Suzi Hudson making a glass bead using lampworking techniques

Newsletter

Fall 2006

“ Stop sometimes and look into the stains of walls, or ashes of a fire, or clouds,
or mud or like places - you may find marvelous ideas.”

-Leonardo da Vinci, 1452 – 1519

How much time did you spend cloud-watching this summer, or staring into the coals of a campfire? Most of us don’t allow ourselves the “luxury” nearly enough, and yet this is when the mind relaxes the boundaries of “the box” discovering ideas that lead to new frontiers, often in the sciences. Art gives us permission and training to think outside the box and leads us to the marvelous ideas trapped inside a ball of clay or a splatter of watercolor. Everyday at the White Bear Center for the Arts we see children and adults discovering art in the accidental, and inventing the marvelous. It’s a fantastic thing to experience!

This fall we have an abundance of opportunities at the White Bear Center for the Arts. How about Swedish Hardanger or Hand Felting? Fall is the perfect time to learn a new fiber art to carry you through the quiet, winter nights. Develop your Artistic Vision in Photography, looking for patterns in stained walls or frosty mornings. Or let poet, John Caddy help you find lessons in the fields of Tamarack Nature Center in Earth Gifts: Poems of Celebration. If slammin’s more your style, the WBCA’s first poetry slam is where you’ll want to be Friday, October 13th. Jump into a jewelry class with precious metal clay, allowing you to sculpt a piece of fine silver as easily as working with play dough. Or try your hand at lampwork; torching glass rods into exquisite beads!

If you’ve never been to an iron pour, be sure to join us for a truly exciting evening on September 30, behind the Washington Grill in downtown White Bear Lake. Sign up for a workshop earlier in the month where you can learn how to transform a block of sand into your custom designed mold. This is a family friendly process and a great way to make a unique art piece in cast iron. Foundry Education and Fine Arts once again helps us fill your molds with molten iron; and your soul with primal thunder. Who could pass that up?

From dance to jewelry, fiber to fire, the White Bear Center for the Arts promises to be a great place to find your marvelous ideas this fall. You’ll be glad you did- and so will we!

Suzi Hudson
Executive Director