The Arts Council Windsor & Region is looking for your promotional materials (postcards, business cards, catalogues) to distribute at Art in the Park. This year, the Arts Council Windsor & Region will be providing visitors with as much information about our vibrant arts community as possible!

Whether you’re a visual artist, theatre company, musician, craftsperson, or clothing designer, drop off your promotional material before June 1, 2011 so that we can distribute it at Art in thePark.

You can bring your promotional materials to our office at 1942 Wyandotte Street East. Please note, we cannot accept any artwork — only promotional materials, please.

Photography by Kelly Reyes

During this years March break events, the Arts Council Windsor and Region partnered with the Windsor Community Museum and Windsor Magic Circle Ring 116.

Those who attended had the opportunity to learn magic while having fun, two themes that were easy to combine. The children explored the wonders of magic at the Windsor
Community Museum in downtown Windsor which is also currently hosting a history of the Magic Circle Ring 116 Exhibit.

Photography by Kelly Reyes

It is there the children learned to incorporate the fun of learning the steps and performing magic tricks taught by local magicians and ended the week with an exciting Magic show that was open to the community.

Thanks to all who attented!

Magicians and Magic
Garett Spencley – Card Illusions
Brad Toulous – Cups and Balls
Wendy Garant, Elizabeth Prosser – Balloon Creations
Elizabeth Prosser – Science and Magic

On March 30th, 2011 at 7pm at Phog Lounge we’re launching a brand new initiative aimed at getting artists together and funding new projects!

That’s not all though…

Every few months, we’ll also host an event called CAAASH (Community Art Awards Around Social Hour). You’ve heard of this before — think about FEAST, SOUP, and Phog Philanthropy — basically, micro-grants for artists.

The goal is simple: help artists connect with one another and fund their projects.

At CAAASH, artists will be invited to make a 5-minute grant pitch. At the end of the night, everyone will be invited to participate in a silent vote, and the winner(s) will walk away with the cash that night. And the $5 cover charge at every Think&Drink builds the grant money pot and 100% of it gets handed over to the winning artist(s).

If you’re reading this, you’re invited. Visual Artists, Musicians, Performing Artists, Designers, Filmmakers, we want to see you there!!!

Looking for some last minute, artistic gift ideas? The Arts Council Windsor & Region’s annual Holiday Show is going on now and features work from several local artists.

The show features decorated Christmas stockings by artist Elizabeth Prosser, the canvas works of Michelle Chappus, classic graphite pencil drawings by Jeanette Marshall, Rashmi Dadwal’s icon series, bead necklaces crafted by Ann Spadafora, a decorative, hand-made chess set by Lori Lorimer, an amazingly colourful canvas piece entitled “Together” by Vasilica Dumitriu, copies of the book “Memoirs of a Border City” by master photographer Spike Bell, hand-made art magnets and glass bowls by Julie Bell, photographs of Route 66 by photographer Sandi Wheaton, crystal bracelets by Artyzen Designs, the photographic works of Jamie Baxter, illustrations by Piera Rock and three strikingly accurate paintings of Windsor landmarks Jackson Park, Yorktown Square and the Ambassador Bridge by artist Gulnaz Turdalieva.

The Holiday show runs until Christmas, and you can drop in until December 22nd between 1pm-5pm. Artspeak Gallery is located at 1942 Wyandotte Street East.
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A Declaration of loss
Today we stand together. Today we stand in silence. Today we mourn the loss of painters, photographers, dancers, printers, actors, filmmakers, singers, choreographers, poets, sculptors, musicians, designers all the artists who have died of AIDS. Today we collectively grieve the loss of future work from recognized artists, as well as the absence of countless artists yet to be. Today we declare our loss.

December 1 is a Day without Art, an international day of observance which focuses attention on the profound impact AIDS has had on artists and the world arts community. Since 1990, each year an increasing number of galleries, theatres, artist groups and individuals have participated in a vast array of commemorative events. Day without Art celebrates the lives of colleagues and friends while mourning their loss in our creative communities.

Activities/commemorations include: gallery closings; shroudings of public art; special art exhibitions; distribution of commemorative pins and handbills; candle light vigils; announcements on CJAM 99.1 fm; information campaigns; and charitable contributions.

2010 DWA Collective:
Actors Theatre Windsor
AIDS Committee Windsor
Artcite Inc.
Arts Council Windsor & Region
Bookfest Windsor
Broken City Lab
CJAM Radio 99.1 fm
Common Ground Gallery
Media City Festival
Michelle J. Mainwaring
Rampike Magazine
U of W Department of English
U of W School Of Dramatic Art
U of W School of Visual Arts
U of W Visual Arts Society
Windsor Community Museum
Windsor International Film Festival
Windsor Endowment for the Arts
Windsor Pride
Windsor Public Library
Windsor Symphony Orchestra

Please join us in celebrating the lives of our beloved friends and colleagues at a joint
World AIDS Day / Day Without Art Candlelight Vigil at 7:00 pm on December 1 at the offices of Windsor Pride 422 Pelissier Street, Windsor, Ontario.

All are welcome!

For more information in regards to World AIDA Day/Day Without Art check out:

www.artcite.ca/history_p folder/withou.html

Photo by Kelly Reyes, Written by VIP Student Camille Minvielle

Earlier this month, the Arts Council Windsor & Region participated in the Homeless Coalition’s Homelessness Action Week. Volunteers from the ACWR spent the day running a workshop at the Homeless Coalition’s Annual Soup Day event held at the Windsor Armouries. Students from a number of area grade schools attended and learned about homelessness by visiting information and activity booths set up by various community partners. These booths provided information about reducing and preventing homelessness in the Windsor region. Multimedia including videos of homeless conditions and music by various buskers were used to help create a welcoming and educational atmosphere.

The Arts Council Windsor & Region contributed to the interactive environment by creating a found-poetry workshop. The students created poems about what it means to be homeless and the changes the Windsor region can make to help the homeless community. They were also encouraged to draw pictures and make collages alongside their poems to create a visual backdrop for the different themes in their poetry. There was also a blackboard where they were able to write “messages of hope,” which enabled them to creatively express how they themselves could influence change.

“I think learning through the creative process is a key idea with these workshops. The Arts can really work as a means of communicating ideas, feelings and solutions in a variety of ways,” says Kelly Reyes ACWR Board member, and workshop photographer. “What’s so great about workshops and awareness programs is that they help students to use creativity to think about new initiatives to help the community.”

Overall, the workshop was a great success; students enjoyed using art to express their feelings and ideas about homelessness and how they can help the community. The feedback from students was very positive, reinforcing the idea of increasing community awareness by learning through the creative process. And, students were not the only the ones excited about the role art can play in education and community awareness — ACWR volunteers, Kelly Reyes and Elizabeth Prosser, are already looking forward to participating again next year.

Photo courtesy of Windsorite.ca

Last Wednesday night’s workshop, “10,000 Facebook Friends Won’t Make Your Art or Music Famous,” was a huge success, thanks to a wide range of audience members with a lot of good questions for our guest faculty, Tom Lucier.

This was the first part of our newly launched ART.WORK Professional Development for Artists Workshop Series, and the questions that came out of Tom’s presentation generated exactly the type of discussion we had hoped for. The workshop featured an overview of some of the tools and technologies that artists could readily use to help tell their story — that is, not just showing the world their art, but telling the world why they make that art. Tom suggested that having an artist portfolio website is really just one part of a larger picture of connections and using the free and readily available social media tools to spread your work around the web.

The next workshop, “How to Make Yourself Look Really Good on Paper (and Beyond),” features guest faculty, Lucy Howe, an instructor at the University of Windsor’s School of Visual Arts and the program coordinator for the School’s annual summer residency program. Over the course of two hours, Lucy will go over the ins and outs of documenting your work and creating a professional CV and artist statement, and of course, answering your questions. She’s an expert on this stuff and incredibly knowledgeable about charting your artistic practice on paper; it’s going to be great!

If you haven’t already registered, there’s still a few seats let, so head over to the ART.WORK page and sign up now. See you on the 20th!

You’ll have to say goodbye to the old ACWR website once and for all. We’ve officially launched our new site, and we’re not looking back!

Even with these fancy new digs, there’s still some work to be done, but we encourage you to look around, and check out some of the new things we’re working on, such as the ART.WORK Professional Development for Artists Workshops Series, or the newly launched Arts Vote 2010 Questionnaire for candidates.

Each week, we’ll be posting about the exhibition currently up in the Artspeak Gallery and we’ll soon be featuring posts on other arts activities happening throughout the community.

You can also continue to find our Arts Notes weekly digest on arts events, calls for submissions, and performances in Windsor and Region.

We’re also working to setup a way to feature our fantastic members and partnering with Windsorite.ca to make wider reaching events calendar.

Stay tuned for more tweaks and updates over the coming weeks and months, there’s lots in store.