The Fresno Arts Council’s first and third Thursday ArtHop venues are continuously growing. The first Thursday ArtHop in Downtown and the Tower District is booming. The Metropolitan area ArtHop locations on the third Thursday are expanding as art hubs are created throughout the City and some are joining together and creating “passports” to the partnering venues. Special thanks to Fresno Acura and Hannah DeGroot of Realty Concepts and her friends for putting that together.

The Horizon Awards to honor the arts community is scheduled for May 12 at Fresno City Hall at 5:00 pm. The deadline for nominations has been extended to March 21. To nominate someone, either complete the form that was in the mail, or go on-line to www.fresnoartscouncil.org/horizon.

Many thanks to Victor Ramayrat, a board member and President of Socient, a local website design and inbound marketing agency for community benefit organizations, for his excellent work on the website. Our new FAC website is now powered by a content management system that allows our staff to add and edit contents, send eNewsletter, write a blog, post photos in a gallery, announce news and events, accept donations and buy event tickets online via credit card, fulfill and manage online membership sign-ups, and allow members (including board members) to access secure web pages. And what’s more, we now have an online Arts Database --- we invite all Fresno County artists, arts organizations, business and consultants, to register for FREE.

Congratulations to Nonny Okwelogu, a sophomore at Clovis West High School, for winning the annual Fresno County Poetry Out Loud competition. She advanced to the state finals on March 15 when 27 county winners performed poems in the Senate Chamber of the State Capital. This is a program of the California Arts Council (CAC) to promote literacy in education. Funding for the program is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the event was sponsored by Target Corporation. With only seven high schools in Fresno County participating, FAC is encouraging school administrators and teachers to consider the value of this competition and its value as a supplement to classroom education. The students become more engaged in literacy, improve their presentation skills, and find that they can express themselves. The competition validates the students’ interest or passion in poetry as having importance in the arts.

The FAC has a live interview spot on KSEE –TV Channel 24 at 4:00 pm on the Wednesday before the first Thursday ArtHop. We bring local artists and arts organizations so they can promote their shows and events. If you are interested in being scheduled, please contact me at (559) 237-9734. The next guest is Adam Eddie Albrecht, a fashion designer, who is promoting his second fashion line at a fashion show at Albrecht Farms, Del Rey, on Saturday, April 17. Contact FAC at 237-9734 for ticket information.

Thanks to the generosity of Sally Weisse Ho and Marc Gendron, the Fresno Arts Council is the recipient of two flat screen monitors. We greatly appreciate your donation. FAC is also seeking a good desktop computer as we have added an Office Assistant, Angela Story, to our staff. Angela came to us through the 80/20 program, and she had previously volunteered at FAC.

Happy ArtHopping!

Cindy Dunn
Executive Director
Fresno Arts Council