Summer Arts

This summers art program is beginning to look like the community education program we used to have in Colville. Students pay a $27 membership fee and then attend a lesson for $2/lesson.

Today, for example, hula students learned the 13 letters of the Hawaiian alphabet and the pronunciation of the letters. They also learned to sing the first verse of Pearly Shells in the Hawaiian language. Three hula steps, the kahalo, ka'o and ami were practiced until legs were burning and everyone was breathing hard. Adding the hand interpretation to the steps and words was the final mind challenging piece.

Hula meets Thursday mornings in the CJH Annex building at 10:30 through August 13.

Later in the afternoon, from 3:30-5:30 students worked in Acrylic paints to express their ideas regarding how they feel about paint.

Member Art Supply Store!

The Colville Arts Foundation has long wanted to supply foundation members with more affordable, quality art supplies. We finally have our relationships in place and have placed our first order for supplies.

We believe this idea of buying wholesale and passing most of the savings on to our members is a win-win relationship. CAF is provided with an ongoing fundraiser and members get the supplies they need at a "membership" price.

What is the cost of membership? $35 per year.

Most of our member art supplies will be through orders. Members can shop on the following site: http://www.c2f.com/
The prices members see are retail. They simply write down the stock number and email us a request and we get a price back to them. Members pay for their items then wait for member orders to reach $100 wholesale at which time the order is sent in.

On the calendar you can figure the last week of each month is when we will send in orders. The turn around time is about 4-5 business days. Our first order came promptly.

For our first order we were able to secure some fun items that will make great gifts. The mini easel acrylic set is retail $19.99 but members pay only $11. This little easel set is perfect for tabletop work and I'm excited to start using mine.

The item we have on special is a 3 pack of 10"x20" Canvas Board. This retails for $13.50 but the member special price is $4 during June and July until they are gone. We have a very limited number of these boards but if you would like one stop by soon before the summer art studio students snap them up!

Batik Art Introduction

Batik in Colville?!

Sure, why not. Our instructor, Sylvia, learned about batik on a trip to Malaysia. She is a wonderful teacher and has a lot to share with budding batik artists.

Batik is an involved process but the outcome can be stunningly beautiful.

This introductory project requires 100% cotton fabric.

After treating the fabric in a mixture of water PH Up we let the fabric dry.

Step 1: Choose a picture to trace onto the 12"x12" fabric.

This student chose a coloring book image of dolphins downloaded from the web to trace. The student was very happy with the image and it proved to be just about right for a 10 year old.

Step 2: Stretch the fabric onto a frame. We used little hooks on rubber bands but for younger students prefer thumb tacks straight into the wood.



Step 3: Use a tjanting tool with melted batik wax to apply wax to the traced picture lines. The wax must soak through so you can see it on both sides of the fabric. If it doesn't soak through flip the fabric over and apply the wax to the back of the picture.



The trick here is to keep the wax from making blobs on the fabric. The magic is in the wax, it's makeup and the temperature. We used some batik wax the instructor brought from Malaysia but when it runs out we will have to test other wax options. This wax has some resin in it to make it yellow and it crackles nicely when dry.

Step 4: Applying the dye



With cotton fabric it helps to moisten the fabric before applying the dye with a paintbrush. It runs better when the fabric is moist and looks more like a water color painting.

Dye is prepared using urea. This humectant helps the dye fuse with the fabric. Without using it our finished product is washed out.


The first example above is washed out while the one next to it is vibrant.

For a complete set of instructions - just ASK!
The process is involved and requires chemical treatments.

Below are some pictures of this week's batik artists.





Stop in at 218 N Oak Street on Tuesday evenings at 5:45 p.m. to see what's going on with our summer art studio and try your hand at batik art.

Food Bank Bag Panels

Artists and students who attended the Open House to sign up for summer class participated in a community art project benefiting people who utilize the Food Bank.

Eco-friendly shopping bags will be constructed from old blue jeans and the art panels will be sewed to the bags. In the past blue jean shopping bags have been popular with Food Bank patrons.

There are still some panels left to decorate if you would like to participate! Below are some examples of the art panels created during the open house.

Summer Classes

Friday, June 12, local artists and teaching artists participated in an open house to promote summer art classes and participate in a community art project. The art project will benefit visitors of the Colville Food Bank. Open house participants created their own stamp or used one of the stamps provided. The stamps were compressed in acrylic paint and applied to the fabric panels. Artists non only designed their own stamps they finger painted!

Monday, June 15, more students showed up at the open house on Oak street to sign up for summer art classes which start June 22.

Some of the classes: Hula, drawing, acrylic painting, batik, collage and figurative art in Colville. Water color classes are held in Kettle Falls.

It's going to be a fun summer!!!

What's in a name?

Colville Arts Foundation board members met last week and one of the topics that arose was the name of the foundation. Including "Colville" in the name seems to exclude other towns and especially counties outside of Stevens County.

Because the board is interested in reaching not only Stevens county artists but those living in Ferry and Pend Orielle counties as well, it does seem to make sense to consider a more inclusive name.

Potential Names might be, North Country Arts Foundation, Upper Columbia Arts Foundation and NE WA Arts Foundation. Hopefully someone will come up with something interesting. We will put this out to the members and see what comes back.

Marketing the Arts - PLACE 1

Knowing our audience or who we would like to target as an audience is universal no matter the product. Art is no different.

"If you build it they will come," does not work in marketing, especially of the arts. Just because we make art does not mean we will find an audience who appreciates it. Understand I am not addressing making art for arts sake or because of what we personally gain from doing so.

I am talking about the professional artist as well as the art venue.

The 5 -p's of marketing the arts are the following:

People: Who is your current audience and your potential audience?
Product: The product is important but the packaging / environment is critical as well.
Place: Can constituents reach you easily? What will be their experience once they get there? Is your place accessible to all?
Price: Obviously, art work needs to have a price associated with it. We must also consider the cost associate with going to an event, art exhibit, etc., even if the event is free. For example, if someone has to arrange for a babysitter or a dog walker in addition to travel costs.
Promotion: Based on the other 4

I will only address one of the 5-p's -- PLACE.

We must create experience-rich environments in which our audience can not only 'see' our art but can experience it. Experience rich environments does not mean the environments are designed for sensory overload. Rather experience-rich means an environment that appeals to all of our senses. By ‘environments’ I mean places. Places can be indoors, out of doors, on the phone and as we all know, they can be online or virtual. Places that appeal to our senses appeal to us – we are attracted to them.

As an example – our local Safeway store in has always been a place to go to make purchases. They have a little bit of everything. Safeway just completed a remodel. The project included the addition of a Starbucks kiosk.

Safeway used to have 3 deli tables located near the deli. People would sometimes look for the price tag on the chairs because the location was awkward, dark and unappealing. Now the table and chairs are located between the Starbucks kiosk and the deli right inside the entry. Everyone seems to be thrilled by the small seating area and it has become a place for people to be. Safeway suddenly has an appealing sense of place it never had before. Why? In part because people have better access to comfort. There is greater appeal to their senses by providing a safe place of rest near the aroma of Starbucks Coffee where the lighting is more natural than artificial.

Creating a place that appeals to all of our senses creates an environment that is appealing, keeps customers and patrons in the environment longer, and makes them comfortable.

How often do you purchase from a place where you are comfortable? How often do you return?