Flea Market Fundraiser

We will be having our first fundraiser the weekend of March 5-6-7. It will be a flea market/bake sale/silent art auction.

If you are interested in donating items or volunteering to help with the event please contact Debbie Gagnon
(313)410-0039 cell
stonemountain AT juno.com (replace AT with @ and no spaces)

We are interested in furniture, original artwork - treasures not trash please! We welcome your help getting the art center running.

We have no ability to pick up items.

This will be a fun weekend long event and we hope you'll participate!

milanartcenter.org

We have a domain! Milanartcenter.org will be our home on the web. There's nothing there yet but soon we'll have a site up with lots more information to come!

Next Meeting

Milan Area Arts Council - meeting on Tuesday February 9 at 5pm at the Lighthouse Coffee Company on Main Street in Milan. We'll be planning our upcoming fundraiser, reporting on our non-profit status, planning work on the space and classes. Come join us!

progress update

The Milan Area Arts Council (now our official name!) met last night with the largest number of attendees yet. We agreed on a name, elected a board (Kim Trail Rhoney treasurer, Nancy Goings secretary and Leslie Sobel president), agreed to move forward on filing for non-profit status with the state while pursuing partnering with the Arts Alliance.

We're planning our first fundraiser - a flea market - the weekend of March 5,6,7 at 23 Wabash. More to come on this - if you're interested in helping out please either email me at las AT lesliesobel.com (replace AT with @ and remove spaces) or leave info in the comments.

Aimee Kay is looking into low-VOC paint and we will schedule a work day once she has paint lined up for us.

We've had multiple exciting offers of equipment donation including looms (thanks Kari!) and a kiln in the summer (thanks Rob!)

We also are excited about a new studio gallery opening at 16 E Main in Milan - Arienne Zimmerman - the artist-owner joined us last night and will be a part of the Milan Art Center as well.

Wish list - we're actively looking for

• tables
• stools
• easels
• cabinets
• room dividers
• shelving

If you have something you might like to donate please contact us or leave information in the comments! thanks!

What media are people interesting in learning?

Since we went public about having a space I have had many, many generous people email me with offers of equipment and supplies. I'm amazed at the generosity and excitement that our beginnings of an art center are producing. I also am aware that we probably can't take everything offered simply for lack of space. We'll have to go out in the community more formally at some point to ask what people are interested in studying but in the meantime I thought I'd start by simply asking - please reply in comments (and if you read this in Facebook please come through to the blog to add your response).

Possible media for which we either have potential teachers and/or equipment offered:
drawing
perspective drawing
graphic design
watercolor painting
oil painting
encaustic painting (wax based paint)
ceramics
collage
lapidary
weaving
knitting
story telling
beading
glass bead making
jewelry/small metal work
songwriting
middle eastern dance
puppet making
artist journaling
bookmaking
anything else that you are interested in, know someone who might teach or just think is essential

Next Meeting

We'll be meeting next at 5:00pm on Monday January 25 at the Lighthouse Coffee Company. Please join us to talk about getting our new Art Center up and running. We will talk about our non-profit status, setting up workdays and what needs to happen next to be able to start offering classes as soon as possible.

Spread the word!

Our home to be

This is the space, image posted for people to better come up with signage ideas. Feel free to download photo, alter with your ideas and email back to me and I'll post them. (Thanks Kim!)

logo designs for signage

Here are four possible logo designs - I expect other ones to be submitted and will ask people to vote after we have a few more designs. Send me your designs - bearing in mind that this is for sign which will be made out of metal using a plasma cutter. Edited to add #4.

Milan Arts Council

Welcome to the online home for the Milan Art Center in Milan Michigan. We are a young arts organization just starting to organize a new art center with classes and programming in our small town. We have a space, people interested in teaching and hope to up and running soon. Please chime in on the comments section or email me at las AT lesliesobel.com to let me know if you're interested in taking or teaching classes or would like to get involved in any way. I expect to post possible logo designs for signage here so too.