An artist friend, Johanna Spinks, recently posted a new painting on her Facebook profile. It’s a wonderfully delicate painting of a young boy, around the age of 4 or 5. He is gazing upwards with a look of AWE in his eyes — his mouth is slightly open. She has titled it “WONDERMENT” and I responded… “Wonderment is right. Makes me wonder myself about what he is wondering about. A puppy? Chocolate cake? a new BB gun? He has bright eyes for sure…” She replied back “Rich, I leave the wondering “decision” up to you…” NICE!   —    well, I’m still wondering.

So, we all have decisions to make every moment. Decisions about WHAT we see and how to respond to it. Every person that looks at a flower or face … friend or foe … or looks at a painting, or watches a dramatic theater production, listens to a string orchestra, walks around a beautifully sculpted garden or experiences or creates any other form of artwork, makes decisions about their responses.

I have sometimes challenged others to pause for a short moment in their daily grind, and take notice of something that they do not normally see. Perhaps to look at a small “flower” that is among the weeds… Maybe a lone leaf that falls from a winter Aspen tree, maybe the way a mother lovingly holds the hand of her 2 year-old running beside her at the mall. Creativity is to discover what you would not otherwise see.

I remember something that happened to me at the mall a long time ago. I even wrote about it on my personal blog… It was about a day that I received a gift from somewhere beyond me. The gift was a heightened sense of awareness. I was eager to experience it before it faded away — Like an enhanced sense of touch; it seemed to bring everything closer. I sat on a bench and watched a mother walking by holding an infant and could feel the thick love that the child had for her mother. I walked into a kid’s toy store and went through the too-small-for-grown-ups door like I was Alice chasing the rabbit into Wonderland. The simplest of toys brought such amusement to me, it was like being 5 years old again, filled with wonderment. In this short wrinkle of time, the folds of the universe had come closer for me to observe. I departed the toy store and continued my journey of sights and sound that rippled with life unaware.

All around the Conejo Valley, there are these ripples of life that touch every corner. You all are part of what is making these ripples in our community… and sometimes, even waves. We continue being the “Voice of the Arts”, so our emerging leaders – our poets, prophets, painters and performers – have their own “Aha!” moments of wonderment. With our example, leadership and support, they are the change our community and our world needs.

Peace,
Rich Brimer
ACCV President

I would also like to mention a couple art exhibitions that the Arts Council of the Conejo Valley is currently sponsoring. First I would like to announce “New Works: ACCV & Friends” in The Galleria at the Hillcrest Center for the Arts from May 6th through June 30th, 2010. There fourteen participating artists this year. Please join us at the Artists’ Reception on Saturday, June 12th, from 4-6 pm. At this event, we will be saying goodbye to a couple of our current board members, while at the same time, I am excited that I be installing some new ones.

Second is the ACCV juried show, May ArtFest. Dates for this show will be May 1st through May 30th, 2010. May ArtFest is in the Thousand Oaks Community Gallery, 2331-A Borchard Road in Newbury Park. Thanks to Dorothy Hage for all her work pulling this show and also our annual student show “Hang with the Best” together. Be sure to see this show and also join us for the Awards Reception on May 16th from 3-5 pm.

Enjoy your summer with performances and works of art.

Peace,

Rich Brimer
President and CEO
Arts Council of the Conejo Valley
Rich@ConejoArts.org

The Arts Council of the Conejo Valley, “The Voice of the Arts”, presents an art exhibit, New Works: ACCV & Friends, in The Galleria at the Hillcrest Center for the Arts from May 6- June 30, 2010. An Artists’ Reception will be Saturday, June 12th, from 4-6 pm, and is open to the public, free of charge. The Hillcrest Center is located at 403 W Hillcrest Drive, Thousand Oaks, 91360. Co-curators for the show are Thousand Oaks artists, Janet Amiri and Connie Tunick.

The fourteen participating artists in this invitational show are members and board members of the Arts Council of the Conejo Valley, “The Voice of the Arts.” Paintings of all media and sculptures will be included.

Among the exhibiting artists are Michael Lynn Adams, Janet Amiri, Juliette Chayet-Cole, Ann Mathias, Bob Noonan, and Connie Tunick, all of Thousand Oaks; Theodora Ilowitz of Newbury Park; Rich Brimer and Phyl Doyon of Camarillo; Judy Koenig from Simi Valley; and Westlake Village artists are Diane Darakjian, Gordon Durich, Kathrin Raab Questenberg, and Geri Schonberg.

The show can be viewed daily from 9 am until 5 pm. Admission is free. 

Upcoming Film Studio Series- ‘Basquiat’

Friday, May 28th, 2010 at 7:30 pm

Rated R, Drama

Director: Julian Schnabel

Film will begin at 7:45 sharp

FREE of charge, donations are accepted

Due to limited studio seating, please bring own foldable chair

Snacks will be available

The real challenge comes when graduating from those organized class times along with rehearsal and performance schedules. How do we keep their interest in music alive? I urge families to encourage and support their performing children to pursue the skills and experiences of learning, improving and developing their musical talents. Advanced music education gives students skills to enjoy and participate in more advanced performances.  Also, attending professional and community musical performances encourages them as they see what can be. We all need something to go after… a prize if you will. The allure of possibility can be enough to set trajectory of a students future of success.

The All-District Music Festival will begin in the Kavli Theater at the Civic Arts Plaza at the end of April and continuing into May. I am excited to see all of the encouragement and support the students get by this opportunity to play in such a great facility. My hat’s off to all the parents who manage to work through renting and purchasing expensive instruments, listening to their children practicing at home and encouraging them to continue when their friends want to play. Discipline is rewarding to those who push through. Keep an eye out on our website for exact dates for the Festival so you can be sure to support our student musicians.

Peace,

Rich Brimer
President and CEO
Arts Council of the Conejo Valley
Rich@ConejoArts.org

The climate in the arts world is pretty chilly these days as well. Requests for Proposals (RFPs) are down. Foundation grants are becoming less available. Arts organizations are closing their doors for good at an unprecedented rate. These can be looked at as some dreary days. However, I would like to say that this is a time of great opportunity. Let’s put our collective chin up and make the best of it.

Things are actually looking up.

• In October, the U.S. House and Senate passed a budget increase for the National Endowment for the Arts and for the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Interior Appropriations Bill for fiscal year 2010 sets budgets for each agency at $167.5 million, up $12.5 million from last year
• The California State Assembly is working on passing AB 700 which will funnel an estimated $25 Million dollars annually in current sales tax dollars into a fund to provide grants to municipalities and arts organizations.

• ArtsLIVE is in it’s second year of providing grants totaling over $120,000 on a local level to individual artists and arts organizations who are engaged in Performing and Traditional & Folk arts.

• ACCV Membership is up over the past two years. Patrons continue to join and support the Voice of the Arts as we partner with arts organizations, artists and individuals to strengthen the cultural community of the Conejo Valley region.

Now is a great time for all of us who are engaging culture, to speak up and renounce the tide of pessimism. If we stand together and hold fast, we can continue to rally support for the important arts organizations in our community. We must continue to attend events and donate our time and money to the efforts of those that continue to thrive and others who are struggling to survive.

Please continue to the hard yet fulfilling work. Find an event to watch or participate in. Simply go to our website at http://conejoarts.org/events to find many upcoming events to be inspired by.

Peace,

Rich Brimer
President and CEO
Arts Council of the Conejo Valley
Rich@ConejoArts.org

The bill must advance out of the Appropriations Committee in January when the legislature reconvenes. We need to flood the bill’s author, Assembly Assistant Majority Leader Paul Krekorian with hundreds of letters of support over the next month to build momentum for the vote in January.

Simply download this sample support letter here in the MS Word format, fill in your personal details, print on your letterhead, and fax it. With over 4500 non-profit arts organizations in the state, we can overwhelm Sacramento with an immense wave of letters. If you wait until January to communicate your support, it will be too late.
TAKE ACTION NOW! Fax Assembly Member Paul Krekorian at (916) 319-2143 and fax copies to CAA at (415) 430-1145 and CAA lobbyist Kathy Lynch at (916) 443-7353. Click herefor the sample support letter and fax it to be counted amongst those already supporting AB 700!

Bringing it all home.
My middle daughter Hannah is a senior at Royal High School in Simi Valley. In a recent English assignment, she was asked to write a personal statement. In it, she talks about a week-long summer retreat that she went on to serve families affected by disabilities. The camper she was assigned to was a young boy with Down’s syndrome. She writes,

“As the families began to arrive, I stood with my camera ready to capture the first glimpse of Brycen… I picked it up held it to my right eye, my pointer finger on the button, and I stood there in amazement with a new perspective.” She concludes with, “I hope that with my photography I can touch the lives of people who are uneducated on social matters around the world. If I can capture just one moment-in-time that others would not have seen, but that could change their outlook on life, it will be the accomplishment of a lifetime. I want my art to change lives as it has changed mine.”

When I read that, it was my own “Aha!” moment – a moment that made me understand that both her upbringing and her education gave her the gift to want to make a difference – through art.

Where am I going with this? OK, it’s actually all about the kids. Our schools are full of students with “the-sky’s-the-limit” potential. They are like the sculptures called “The Captives.” These unfinished works of Michelangelo are caught at a point where they are emerging from the stone that they have been encased in from the beginning of time. The sculptor saw in them something that no other did… he slowly revealed the figures, but stopped short of completing the task. Arms and legs emerge from rough marble. They are struggling to free themselves. Like Hannah’s photos, they are a snapshot frozen in time. We can see the potential of the now, and the yet-to-come. Michelangelo saw in them this potential. Each student in our schools is filled with this same potential that must be nurtured, lest they be left behind like Michelangelo’s unfinished works.

Sadly, the photography program at Hannah’s school has been canceled this year due to budget cuts. We must continue to support the arts in our schools and help these emerging artists and musicians to be complete in their education. One of the things I am most proud of is ACCV’s sponsorship of the educational music programs in the Conejo Valley. We are working hard to continue funding for this program and to develop more. Please support the Arts Council of the Conejo Valley. We continue being the “Voice of the Arts”, so our emerging leaders – our poets, prophets, painters and performers – have their own “Aha!”

Peace,
Rich Brimer
President and CEO
Arts Council of the Conejo Valley
Rich@ConejoArts.org