A New Art Hat

Last night I went to the booster club meeting for the cinematic arts program at McCallum High School. The school is part of the Austin Independent School District (public school), but they are also a fine arts academy and students can graduate with a major--in Jessie's case it will be film. The major programs are four years long and in addition to the regular requirements for graduation from the state. This isn't the only high school with a film program in Austin--you practically can't swing a dead cat without running into a high school with a film program. But McCallum is the only school with fine arts majors, and kids from all over the city apply and jury into the programs. Even though we are districted for the school, Jessie still applied and was accepted This program was the reason we had to buy a house in Austin before we were ready to move from Atlanta--we had to be in the district in order for Jessie to be able to apply.

As you can imagine, equipment costs for a program like this are pretty high, and public school budgets are not. So it is a reality of life for all of the different fine arts programs at McCallum that they have to do a lot of fundraising. Enter the parent booster clubs. Last year we didn't really do anything, and the program suffered. We raised half what they usually raise and then the budget from the school district was cut in half this year. Both of these hits have left us needing to almost double the amount of money we bring in from fundraising this year. So we met last night to kick ideas around, Both of the previous events we've sponsored--a teacher's pageant and a student talent show--seem to have run their course and no one's interested in participating in them this year. We need something new and dynamic.

I said, how about an auction to which the program director replied, how about a holiday artist market. Oh if only one of the parents was an artist with 30 years of art show experience... Oh, wait! So yours truly is in charge of A Fair of the Art (I love acquiring domains), sponsored by the McCallum Cinematic Arts program. It will be Saturday and Sunday, December 2-3 in the McCallum cafeteria with 10X10 and 5X10 spaces available, and the halls outside the cafeteria will have student tables. Heck, we're a fine arts high school. What better place to find fine art?

I spent the day at the school today and drew up the booth plan. I also mapped out nearby churches to see if any of them are also having a holiday fair that weekend. If there are a few, we could go in together and make a map of the neighborhood festivals and publicize them together. Tomorrow I put together the initial website and the Call For Artists which needs to go out asap.

Working in our favor, it seems likes the biggest neighborhood holiday art fair--The Violet Crown Arts Festival at Brentwood Elementary--won't be happening this year and they had 69 artists last year. I'm going to send out email to all of them tomorrow too to see if they might be interested in doing our festival instead.

Todd was saying he wanted to do an art fair. Well, here we go!