Rudy Wins 3rd Place in Griffith

July 17th and 18th Rudy(Kenton) Ridenour was a participant in the 36th Annual Park Full of Art taking place in the northwest corner of Indiana in the town of Griffith.

Pictured here is Rudy with a background of his colorful framed abstract digital(computer generated) artworks.

Notice the white ribbon above and to the right of his head; it indicates his 3rd place prize in the category of drawing/graphics. Along with his white ribbon he received $125.00.

This is only Rudy's 2nd year to do art shows outside the Peru area. This year he's going as far north as Saugatuck, Michigan and as far south as Sellersburg, Indiana.

We wish you well, Rudy.

Photo courtesy of Larry Titak

July Monthly Meeting

Attendance: 20

Our monthly meeting was moved up to this past Wednesday, the 14th due to the circus festivities this week.
Joining us were three new people: Terry Jones is from Macy and works in pen and ink, and oil pastels
Hilary Lohrman lives in Logansport and uses pencil, ink and watercolor to create art works.
Gina McDowell resides here in Peru and is into textiles.
Welcome all.
At the meeting we discussed "Sundays at the Gallery"; a presentation of art owned by the Peru High School. The latest one was this past Sunday, the 18th. The next one will be Sunday, August 15th from 1-4 p.m. and will be presented by Charles Shephard, director of the Ft. Wayne Museum of Art. Also entertaining guests will be the newly formed Peru Symphony.


The Cole Porter Inn has invited us to display, for sale, our Cole Porter works created for the recent Cole Porter Festival Art Show held at the Miami County Museum June 12th and 13th.
Also requested are works portraying the Peru area.
Anyone interested may contact Susan Josette at 765-460-5127 or sgehle@ivytech.edu


For the remainder of the meeting we moved out of doors, to the courtyard of the Cafe Du Cirque where we watched Brenda Ramseier, the Maconaquah Elementary School art teacher, give us her presentation demonstrating her collage technique using the cleaning product "Citrasolv".
She brushed the concentrated fluid on several pages of an old magazine, dated prior to 2002, pressing them together then setting them aside.
She continued discussing the process while showing us a few of the collages she has made in this method. One of the pieces was a portrait of Cole Porter she created for the Cole Porter Festival Art Show mentioned above.
After about 5 minutes or so(normally 10-20 minutes) she separated the still wet pages to reveal the beautiful, interesting, abstract pages formed by the action of the Citrasolv on the old magazine inks.

She also demonstrated that you can further manipulate the inks by drawing onto the pages with different tools, among them: q-tips.
Once that is done lay the pages to dry before continuing with your projects.
I, for one, am inspired to run right to the Sun Spot in Kokomo or get online to Cheap Joe's to order some Citrasolv.
That was really fun. We all thank you Brenda!


Next month our meeting held at the Cafe Du Cirque falls on Wednesday, August 18th, 7 p.m. It will be the evening to display and discuss your theme works based on the word "EXPRESSIVE".
I hope see you then.


Photos of Brenda courtesy of Teri Partridge. Thank you so much Teri.

The week of December 14th was busy for us with our Community Service project, completing,wrapping and delivering the many beautiful 4x4 works of art to the nursing homes in our area, Miller's Merry Manor, Caring Hands and Hickory Creek. Monday, the 14th, we had a wrap party at Susan Kline's studio with wine and snacks graciously provided by Susan.

Member's creating the works are too numerous to name, but we are VERY grateful for all of their enthusiatic participation.

Members engaged in the wrapping and delivery were Susan Kline, Carol Day and friend, Bobbie Jackson, Linda Butler, Megan Montgomery, Shane Mohler, Diane Lehman, Alisha Referda and her 2 small children (shown in the photos) and me, Valerie May. And I hope I haven't forgotten anyone....

Thank you all SO MUCH!

The nursing home residents were very pleased they were remembered, and very pleased to see children visiting them and delivering gifts.

The Community Artists Co-Op hopes to repeat this event again for the Christmas of 2010!

It was so gratifying to have been there and given back to others and I know the other members that were there feel the same way...

Meeting Notes from Wednesday, October 21st

Attendence: 22

The Tippecanoe Arts Federation will host 2 free workshops for Individual Artists Grants presented at the Tippecanoe Arts Federation Wells Community Center at 638 North Street, Lafayette, IN. For further info contact Paige Sharp, Director of Regional Services, rsd@tippecanoearts.org, phone #: 765-432-2787

Saturday, September 26th, a fundraiser was held for the sister-in-law of member Dan Harshman's wife(Renee), who is battling breast cancer. Dan, Susan Kline and Keri Ellis donated artworks for the event that raised $2500.
Renee's family was very thankful for the members generosity.

Jill Marconi works with Dan Harshman and came to speak about the Arts and Crafts Festival being held in the Circus Building on November 14th, 9-4 and 15th, noon-4pm. Cost is $50.00 per 10'x10' booth space, plus $5.00 for access to electricity.
Anyone wishing to register for a space to for more info, get in touch with Dan Harshman at: www.harshent@wwdb.org

Brenda Ramseier would again like to invite the public to visit Maconaquah Elementary School to view the tapestries she temporarily has charge of.
The display of Thomas Hart Benton's works ended this past Friday, but from November 16th to the 20th the paintings of Diego Rivera will be exhibited in the school's hallways. Just sign in at the desk and you will be directed to them.

The weather was cold, breezy, and rainy(off and on) for Oktoberfest held on October 3rd, but Linda Butler sold her lovely painting of red tulips. Others displaying their works were Dan Harshman, Rudy Ridenour, Valerie May, Bobbie Jackson, Shane Mohler, and Haley Richardson.
Good going Linda.

Susan Kline gave a report on Cafe art sales and the progress of our 4x4 Christmas project for the nursing homes: less than 40 remain to be acquired and transformed into artworks for gifts.
We have set the date of December 14th for their wrapping and 6 p.m. December 16th for their delivery. Thank you all again for your involvement.

Diane Tracy Lehman gave a talk on her portrait work and exhibited several done in Prismacolor(colored pencils) on the reverse sides of Cason mi-teines paper. Particularly well done was a portrait of her daughter, with well defined shadow contrast and intricate work on the fabric of her blouse.
Many well earned praises came her way.
Well done and thank you, Diane.

Our next meeting is November 18th when our theme works inspired by the word "Sunrise" will be due. We will all be pleased to see what is produced.

Sept. 26th Fundraiser

Saturday, September 26th, a fundraiser was held to raise money for member Dan Harshman's wife's(Renee) sister-in-law who is battling breast cancer. Three of our members, Susan Kline, Keri Ellis, and Dan Harshman donated artworks for the event that raised $2500. Above is a photo of the painting Dan gave to help with the cause.

Renee's family was very appreciative.
Thank you members....

Meeting Notes from Wednesday, September 16th

Attendence: 24

Megan Mirro, from the Ft. Wayne Museum of Art gave a presentation on Joseph Cornell(1903-1972); primarily a collage and box construction artist, displaying memorabilia and found objects.
Well done, Megan.

Numerous of our group of artists showed their works for this month's topic: "Moon". We're pleased that so many of you participated.
The next project theme is "Sunrise" and will be due on November 18th.

We discussed and decided to participate in the Oktoberfest, October 3rd, from 12-7 p.m. It's sponsored by the Miami County Chamber of Commerce and will take place on the Peru Riverwalk.
Two of our members, Dan Harshman and Rudy Ridenour, have their own tents and are willing to share them with other members.
Thank you guys.
The Chamber of Commerce is also loaning us two more tents for the event so we will have a total of 4 tents of artwork displayed.
I will have more info on this in the upcoming days.

Our exhibit for Art in the Courtyard at the Cafe Du Cirque has been postponed.

Our opportunity to exhibit in the National City Bank was agreed upon and will take place after out October 21st meeting.

A report on Co-Op Art Sales and an update on our 4x4 Community Service Project was given by Bonnie Arrick due to Susan being under the weather.
Less than 30 little canvasses remain to be turned into art. Thank you all so much and thank you Bonnie.

Anne Huskey Lockard received an Honorable Mention for her piece called "Liberty Prevails" in the "Americana" show in the Clark Gallery at the Honeywell Center in Wabash.
Brenda Ramseier also had a piece accepted into the show.
Way to go, ladies.

Brenda also reminded us of the display of tapestries at her school where she is the art teacher; Maconaquah Elementary School. The next featured artist will be Thomas Hart Benton from October 19th to the 24th.
She invited the public to sign in at the desk and visit them there.

Thank you all for being a part of Community Artists Co-Op.

Brenda Ramseier

Brenda Ramseier, a Community Artists Co-Op member and Maconaquah Elementary School Art teacher wrote and received a grant to acquire the exhibit of satin panels produced by Teacher's Discovery displaying the artworks of 9 artists. It began with artist


Henri Rousseau, whose work is shown here in this photo. Ending this past Friday was Edgar Degas. Fom October 19th to the 24th the featured artist will be Thomas Hart Benton.
Several works by each artist will be shown in vivid color in the halls of her school. Brenda is using the beatiful panels to teach art history and as an inspiration for classroom and whole school projects.
The public is invited to visit the elementary school in Bunker Hill to view the panels and to visit her classroom. Just be sure to sign in at the desk and someone will show you the way.
It's worth the visit.