For those of you tracking John Fisher, after completing the Three Ages of Woman for the Art Center, John traveled to Yucca Valley, California to create a marble sculpture for the local arts council. He was given the theme, people helping people, and titled the sculpture, Together We Can.

"I had a great time," he writes, "I was hosted by Eric Mueller and the Water Canyon, the local coffee shop where there was live music every night of the week. The township and the local Arts Council were thrilled with the sculpture which is being temporarily kept in the county library."

Together We Can

THANKSGIVING ARTS & CRAFTS FAIR
Saturday & Sunday, November 23 & 24, 10 am - 5 pm

In what has become a north coast tradition, over Thanksgiving weekend the Mendocino Art Center transforms its galleries and workshop studios into a two-day holiday marketplace, providing a pleasant alternative to hectic and stressful mall shopping. Over 40 Northern California juried artists and craftspeople will showcase a wide array of quality, handmade original artwork, including glass works, jewelry, paintings, photography, ceramics, sculptural work, wearable fiber art, local art books and more.

The fair will also include a food court serving an assortment of yummy items, a selection of Mendocino County beer and wine, a special recipe mulled wine, and Jennie Zacha's traditional blackberry sundaes.

And, after Thanksgiving weekend, the Art Center's Gallery Shop will be open Wednesdays through Sundays, 10 am - 5 pm. The Gallery Shop features locally handcrafted inventory and consignment art from dozens of accomplished Northern California artists. Visit our Gallery Shop page for a sampling of great gift ideas.

I'm taking advantage of my position as the webmistress and blogger-in-chief to invite friends and supporters of the Mendocino Art Center to come out in support of the literary arts this coming Wednesday. The literary arts are one of the few forms of artistic expression that have little representation at the Art Center, but being a writer, I hope that will change in the not too distant future. The Mendocino Arts magazine, of course, reflects the power of a well-turned phrase, but I'm hoping that eventually the Art Center will engage the literary arts with the same professional intensity they do the visual arts.

The Mendocino Coast is remarkable for many reasons, one of which is the great number of truly talented artists who make this region their home, and that's as true for writers as well. There's a well-established community that hosts the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference every summer and meets regularly throughout the rest of the year to sharpen their craft. This merry band of authors is led by the intrepid and brilliant novelist Charlotte Gullick, the Director of the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference. We are the folks who will be reading at Good Words this coming Wednesday—I say "we," because I will be there. I'll be reading a very brief excerpt from my soon to be published, first novel, Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein. A lot of other charming, funny, brilliant and entertaining writers will be there too.  So we hope you'll come out and lend your support. The venue is small, the evening informal and the words.... well, they're Good.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to congratulate Mendocino Coast poet, Barbara MacKay, who just had a poem accepted into the Look of Love literary exhibit being sponsored by the Northwest Cultural Council of Bloomington, Illinois. Barbara will be reading at Good Words. Her winning poem was called, If I Could.

If I Could

I would choose to be a stowaway
on a tramp steamer going anywhere.
I would travel everywhere around the globe
stopping at this or that port, here and there.

My horizon would be unlimited, as vast
as the universe, and I would visit each star,
the moons of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn,
to you I would never return.

But oh my love you hold me tight and fast.
I am becalmed as is the fly in a spiders nest.
You are my universe, my sun, my moon,
so I hug the shore and give up all the rest.

—Barbara MacKay



Hope to see you there: Wednesday, November 14, 6-8pm,
The Fort Bragg Library, 499 Laurel Street, Fort Bragg.

As the temperatures cool and the skies turn gray on the Mendocino Coast, the Mendocino Art Center has scheduled 20 fun-filled, creative workshops and open studios to warm up any blustery winter weekend or brighten any dark, foggy evening. One-day, two-day and weekly courses in ceramics, digital arts, fine art, jewelry and textiles, as well as young artist activities, begin December 1 and run through mid-March.

Adult workshops include clay throwing on the wheel, hand built ceramics, Internet basics, Photoshop, painting in soft pastels, Valentine book arts, jewelry stone setting, weaving, dyeing and paper sculpture with mushrooms, and silk painting, as well as many other activities. Seven on-going, low cost open studies will continue through the winter months on a drop-in basis. Learn or sharpen your skills in digital camera and basic photoshop, watercolor, figure drawing, surface design, jewelry fabrication, sculpture and figurative sculpture.

Girls, five to 11, and any mothers who would like to join, will enjoy "The Magical Tea Party," Sunday, January 20, 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Participants will set up a tearoom and dress up in costumes, masks, painted faces and fancy hats for a magical tea party.

Discount Program for Mendocino County Residents
All Mendocino County residents who are also Art Center members are eligible for the local stand-by enrollment program. A $25 deposit on any workshop will reserve space on a stand-by basis. If space is available two weeks before the workshop begins, registration will be confirmed at 50 percent of the regular rate. The deposit is refundable if the class fills.

Visit the winter workshops page for a complete schedule and course descriptions or call 707-937-5818 (toll free 1-800-653-3328) to request a free winter workshop catalog.

ECONOMIC REALITIES – Emergency Funds Needed
A Word from Executive Director Peggy Templer

Please help us ride out these trying times. The economy is not healthy, and the Mendocino Art Center has certainly felt the fallout from the fact that we live in financially discouraging times. WE NEED YOU, MORE THAN EVER. People are not traveling as much, not spending as much money on recreational and luxury items. They don’t have the same amounts of discretionary time and money that they have had in years past. The result, for the Mendocino Art Center and many comparable organizations, is less revenue from tuition, from art sales, and from lodging. People are also behaving differently: not making long range plans, deciding things on the spur of the moment, signing up and then dropping out in record numbers. All of this makes life very challenging for us.  

There are other challenges as well. There has been a real proliferation of non-profit organizations on the Mendocino Coast, all competing for the same donor dollars. Grants have become very difficult to get; we are “outside the geographical funding area” for many grantors, and foundations that formerly gave grants to small organizations are now opting to grant to larger umbrella organizations instead, such as the Community Foundation. Finally, as an arts organization we have an especially difficult task.  There is a very high “feel good quotient” when giving to organizations that help the needy (Habitat for Humanity), help the sick (Hospital Foundation), help animals (the Humane Society), help the environment (Mendocino Land Trust), help children (Mendocino Children’s Fund); there seems to be less of that feel good sensation when donating to arts organizations. If any of you are feeling that way, I suggest you come by and watch any of the 1,000+ schoolchildren who come here for free art instruction, or watch what goes on in our workshops for adults, as students experience inspiration and find their creative passions. It quickly becomes obvious how important “art” is to the overall well being of young, old, and everyone in between.

A rule of thumb for non-profits is that 50% of budgeted revenue should come from donations. As of the end of August, donations and memberships accounted for just 5% of our revenue (straight donations were only 1.9%). The Art Center cannot sustain itself with those types of figures. WE NEED YOU, MORE THAN EVER. Please consider a donation or a membership. If you have donated before, or are a current member, please consider giving at a higher level. Please help us ride out these trying times. We appreciate in advance your recognition of the importance of the arts to our children, and to our society, culture, and community.

Click here to make an online donation