Art On The Move

I am beginning to realize, with a great deal of surprise, that Raleigh and the Greater Triangle area is a good place for artists. Real, honest to goodness, working artists. I still have trouble seeing this area (and North Carolina as a whole) as anything other than a hick town, small, conservative, small minded. In recent years, I have come to see that it is possible to be an artist here and actually make a living. Now that might entail teaching classes on the side, but that's still art, right? For example, we have First Friday. All of the galleries and museums stay open a little later, offer wine and crackers, hire live music and Downtown Raleigh turns into a big ol' party even on the coldest of nights. First Friday is remarkably kid-friendly too!

We also have loads of local businesses that show artwork. These could be restaurants, coffee shops, you name it. We have a number of artist's collective studio spaces, like Artspace and Antfarm Studios. There was the Red Wolf Ramble, which was a collection of wolf statues all over town, painted by local artists. The NC State mascot is the wolf, for those who don't know.

We also have Art On The Move. The city art's commission and CAT choose twelve original designs by local artists to decorate the sides of twelve CAT buses for six months. I'm happy to say that two of my favorite local artists have been chosen, Anna Podris and Paul Friedrich. I know Anna has had a design on a bus previously, and would take a stab that Paul has too since he's so well known. A big congratualtions to all of the artists! I will do my best to get to Artsplosure to photograph the unveiling of the new buses on May 16th.

Art On The Move

Paul Friedrich's Etsy Shop

Anna Podris's website (I love her owls! I've only gotten to meet her once and she's fabulous!)

Keith Norval (Anna's husband. I took his printmaking class. I love this guy.)

Okay, I have to add this one too. Blue Owl, an encaustic painting by Anna. It's even more spectacular in person. I love this one with all my heart and hope someone will buy it for me someday.

Hillsborough Street Renaissance Festival

The Hillsborough Street Renaissance Festival is scheduled for Saturday, March 14 from Noon to 10 PM. The street will be closed from Gardner St to Logan Court. Since they will need to set up, expect that portion of Hillsborough Street to be closed all day.

No, it doesn't involve jousting or men wearing tights. It's a celebration to kick off the changes planned for Hillsborough Street over the next year and a half. If you live in Raleigh, do take the time to click on that link and especially watch the video of the changes planned. It's going to be cool, but man that's going to be a mess until it's finished! (Click on downloads->additional files->traffic simulation flyover video Aug 2007)

There will be music, food and fun as we would expect from any self-respecting street festival. There will be an eco-friendly fashion show, an alternative fuel vehicle showcase, and a Kid Zone. They are claiming to have a fraternity, sorority and business BBQ cook off. I am still awaiting confirmation to see if they are going to barbecue actual fraternity boys. I'll keep you updated on that one.

The event is free, but tickets appear to be required for certain parts, like the sorority girl barbecue and the fashion show. Keep in mind also that this is the same day as the Raleigh St Patty's Day Parade. The parade begins at Noon also then ends with a party in Moore Square Park where the townsfolk gets their Irish on with the homeless people.

Basically, what we're looking at here , from a public transit standpoint, is a big ol' mess downtown on Saturday. If you have to take the bus anywhere on Saturday, and I suggest you do NOT, go first to the City's transit website to check the Announcements and Detours, which includes street closures and bus detours. A better solution would be to just join the party, any party, that you might stumble across on Saturday.

The weather on Saturday looks crappy at best. So, bundle up and carry an umbrella.

iTunesU

By this point, it's been well established that I am a nerd. I am okay with this. Clearly you are too since you keep coming back to read this blog. So, that said...

I think by this point, we're all pretty familiar with iTunes, right? Download music and movies, tv shows, music videos and games to play on our computer, iPod or iPhone. Last night, I was poking around on iTunes and happened to come across iTunesU. Colleges and universities can upload lectures either in audio or video format, which are then made free to the public, whether students or not. I knew that such a thing was possible, but didn't pay that much attention to it.

Last night, I found an eighteen part lecture on Astrobiology and Space Exploration with Professor Lynn Rothschild at Stanford University. I am in the process of downloading it right now. Last night, I went to bed two hours later than planned because I sucked into the first lecture with Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, CA. It was so fascinating.

Also at Stanford, I found a ten part lecture series on Charles Darwin. I am also downloading a lecture given by His Holiness The Dalai Lama and a lecture by Peter Singer on animal equality. I'm guessing not many of you will know Peter Singer. He is widely considered one of the greatest modern philosophers and the father of the animal rights movement. In the mid 70s, he wrote a book called Animal Liberation. To say that book had a profound effect on me is an understatement. I also listened to a little bit of his lecture last night as well.

I would highly recommend you look into this. It seems as though almost every topic at almost every university is represented. You're sure to find something you'll like.

The Nearest Book

A college friend posted this on her Facebook page and I thought I'd bring it to y'all!

Here are the rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now. Don't hunt on a book shelf for something to impress us, but it has to be a real book!
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence and reference the book in the comments.

I'll get y'all started.

"He was free from that spell, that sorcery, that obsession!" Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Doing good with one click of a mouse!

These two websites were recently brought to my attention.

Good Search

Good Shop

Good Search donates a penny to your designated charity every time you search. A penny doesn't seem like much, but think about how often you use Google every day! Let's say I use Google 20 times a day, on average. Multiply that by 365 days and I've donated $73 a year to the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina at the end of a year just by going about my daily business. For every dollar donated, the Food Bank can provide four meals. That's 292 meals just because I need to look up something. The search engine is powered by Yahoo! which means you'll get good information. They have ways for you to add the search engine to your browser bar.

Good Shop is a similar concert. If you are shopping online, enter the website through Good Shop and a certain percentage will be donated to your charity. Again, these folks get money simply because you are going about your business. How cool is that? I'm going on a couple vacations in the next two months. I want to buy a new digital camera. I go to the Kodak web site through Good Shop and the Food Bank gets 3% of what I spend. Nifty, no? Zappos gets them a 6% donation! Purchases through iTunes gets them 2.5%. I'm not even going to try to calculate how much that gets them!

If you go to one of these pages and look at the bottom, you see a link for Participating Non-profits. There are over 58,000 active charities. There's got to be somebody you can get behind!