assets has featured a handful of people who have gone above and beyond everyday life to volunteer time and effort for the betterment of our community....To nominate someone, write us a paragraph or more about why you think that person is a Community Asset. (read guidelines and complete article at link below)

Now Seeking Some Local Superheroes

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Circus! Circus!

254/365
Originally uploaded by tamra hays

Tamra writes (at Flickr):
August 7, 2009 - There is a circus at the rodeo grounds. Yesterday, we saw one llama and one pony. Today we saw two goats and two dogs. Over at the historic [?] Alpine Alley cafe we heard a rumor that there might also be a tubful of snakes. Sounds like fun.

Edgewood this weekend: music festival, 3Rs & a birthday

Thanks again to John Weckerle at New Mexico Central for helping fill the information gaps

The Annual Music Festival at Wildlife West Nature Park, this Friday through Sunday features a Barn Dance Friday night and 22 shows on two stages over two days. This is the East/West Mountains/Estancia Valley's biggest music event of the year.

This year, the Town of Edgewood is holding its celebration concurrently, on Saturday, August 8. Events include a parade, fun run, live bands, great food, and a business expo. Events will be held around the town, and there will be tenth anniversary cake, reptiles, Adopt-A-Pet, and Library Buy-A-Book. Fireworks are scheduled for 9 p.m. at Rich Ford.

For more information (including particular on booth & vendor space), contact the Edgewood Chamber at 505-286-2577.

Ready... Set... Wait For It!

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Sunflowers Poster

Ride For The Blind

Ride For The Blind: A Dream Come True For Kids by John Weckerle, NM Central blog

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short takes

Mountainair is now in the Twitter network - Tweet the town & get your town tweets by subscribing to the mountainair505 RSS feed

Animal Rescue Shelter Challenge - the Animal Shelter placed #67 nationally and #2 (out of 133) in NM. So we didn't win the $1,000 state grant: we did good and fed a lot of animals in shelters.

Gearing up for Sunflower
It's getting to be that time of year... sunflower time. See the new header picture? It's a reminder that Sunflower does not happen magically. Help needed for set up (8 am) and take down (4:30 pm).

Want that blank looking header picture to turn into this? Contact Ray Terhorst, ray032483@gmail.com, for more information and to volunteer. No Virginia, there are no Sunflower Elves to come out in the middle of the night to set up the festival for beer & biscochitos (which is what I think NM elves would prefer to cookies and milk), so put your name down to pitch in.

Mountainair Web 2.0: not just town tweets and blogs, there are two new Mountainair groups on Facebook: Mountainair New Mexico and Chamber of Commerce, both started and administered by George Hewett. If you have a Facebook account, next time checking in, click the "Groups" icon at the bottom of the page. The groups page show groups your friends belong to. You can also do a search for Mountainair groups. Facebook and Mountainair presence there is a topic worth a separate post... and in the works...

Not just Mountainair

Arts Alliance's Something to Do Calendar available online. Although primarily about Albququerque arts & culture events, there are TWO Mountainair listings in this issue: one for Sunflower / Poets & Writers Picnic and another for The LAND's outdoor art site in Mountainair

The July 24 low-power broadcast of the Corona Parade by KXNM, 88.7 FM, was used by the KXNM Community Foundation to promote the new station. The Foundation plans to do the same for other county events, including the Sunflower Festival.

Confused about August 8, Route 66, Run, Rally & Rock in Edgewood? Can't find an online calendar listing or link to a page for it? Nothing on either town page and just a small banner on the chamber page? Yes Virginia, there is Run Rally Rock and it will be August 8th in Edgewood. The confusion may stem from its decidedly multiple personality.

According to the NM Tourism and Magazine online calendars, there is a Route 66, Run, Rally, Rock and a Town of Edgewood Tenth Anniversary Celebration and a Music Festival Weekend and a Chuckwagon Sunset Supper with Music (not just August 8 but every Saturday through Labor Day)

That's four separate events - no single unified event identity or online location for it. There may even be more. For more information about the first two, contact Roger Holden, parksrec@edgewood-nm.gov, 505-286-4518. Town of Edgewood website. The second two events have web space at Wildlife West, which is organizing and hosting both. Contact Roger Alink, info@wildlifewest.org, 505-281-7655

Town and Chamber Notes

Town Council approved up to $10,000 funding (financed by local Lodgers Tax, request for approval submitted by the Lodgers Tax Board) for portable stage, canopy, lighting, sound system. The first element, a 30' x 30' canopy will make its debut in once and future Town Square (¡Viva el Zócalo!) August 22 at the Sunflower Festival.


Also at Town Council: recycling station for paper and aluminum cans at MAC; funds raised to go to making repairs on the swimming pool to bring it up to code (in case you too have been wondering WHY we have a pool but no one is swimming in it).


Much talk of and reference to NM Lodgers Tax but little specific reference to actual details of Statute, excepting of course inaccurately and out of context. 


Future blog topic: post relevant passages from actual code and perhaps connect to specific misinterpretations, i.e. Ray's egregious claims on behalf of MMAC, the Sunflower Festival and Turner Inn

Sunflowers around the world: Montana

A Sea of Sunflowers
Originally uploaded by Stuck in Customs

I meant to cover a few more ultramar sunflowers before returning stateside, but this image, "A Sea of Sunflowers," taken at sunset between Butte & Bozeman caught my eye and wouldn't let go of it.

Treat your visual apparatus to more photos by stuckincustoms (Trey Ratcliffe, who describes himself as "gentleman explorer transported from the old world to a new age") and at his wide ranging & award winning travel photoblog.