After a year of online gallery shows, the Calaveras County Arts Council is pleased to present Artists In-Person Studio Tours.
 
This popular event is traditionally held on the third weekend of September (September 18-19, 2021). Artists Studio Tour is an opportunity to tour Calaveras County and meet artists who create artwork that ranges from paintings and sculpture to handcrafted soap and hand-stamped jewelry.
 
Visitors create their own self-guided tour using a printed or downloadable brochure with maps of each artist location. This year 28 artists will be exhibiting at 19 sites. “Seeing artists’ studios in person, getting a glimpse of their processes and work, is an experience that just can’t be duplicated online,” said Kathy Mazzaferro, executive director.

>>Browse the artists

​Calaveras Poetry Out Loud 2021 Winners
 
Poetry transcended pandemic when Calaveras high school students competed online in the annual Poetry Out Loud recitation competition. CHS student Sydney Button won first place with his stunning version of All This & More by Mary Karr and Israfel by Edgar Allen Poe. Coming in second was Rayne Cutchall. Ana Hernandez took third place. 
 
Poetry Out Loud, presented by the Calaveras County Arts Council in partnership with the California Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Poetry Foundation, is part of a national program that encourages high school students to learn about great poetry through memorization and performance at a series of events leading up to a national competition. 
 
“This was our third year sponsoring the Calaveras Poetry Out Loud competition,” said Kathy Mazzaferro, executive director of the Arts Council. It was a difficult year. “Because of Covid and its impact on school site time, coaching was at a minimum. We couldn't hold our on-site pizza lunches. Ultimately, we held the competition on Zoom.” 
 
Students and judges participated from home, a chancey proposition “because of WiFi drop spots throughout the county with internet connections that can fade in and out,” said Mazzaferro. But despite faulty internet , the students  performed beautifully. “I am always impressed with the work the students take on in memorizing a minimum of two poems each,” she said. “This was our champion's second attempt to win the title.”
 
Ingrid Hjelmervik took the lead for the third year serving as Poetry Out Loud coordinator. “She does an outstanding job,” said Mazzaferro, who wants to also thank judges Noel Helmbrecht, Lisa McInturf, Catherine Sargeant, and Linda Toren for their careful attention to each student. 
 
Mazzaferro is proud of the students and the hard work they do for this competition. “We congratulate all the participants on a job well done.”
 
Students interested in competing in Poetry Out Loud next year can contact Kathy at (209) 754-1774 or goldrusharts18@gmail.com.

SUPPORT THE ARTS IN CALAVERAS COUNTY
How do your contributions to the Calaveras County Arts Council keepthe arts blooming in Calaveras County?

• You support signature events like Music in the Parks and the Ovationswinter concert series.
• You beautify our towns with public art
• You give local artists a place to exhibit their work
• You support an arts economy that benefits the community
• You strengthen arts education for Calaveras public school students.

 Without you, the Arts Council could not do all that it does.
​We appreciate your generosity.

Calaveras County Arts Council's mission is to build a unitedcommunity by awakening, supporting, and nourishing the arts.

We rely on people like you, who believe that the arts make this world a better place.

Give us a shout to find out how you can help. We need volunteers, helpers, members, and artists!
​
Call us at 209/754-1774 (message) or email at goldrusharts18 @ gmail.com

Part 3 in a series about artists going online
Other parts in this series: 
Putting your art on(line)
Should I show my art on Facebook?
How to Instagram

​Instagram tends to be a happy place, devoted to image scrolling and tending towards the inspirational. You can follow friends, artists you like, cos-players, dress makers, car collectors, gardeners—there are loads of random topics to make you smile.
 
Instagram is built primarily for smartphones. You can see your account on a desktop system, but you can only post to Instagram via your smartphone, unless you pay for a service that posts for you, or use a complicated workaround.

Part 2 in a series about artists going online
Other parts in this series: 
Putting your art on(line)
Should I show my art on Facebook?
How to Instagram

Facebook is the biggest dog in the social media yard. It’s probably the most popular platform right now. While you may have personal reasons for not joining FB, it is currently one of the easiest ways to reach new collectors. A smart social media plan can reach hundreds, if not thousands of pairs of eyeballs. Remember that FB has right around 1 billion users. That’s quite a potential audience.

When I follow a business page, FB (mostly) feeds their posts into my newsfeed, especially if I’ve engaged with them on their pages in the past (this is why engagement with posts is so important). Engagement can be simply saying, nice work! on one of their posts. Or it can be a question for them to answer. Always answer comments on your posts. (You can block people if you get a nasty commenter. Your page is your space.)
 
The upshot: Facebook is still the leading way to advertise your artwork. To effectively advertise and sell your art, you need to create a business page.
 
How to make a business page on Facebook
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/facebook-business-page-guide/

The difference between a personal page and a business page www.outboundengine.com/blog/facebook-business-and-personal-pages-the-differences-dos-and-donts

www.thrivehive.com/why-you-need-a-facebook-business-page/

​Facebook marketing strategies
https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-marketing-tips

Part 1 in a series about artists going online
Putting your art on(line)
Should I show my art on Facebook?
How to Instagram

One of the things we’ve learned during the current crisis is the importance of taking your business to the internet. In March, as the shut-down began, businesses that made a nimble pivot to online were able to mitigate the damage caused by the shut-down. Even as we tentatively open businesses, customers who are leery of shopping as they did before COVID-19 spend more time (and more money) online.
 
The business of art is a business just like any other. Artists need an audience of collectors and a great way to reach those collectors is online—in fact, until we are able to safely open the country, online might be the only way you can reach collectors. And online takes your art show, which was probably local, and gives you the opportunity to make it national, if not international.

The complications of Covid have impacted another long term commitment that Anne and Will oversee: Summer Art Camp.
 
Five ears ago Anne and Will took over Summer Art Camp, a low-cost way for local kids ages 4 to 16 to learn about the arts. Sponsored by the Mokelumne Hill Community Historical Trust, Summer Art Camp had been nurtured by Ed Cline, and Anne and Will were receptive to his vision of the future.
 
Ed’s dream had been to make it a fine art camp with music, dance, theater, and art, so Anne and Will set out to expand. “A couple years ago we were able to find a drama teacher and a music teacher,” she said. The core of what Anne teaches at the camp is visual arts. “I concentrate mostly on modern art,” she said, “although we have done things like portraits made by painting with vegetables ala Archimboldo, a Renaissance artist.. I’ve taught about Renaissance art. I teach everything from drawing to painting to collage.”
 
This summer—Covid Summer—presents a challenge. Traditionally Summer Art Camp meets in the Moke Hill Town Hall, where they have room for around 70 kids. “But this year because of this new normal, we can’t meet in the town hall,” Anne said. She’s working on art kits made up of inventory they’ve been amassing over the years from donations and careful purchases. “If anyone wants an art kit this year, there will be no charge,” she said. “I'm putting together kits for 30 kids. Each kit will have watercolors, some drawing, and we like to focus our lessons on particular artists.” The kits will be distributed through Mokelumne Hill Elementary and Toyon Middle School.  

For ceramic sculptor Marlene Bradford, the nation’s isolation order during the time of Covid-19 has been a time of introspection about her art. “It’s been great having the time,” she said. “I enjoy working by myself. Although I also enjoy having company.”
 
This enforced time-out came just as Marlene started to pull back from perpetual activity. For the last seven years, she’s been a popular teacher of clay sculpture at Quyle Kilns, where she has instructed many in the skill of how to roll, knead, bend and convince clay to take animal and human form. But recently she gave up teaching regular classes, preferring to teach small groups or individuals on request. “I’ll be 87 in June,” she said. “I don’t have the energy I had before, or the patience.” 

When you take a class from Marlene, you tap into a life dedicated to art. She has always been an artist, and she returned to college in her 40s to complete a major in art. Clay is her first love.  “I like the way it feels. I like being able to move it around and change it back and forth and create my ideas using the clay.”
 
Her ideas, brought to life in clay, bring smiles to viewers. She still has a big presence at Quyle Kilns, where ceramic faces and animals peer from the walls, smile mysteriously, and catch your gaze and make you smile. Making the viewer happy is what Marlene intends.
 
She doesn’t strive for strict accuracy in her animal sculptures.  Instead, she tries to express her feelings about them. “I really want to bring joy through it, and have people enjoy looking at my pieces.”

“The reason I say that is because there are many pieces of art that are not about joy. They are expressions of sadness and illness. That isn’t what I want to think about and express. I enjoy trying to reproduce the shape and idea of different animals. And again, I want them to look peaceful. With them I want to express some kind of good thoughts.”
 
Her portraits of people reflect not just a physical likeness but also the emotional personality of the subject. She honed her accuracy with acts of generosity. “I started having people I know pose for me so I could practice. I said if you like it I’ll give it to you. That’s how I got my technique worked out.” Her commissioned portraits of two doctors—Dr. Milton Ben Smith and Dr. Dante Albasio—greet people at Mark Twain Medical Center.

​Now sheltering at home, she spends time in her studio in Murphys working on a series of pieces intended for totems, large pieces of art that comprise animals, figures, and objects.
 
Isolation has given her a chance to delve more deeply into her work. “It’s a chance to concentrate on your own ideas and think about what you’re doing. Often we want to discuss things with other artists or teachers. This is a good time to really look inside of ourselves and try things and see if they’re going to work. And figure out how to do something, or what we want to do. What you want people to think about it.”

Like most of us, Mona Baroody, owner of Artsy-Parts in Arnold, didn’t expect a mysterious and lethal virus to upend the world so completely. But she is navigating our new reality with the blunt force of her creativity.
 
Mona opened Artsy-Parts in Cameo Plaza almost exactly a year ago as a creative community center. After dedicating four years of her life to the Butte Fire recovery, she said “I wanted to do something for myself.” Someone asked her, what would you do if you could do anything? “My answer was easy. I want to create all day and get paid to do it. I’ve always been creative and happiest when I was doing it. I also wanted to help other people feel the same peacefulness.” In the time before Covid, the cozy warren of rooms provided space for the community to drop in and spread out art projects, take art and craft classes, buy hard to find art supplies and exhibit their art work. The virus changed all that.
 
If an art store seems an unlikely business to survive the shut-down orders, you’d be surprised. Not only do times of uncertainty call for creative outlet to relieve stress, precarious times require an artistic temperament. Mona believes that all the traits and skills of an artist—creativity, inventiveness, thoughtfulness, flexibility—coupled with a positive outlook and hard work will help her weather this storm. At the same time, she can help her community too.
 
“I thought, how can I make this work for all of us?” 

Then people asked if she had material for making masks. “The most effective mask material is debated,” she said, “but the general consensus is that you want 100% cotton quilting blocks. That happens to be what one of my wholesalers carries.” She bought enough for the group and enough to have in stock at her store.
 
All of this has kept Mona quite busy. Time flies as she finagles orders for craft kits, origami paper, calligraphy pens, art supplies, and mask making materials. Customers pick up their orders outside the store, which Mona sanitizes religiously. At the end of her days, often after midnight, she said “I’m so busy I haven’t had time to figure out how I’m doing.” ​