New art in town

We've been waiting months for this grand opening!

TwoBoo, The Boy and I invited my neighbor and her little people to the opening of the new Schack Art Center. It's got like forty different kinds of awesome inside: a hot shop for glass blowing...

student and professional exhibit space...

and of course rooms for community art classes, which The Boy loves.

Even TwoBoo was willing to scribble a little...

when he wasn't daring me to turn my head while he was near the cookie table. I also invited my neighbor Christi, to help her get over the terror of caring for a two-year-old and a newborn alone, all day, for the first time.

She's still standing!

The Schack, as they're calling it, is the new home for the organization-formerly-known-as-the-Arts-Council-of-Snohomish-County and its various offerings.

I did try to look a little closer at the latest exhibit, "The Nature of Glass."

 

But I had to let some woman with a really shaky hand take all the photos. Plus TwoBoo wanted to dash off to play with the invitingly fragile glass balls, so it was a little hard for me her to get everything.

Did you survive the sugar crash of 2011?

I guess I'm still making the transition from recipient-of-holiday-cheer to giver of same.

This is only the second holiday that I've gotten more organized and motivated to decorate for various holidays.

I don't know if I'd've bothered to paint Easter-themed silhouettes on wooden eggs (thanks, Urban Comfort!) if it were just for me and The Husband. But now that The Boy and TwoBoo are now old enough to get excited about the candy the festivities...

I remember all the work my mom put into giving me holiday memories. So even though I still waited until the last minute to put together the Easter baskets and paint the eggs, I did get them done. Even with the prospect of two guaranteed sugar highs and crashes in our future.

Good idea for working off the sugar high: chase soap bubbles outside. Also: try to give the older one a cold so he wants to sit down and read or watch tv during the sugar crash.

I don't know if I'll ever be ready to make Easter dinner... the idea of holiday cooking still gives me hives. But I'm thinking ahead for the next major holiday. Who wants to invite me and the family over for Independence Day? We'll The Husband will bring a side dish, I promise!

Random bits of Artfest

I tend to notice the absence of things quickly, sometimes before I even see what's present. This kind of perspective has an obvious downside, but the upside is that I notice people and things that get overlooked. Like at my first Artfest: I noticed there were like six African-Americans in the whole 500+ group of attendees.

But scarcity of men at art retreats was so obvious that I barely paid it any attention at first. As I put it to a friend, if you're going to Artfest to pick up guys after class, you will be sorely disappointed. No, if they're there, they've teaching.

Or they've been pressed into service hauling or vending stuff. Maybe they hang out in town while the wife/girlfriend is making art. You can count the number of guys on one hand who are actually there to take a class. Really, how many guys do you know who go to any kind of retreat not related to work or maaaaybe church?

But this year I found an interesting perspective from Chad Goodson, who was in my Strange Angels class. He and his wife Jessica Herman Goodson ate lunch with us, and I overheard a snippet of their conversation. So I pestered him about it:

What do you think? The estrogen is pretty thick at art retreats. Do you think things would be the same if the ratio were about 50-50 (60-40, whatever) women to men? Would you want it that way? Or would you miss the just-us-girls vibe?