A LOOK BACK AT ARTS EVENTS IN 1998 | |
|
The Vermont Youth Orchestra heated up Franklin County
last January with the lively music of George Gershwin and Aaron Copland. They will return in
May. The Rotary Club of St Albans invited AAC artists to exhibit fine art at the Home Expo. Our display filled both handball courts of the Collins Perley Sports Complex with fine oil and watercolor paintings, digital art, sculpture, and photography by Franklin County artists. The exhibit also featured newspaper photographs in a display entitled Newspaper Art, and a special exhibit of artists in the Northern Vermont Arts Association. With over 12,000 visitors, this juried show is our premier gallery event. BFA students and the AAC presented Ice Jam, a small benefit concert for the American Red Cross. 93 Strings, the acclaimed VSO harp duo, presented six workshops and concerts in schools around Franklin County, including a stunning performance at the Opera House at Enosburg Falls. The AAC had a sampler of Franklin County fine art at the Specialty Foods exhibit during the Maple Festival. The new All Arts Gallery at the Gift Gallery opened in April with display space for two and three dimensional pieces. April is National Poetry month, so WWSR-AM 1420 and the AAC sponsored a live Poetry Read-In on the air. The readings included works from well known poets such as Maya Angelou or Robert Frost as well as spring poems by local writers and are repeated periodically. The Cambridge Arts Council and the AAC cosponsored an Evening Big Band Music at the Fletcher Union Meeting House. The audience enjoyed a newly refinished dance floor, a free ballroom dancing workshop before the concert, and delicious refreshments. Anne and I danced the night away. Claire Hungerford presented an Afternoon with Schubert and Friends, a benefit recital we hope she will repeat. The third annual Arts and Eats Festival at Hamlen's Garden Center had a floral motif (floral paintings, sculptures, and arrangements) and was our first competition. Celeste Pecor won first place with Eternal Iris. Second place went to Josh Derner for Grandmother's Garden, while Del Bransfield won third place in his first show with a wood carved, framed flower. Summer Sounds '98 expand again with free concerts every other Sunday in Highgate and St Albans, bonus concerts in Franklin, and Richford, plus a new series in Enosburg. The series featured 8084, Abair Brothers, Anderson-Gram, Banjo Dan and the Midnight Plowboys, Lisa Brande/Three Way Street, Catamount Pipes and Atlantic Crossing, Constitution Brass, Enosburg Town Band, Fairfax-Fletcher-Westford Band, Jon Gailmor, Rik Palieri, Nobby Reed, Southbound, Stockwell Brothers, Wood's Tea Company, and Yankee Pot Roast. The 1999 lineup will again include old favorites and new groups in blues, bluegrass, country, opera, pop, and a little rock and roll. The Bethany Foundation and the AAC presented Summer Stage, a three-day workshop for actors age 11-18. This intense residency let kids work on the stage at MVU with Broadway performers and actors from recently released films. The long promised AAC summer party offered up a pot luck day of music, fun, and elbow bending with Franklin County's arts community at the Cohen Park in St Albans Town. If you weren't there (and many people were not), you missed a lot of free food at the social event of the season. The first Bakersfield Bash featured an AAC Fine Arts Show against the stunning mountainous landscape. Teens made art and history again in Franklin County as Americorps volunteers, Caring Community members, the New Connections Youth Services, and the AAC on murals painted in Houghton Skate Park, the Fairfield Community Center, the Marble Mill Park in Swanton, and at the Family Center in St Albans AAC vice chair Natalie LaRocque-Bouchard developed and perfected the projection technique the young artists used The VSO returned to St Albans with a program of Mozart, Thomas Read, and Tchaikovsky. There were excellent town band, town chorus, as well as school concerts throughout the year. Fine art was on exhibit throughout the county in restaurants, banks, businesses, libraries such as the A.A. Brown Public Library, and on the walls of the Northwestern Medical Center. The Vermont Good Time Country Music Club made its St Albans debut with a honky tonk band for singing, dancing, and playing along. The alcohol free, non-competitive club plays monthly. The Franklin Northeast Visual Art Teachers organized an art show and contest for all students in the FNESU in the Opera House at Enosburg Falls. This show attracted over 100 excellent pieces and will be repeated in 1999. In a series on art in Franklin County schools, we looked at fine arts programs that cover two and three dimensional art plus concert, band, and choral music. Prose, poetry, and literature are taught as individual courses and integrated throughout in the 20 schools in Franklin County. Our monthly "networking" meetings included show and tell by various artists, impromptu musical gigs, some business opportunities, and workshops. AAC members meet the first Thursday of every month at the Collins-Perley Sports Center. | |
A LOOK AHEAD AT ARTS EVENTS FOR 1999 | |
|
The AAC will publish a new Arts/First Register of
professionals in the literary, media, performing, and visual arts, plus cultural events and other
local resources. It will include brief biographies, images, historical resources, cultural centers
and performing spaces, and regular calendar updates. A matching Internet catalog will include
the same biographies and resources, additional images, and an events calendar with easy access
for all local community groups to post events. Every artist, dancer, musician, photographer, sculptor, theater person, and writer living in Franklin or Grand Isle County is eligible. The artist's work must be available for sale, performance, or exhibit. Listings are free. The 85 member Vermont Youth Orchestra returns to the MVU theater in Highgate in May. 93 Strings will present a new series of workshops and concerts in schools around Franklin County. Summer Sounds '99 will expand again this year with free concerts every other Sunday in Highgate and St Albans, bonus concerts in Franklin, and Richford, a series in Enosburg, and, we hope, an additional Franklin County town. The lineup will include old favorites and new groups in blues, bluegrass, country, opera, pop, and a little rock and roll. We hope to initiate a new touring Town Band concert series for weekday summer evenings and to help the theater companies put on a touring series of one-act plays around the county. The AAC will sponsor a Franklin County student for the summer Governor's Institute in the Arts. The Bethany's Children Foundation and the AAC will broaden and rename Summer Stage into a weeklong theater workshop for actors age 11-18. This intense residency will let kids work on the stage at MVU with choreographers, Broadway performers, and film actors in July. Call Marilyn Bish (933-5207) for details ArTrain, a Smithsonian Institution traveling museum, will bring the works of Luiz Cruz Azaceta, Alexander Calder, Willem de Kooning, Georgia O'Keefe, Mindy Weisel, and many more, to St Albans in October. This will also be our premier galler show of 1999,with major exhibit space for about two dozen AAC artists. The AAC will also build on several popular events, including the annual Arts and Eats Festival (June 12 at Hamlen's Garden Center), classical recitals, another outdoor show at the Bakersfield Bash, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra in concert in St Albans, a Franklin County-wide Holiday Crafts and Fine Art Tour in November, and ArtsAuction '99. Our monthly "networking" meetings always include show and tell by various artists, impromptu musical gigs, some business opportunities, and workshops for artists in all genres. We have planned workshops such as photographing your work (tonight), appraising and valuing your work for sale; copyright law; matting and framing; how-to market artwork and music; publishing and more. AAC members meet the first Thursday of every month at the Collins-Perley Sports Center. Talk of a new outdoor performing arts center percolated to the surface in three towns last fall. Look for more serious discussions this year. If you want to participate in the planning, or talk to your Selectboard. The Rotary Club of St Albans declined to invite AAC artists to the Home Expo. Many attendees were disappointed. | |
| The Fine Print ALL ARTS COUNCIL OF FRANKLIN COUNTY 1998 FINANCIAL REPORT Income/Expense by Category |
|||
| INCOME/EXPENSE | |||
| INCOME | |||
| Admissions | 1,221 | ||
| Advertising | 60 | ||
| Membership Dues | 565 | ||
| Earned Income | |||
| Concessions, product sales, etc | 73 | ||
| 50-50s etc | 240 | ||
| Entry fees or tuition for workshops, shows, etc | 2,005 | ||
| Grants Received | |||
| Local Town appropriations or gift | 4,800 | ||
| Private Foundations | 3,800 | ||
| Sponsorships | |||
| Corporate Sponsors | 5,835 | ||
| Other sponsor | 55 | ||
| TOTAL INCOME | 18,654 | ||
| EXPENSES | |||
| General Fund for AAC | 17 | ||
| Awards or Prize given in shows | 285 | ||
| Capital Equipment | 22 | ||
| Grant from AAC to other organizations | 400 | ||
| Hospitality for performers | 334 | ||
| Marketing: Advertising & promotion | 1,803 | ||
| Miscellaneous Office Exp | 435 | ||
| Other Presenting Expenses | 155 | ||
| Performer's fees | 12,867 | ||
| Theater or hall expense or Space Rental | 532 | ||
| Technical and Production salaries, fees | 1,387 | ||
| Other Expenses | 0 | ||
| TOTAL EXPENSES | 18,237 | ||
| TOTAL INCOME/EXPENSE | 417 | ||
| |
|||
| Profit & Loss by Project
1/ 1/98 Through 12/31/98 |
|||
| PROJECTS | |||
| Arts & Eats | 0 | ||
| General Fund for AAC | (232) | ||
| ArtsBoost Grants | (300) | ||
| Coop Projects with Cambridge Arts Council | (179) | ||
| Crafts and Fine Arts Show | (25) | ||
| All other exhibits & shows | (175) | ||
| Ice Jam | 68 | ||
| Miscellaneous Programs | (223) | ||
| AAC Newsletter | 58 | ||
| Summer Stage | 265 | ||
| Summer Sounds | |||
| Highgate | 576 | ||
| Enosburg, Franklin, Richford | 9 | ||
| St Albans | 742 | ||
| Vermont Youth Orchestra Benefit | (167) | ||
| Other | 0 | ||
| OVERALL TOTAL | 417 | ||
| More Fine Print
ALL ARTS COUNCIL OF FRANKLIN COUNTY 1999-2000 BUDGET | ||||
| Income/Expense by Category | ||||
| 1999 | 2000 | |||
| INCOME | ||||
| Admissions | 1,221 | 1,343 | ||
| Advertising | 7,560 | 66 | ||
| Membership Dues | 565 | 622 | ||
| Earned Income | 3,318 | 2,550 | ||
| Grants Received | 22,450 | 9,460 | ||
| Sponsorships | 17,040 | 10,479 | ||
| TOTAL INCOME | 52,154 | 24,520 | ||
| EXPENSES | ||||
| General Fund for AAC | 17 | 19 | ||
| Awards or Prize given in shows | 285 | 314 | ||
| Capital Equipment | 22 | 24 | ||
| Grant from AAC to other organizations | 400 | 440 | ||
| Hospitality for performers | 534 | 368 | ||
| Marketing: Advertising & promotion | 3,953 | 1,983 | ||
| Miscellaneous Office Exp | 435 | 478 | ||
| Other Presenting Expenses | 155 | 171 | ||
| Performer's fees | 14,117 | 14,154 | ||
| Theater or hall expense or Space Rental | 1,612 | 585 | ||
| Technical and Production salaries, fees | 20,137 | 1,526 | ||
| ArTrain Fees/Expenses | 7,600 | 0 | ||
| Other Expenses | 1,420 | 0 | ||
| TOTAL EXPENSES | 50,687 | 23,485 | ||
| TOTAL INCOME/EXPENSE | 1,467 | 1,035 | ||