Everyone is invited to these free public events. Here’s the list of places I’ll be talking about, demonstrating, and showing art this fall in Rancho Cordova, California.

Artist Workshop at the MACC (Mills Station Arts & Culture Center, 10191 Mills Station Road, Rancho Cordova). Saturday, September 22, 2018, from 10am to 2pm. Bring your art supplies and a brown bag lunch! We’ll be working on our 6” X 6” art to be donated to the Rancho Cordova Arts’ first fundraiser! We’ll also be answering questions for those who are considering submitting their art for jurying to the Holiday Pop-Up Gallery this year. And, saving the best for last, we’ll be upping our skills in the art of critique. Learn new ways to look at your art-in-progress to make better art! More information at www.RanchoCordovaArts.org.

Micro-Masterpieces: 6”X6” Fundraiser. Rancho Cordova City Hall, 2729 Prospect Park Drive, Rancho Cordova. Thursday, November 1, 2018 from 5:30pm to 7:30pm. Bring your friends! We’ll have lots of 6” X 6” art available for you to purchase - each for only $20 each! All proceeds go to support Rancho Cordova Arts’ purpose of promoting and developing the visual arts in Rancho Cordova. Come early! If you’d like to donate a piece of art, art intake is Thursday, October 25th at City Hall from 11am to 6pm. We accept all donations! Art entry form is in the ‘Call for Artists’ page at www.RanchoCordovaArts.org.

Holiday Craft Boutique. Rancho Cordova City Hall - Thursday, November 15th from 5pm to 7:30pm. I’ll be offering my blank art cards for sale, and there are plenty of other vendors with wonderful, hand-crafted gifts.

Holiday Pop-Up Art Gallery at the MACC (Mills Station Arts & Culture Center, 10191 Mills Station Road, Rancho Cordova). Three 3-day weekends - Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 11am to 7pm from November 23rd to December 9th. This is year is bigger and better than ever. We’re filling both floors of the MACC with more artists and more art! Art receptions start at noon on Saturdays, November 24 and December 1st. We’ll post a schedule of the live music and art demonstrations this fall at www.RanchoCordovaArts.org. If you would like to be juried into the gallery, see the ‘Calls for Artists’ page on www.RanchoCordovaArts.org.

If you’re an artist or a lover of art, I encourage you to check out the benefits of joining Rancho Cordova Arts, then Join Us! We have our 501(c)(3) status, so all donations and memberships are tax deductible. Together, we will turn our dream of making Rancho Cordova into an arts destination a reality! The best is yet to come!

I've been wondering when I'd be getting around to updating my blog, much less, make some art! Well, yesterday I finished the third and final deliverable for the City of Rancho Cordova's Community Enhancement Grant for Visual Arts Capacity-Building. And now - I'm doing my happy dance!

For five years, Cordova Community Council (CCC) has gathered local artists together, brought them educational speakers, engaged them as volunteers in the quarterly juried art shows at City Hall, given them opportunities to show their work (Brushes & Brews, Holiday Pop-Up Gallery), and encouraged them to involve the community in art activities by piggybacking on their events (Kids' Day, International Festival, 4th of July). The artists have been an informal group, working together when called to, and casually learning new art techniques from each other.

And now we're our own organization! One of the things that CCC does is 'incubate' non-profits for the purpose of enriching Rancho Cordova. The civic band and the civic orchestra flew out of the nest first, and we've just done the same. We are now a public benefit non-profit corporation in California, and yesterday, we applied to be a 501(c)3 entity under federal law.

CCC secured the Community Enhancement Grant for us to do three things: incorporate, build a website, and send our newsletter. And now we've done it! Here's the link: www.RanchoCordovaArts.org . The newsletter is in there, too.

What's more, the board of directors will be deciding on a calendar of events - workshops, public demonstrations, and art shows for our first year - soon! I'm so grateful for all the people who have worked so hard to bring this together! Going forward, we'll be busy promoting the visual arts and developing artist skills.

I dream that some day, when this city of some 70,000 will become 300,000+, that Rancho Cordova will have the enriched environment that my hometown of Seattle has now - lots of art events and art-filled public spaces. Stay tuned! The best is yet to come!

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