Marshall Stephens is Back!

Wow!  Our Harris County Public Library website gurus have just revised our website to make it more efficient, and I think you'll find they have accomplished their goal. I was blogging about Tomball Art League's Marshall Stephens, who has just hung his paintings in our Meeting Room for the month of April. Our shiny new website will now link  directly to this blog, so all you have to do is click on this link-- Marshall Stevens is Back! --to connect right to it. Fantastic.

Come and see Marshall's new exhibition!

Free Business Success Seminars at LSC-Tomball Community Library

Get Ideas, Get Connected, Get Business

A number of you sell your artwork, which means that as well as being artists you are entrepreneurs. The Lone Star College Small Business Development Center, in conjunction with LSC-Tomball Community Library, are hosting three excellent speakers this month and next. Improve your networking and marketing skills!

The CEOs of Networking

Wednesday, March 21, 8-9 am
Mitchell From, founder of My Referral Network and partner at Element Payment Services will help you determine which networking organizations to join, how many to join, and how to work them for maximum effectiveness.　

Social Media - Trend or Blip on the Radar?
Wednesday, March 28, 8-9 am
Terri Craig of MYMResults will show how YouTube, LinkedIn, Blogging, and Facebook are here to stay and how you can use them to grow your business.

Create Potential Client Lists
Wednesday, April 4, 8-9 am
Kam Draper of Infogroup USA will show you how to master the use of ReferenceUSA, a large database of businesses and customers, available free at your library website.　Expand your business by identifying key prospects and competitors with contact names, sales volume, employee size, and more. Created marketing lists and delivery routes.
All sessions held in Room L129　
No pre-registration is required. There will be a drawing for prizes at the end of each session.

Go, Painters in the Spring Show! (Then Come-on over here afterwards)

Today I want to tell everyone how excited I am about the upcoming Tomball Art League Spring Show and Exhibition!  Good luck to everyone who is competing this weekend, and all my encouragement to those of you who are hanging your work just for the fun of it. (We have many wonderful motivations for painting, don't we.) 

The library is once again inviting all the winners--that's everyone with a ribbon--to hang your winning 2D pieces in our first floor meeting room for the rest of March. We'll be waiting for you next week to bring in your work. It's not necessary to call ahead, but if you want to, our number is 832-559-4200. We're open Monday to Thursday, 8:00 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.; Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and we'll take your painting any time you can drop it by.

While you're here, you might step up to the second floor where Milam Schverak has his fabulous papier-maché figures and some watercolors on display at the top of the stairs. Hazel, Willow, Penelope, Arthur, and Ichabod are gathering a lot of amazed attention.

We have just ordered a lovely frame to hang on the door of the meeting room, in which we will post the name of the person or group exhibiting that month. We've been feeling the lack of this for some time now and have just found an appealing solution. I hope you'll like it.

The image I've selected for this blog is Elsie Vera's Red Peppers, a winner in last year's spring show that we had the joy to look at here afterwards.  

A Video of Jesus' 40 day Fast

After not posting at all for a few weeks I post three times in one week. Isn't that how art inspiration goes? For those of you interested in story illustration, this YouTube video which appeared on my Facebook page this morning may be of interest. Simon Smith, a British illustrator, does a fascinating job of bringing to life a familiar religious story.  A Video of Jesus in the Wilderness by Simon Smith

Earl Staley at Pearl Fincher Museum

This just crossed my desk this morning so I want to pass it on. Earl Staley, a fine arts teacher at the Lone Star College campus in Tomball,  has taught and coached a number of Tomball Art League members. So many of you may want to take in his exhibit and reception at the Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts. His artworks will hang at the museum until March 4th, and this Friday, February 24th, he'll be participating in a reception there from 6-8 pm.

A New Venue for exhibiting your sculpture?

(Photo by Jason de Caires Taylor/jasondecairestaylor.com)

"Because coral reefs sit below the water line, when they start to disintegrate (from pollution, overfishing, climate change, ocean acidification ... the list is long) most of us wouldn't notice. Or — and here's an irony — the more we notice, the more they disintegrate. Some coral reefs are so overvisited, they are harmed by our attention.
What to do? Well, this is where the sculptors and weavers come in."  So begins NPR's article "Is that a Starfish on my Face?" Enjoy!

Beauty in Many Forms

Hello, Everyone!  A number of you were able to be part of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston's free bus trip to the museum last Saturday, and by all accounts, it was fun.

We've had a few of last fall's show winners bring their paintings to the library but there's still room for more, so I encourage you to bring in your work for the month of February.

It's Black History Month, and we're featuring a number of books of paintings, sculptures, quilts, and other media created by African Americans. We also have a collection of cookbooks and books on other topics.

And finally, as you grieve the loss of thousands of beautiful Texas trees (Tomball looks like we've started a cottage logging industry) and contemplate another summer of drought ahead, we're hoping to help you save all that natural beauty around your home. Barry Ward, the executive director of Trees for Houston, a non-profit organization dedicated to planting, protecting, and promoting trees, will be here at the library giving advice and wisdom about how to keep your trees healthy in the seasons ahead. His Save Your Trees presentation will happen on Tuesday, March 10th at 10 a.m. in Room L-129. No registration is required and as always at the library, the presentation is free.