Changes to our group

It was great seeing all of you at our last meeting, I’m always grateful for your participation. We’ve had four meetings thus far and I think we’ve gotten to know one another fairly well, so it’s time to take our group to the next level. Based on the results of the online survey I sent out a while back, as well as conversations with some of our members, I have decided to make the following three changes to our group:

Forming Two Groups

The group has grown quite a bit over the past few months and if you came to either one of our last two meetings you know that we are close to outgrowing our current meeting space. I have decided to split our one group into two smaller groups in order to a) keep the size of our meetings manageable and to b) bring together those artists who share similar objectives. The first group will be geared toward artists who produce arts and crafts with the aim of selling the work at shops and art fairs. The second group will be aimed at those who draw and paint with a lean toward fine arts.

Each group will meet once a month on its own and I will continue to organize the meetings. For ease of scheduling, the arts and crafts group will continue to meet on the first Thursday of each month at the Cafe del Hildalgo and the fine arts group will meet on the last Thursday of each month at a new location to be determined. That puts the first fine arts group meeting on April 28 and the first arts and crafts group meeting on May 5. I will leave it to each of you to decide which group best suits your interests. I am interested in both areas, so I plan to attend both meetings. If you have any questions or comments about this change, please let me know.

Group Excursions

I’ve talked about this a bit, and I think it’s time to put some dates on the calendar. In between our regular monthly meetings I will be planning some field trips for us. As with our normal meetings, I will put them on our Google and Facebook calendars and invite everyone to RSVP.

The first event will be plein air drawing / painting at Vaill Point Park at 630 Vaill Point Road this Saturday morning, 4/16, at 7am. Yeah, that’s early, but the light should be most interesting shortly after sunrise. In the event of rain or high winds, I will cancel this event and inform you via email by 6am that morning. If you’re interested in attending but don’t have transportation to the park, just send me an email.
Info: http://www.co.st-johns.fl.us/BCC/Land_Management/LAMP/FLct_vpp.aspx
Location: http://tinyurl.com/45yodjg

The second event will be a trip up to the Riverside Arts Market in Jacksonville on Saturday, May 7, at 10am. We can plan a specific meet up location closer to the date of the event.
Info: http://riversideartsmarket.com/
Location: http://riversideartsmarket.com/directions.html

Online Communication

Also, in the weeks to come, I’ll be posting some open ended questions on our Facebook group. The aim is to foster some online discussion, help us learn more about one another and keep our Facebook group from getting stale. Please respond to the questions if you have time.

Naturally, if you are not a Facebook user, please consider creating an account, even for the sole purpose of communicating with the rest of the art group. It’s a very easy way to keep up with everyone and to promote your work. Remember, to join our Facebook group just go to http://www.facebook.com/mikefclark and add me as a friend.