Announcements: Community, April 2

'-Help Restore Couturie Forest -Artist Focuses on Saving America’s WETLAND in Latest Work: Rhea Gary one-woman exhibition to benefit coastal awareness -New Orleans Creative Glass Institute Presents: LISA TAHIR

Help Restore Couturie Forest  
  
Who says money doesn’t grow on trees?
 Your vote in the Redwood Creek Wines Greater Outdoors Project can mean $50,000 to restore Couturie Forest!
 
Restore Couturie Forest by voting at
www.blazethetrail.com/greatoutdoors/vote/

Voting in the Redwood Creek Wines Greater Outdoors Project begins on April 1 and ends May 31. You can vote once online and once via text message per day (text messaging rates apply).

Quietly nestled at the center of New Orleans City Park’s 1,300 acres is a hidden gem- Couturie Forest. The Forest was designated a community arboretum in 1939 with a bequest of $50,000 for 6,000 trees. Since then, the Forest canopy matured and the infrastructure expanded to include trails, a rustic amphitheater, and docks jutting into the surrounding lagoons. In 2005, destruction from Hurricane Katrina-spawned tornados and floodwaters killed 95% of the Forest’s trees, disrupting the habitats of alligators, box turtles, and over 100 species of migratory and resident birds. Friends of City Park is committed to transforming the damaged woodland into a verdant and thriving ecological destination. Following a plan from landscape architecture firm Mossop+Michaels, the revitalized Couturie Forest will offer 62 acres of preserved land featuring eight native ecosystems.

Vote early and vote often to restore Couturie Forest and give New Orleanians of all ages, backgrounds, and income brackets the beauty and seclusion of the woodland- right in the heart of the city!

Coming Up: 
 Spring Garden Show
 Education Series
 Thursdays at Twilight Concerts     
         
Spring Garden Show
Saturday and Sunday, April 4 and 5
10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Adults $6, Children (5-12) $3, Children under 5 and Friends of City Park Free
The annual Spring Garden Show, featuring horticultural exhibits throughout the Garden, sales of plant and garden products, a variety of educational speakers and a special area for kids. The Plant Health Clinic will enable people to bring plants with disease and insect problems to obtain a diagnosis and recommendations on control from LSU AgCenter faculty and volunteers. In addition, soil samples also may be brought in for analysis by the LSU AgCenter’s Soil Testing Lab (by fee). Sponsored by the LSU AgCenter in cooperation with the Metro Horticulture Foundation and the New Orleans Botanical Garden.
This year’s show will also include a Green Fair featuring non-profit "green" organizations, recycled arts craftspersons and many others involved in the "greening of New Orleans."

 Speakers Schedule:
Saturday, April 4
12:15 p.m.
Environmentally Friendly Gardening
Dan Gill, School of Plant, Environmental, and Soil Sciences, LSU Agcenter

1:45 p.m.
Underutilized Plants in the Landscape
Beth Perkins, Banting Farm Nursery

3:00 p.m.
Upstream/Downstream– the Environmental Impact
Jo Ann Burke, Lake Pontchartrain Foundation

Sunday, April 5
12:15 p.m.
Assessing Your Trees
Scott Courtright, Trinity Tree Consultants, Gonzales, LA

1:45 p.m.
Controlling Invasive Plant Species in Wetlands
Patrick Wharton, Supervisory Biological Science Technician, National Park Service

3:00 pm
Environmental Restoration and Wetlands Recovery
Colleen Morgan, Bayou Rebirth Wetlands Restoration and Education
   
For more information, call the LSU AgCenter at (504)838-1170.

 
 
Botanical Garden Spring Education Series
What is a Trial Garden?
Tuesday, March 31, 7:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Botanical Garden- Garden Study Center
$10
The New Orleans Botanical Garden is one of the sites for All American Selections. This spring we are adding trial gardens to the botanical garden and Dr. Allen Owings from LSU AgCenter will discuss what it takes to get a new plant on the market and into your backyard. He will also talk about the landscape horticulture trial gardens at the LSU AgCenter located at their experiment station in Hammond.
Dr. Allen Owings is a horticulture professor with the LSU AgCenter at the Hammond Research Station. He is currently coordinator of statewide LSU AgCenter extension efforts in commercial ornamental horticulture. He served as Executive Secretary of Louisiana Nursery and Landscape Association from 1993-2006 and is currently Director of Research and Education for LNLA. He is past president of the Baton Rouge Landscape Association and Louisiana State Horticulture Society. He is currently president of the Louisiana chapter of the Azalea Society of America.

Bird Watching in City Park
Saturday, April 11, 8:00 – 10:00 a.m.
Couturie Forest Nature Trail and Arboretum
$10
Explore the Couturie Forest with Mark Meunier while enjoying a look at City Park’s avian inhabitants. Mark will show you their habits and alert you to their calls. Appropriate walking attire and binoculars are needed. Meet at the Couturie Forest trailhead on Harrison Avenue in City Park.
Mark Meunier holds a B.A. in Biology from UNO. He is a naturalist and avid birder. He has attended several birding events including the Annual Grand Isle Bird Count and the St. Francisville Bird Fest. Mark has been a dedicated New Orleans Botanical Garden staff member for nine years.

For more information, call (504)483-9473 or email <scapley@nocp.org>scapley@nocp.org.

 
 
Thursdays at Twilight Garden Concert Series
Thursdays through October 8
April 2: Swingaroux: Swing Band
April 9: Jesse Moore: Guitar
Open 5 ’til 8pm, Performance at 6pm
Botanical Garden- Pavilion of the Two Sisters
This very popular series with an array of musicians will begin Thursday, March 12 and run consecutive Thursdays through October 8, closed on April 23.
Mint juleps, wine, beer, soft drinks, water, and food available for purchase, no outside food and drink or pets allowed.
Admission is not included in Friends of City Park membership.
Seating is limited to 400 people per performance. Series sponsored by WWNO 89.9 FM, New Orleans Musica da Camera, Republic National Distributing Company, and the New Orleans Botanical Garden.
Limited Edition Thursdays at Twilight Posters available for purchase at the Gift Shop.  Season Passes are now available for $150 from the Gift Shop, at the concerts, or by phone.
$6 for adults, $2 for children age 5-12

For more information, call (504) 483-9386 or email garden@nocp.org.

 
 
Sunset Sundays Concert Series
April 12, & 19, May 10 & 17
Sunday, April 12:
Billy Issuo & Restless Natives: 4:00-5:00 p.m.
Theresa Andersson: 5:30-7:00 p.m.
Botanical Garden- Robert B. Haspel Garden Stage
$6; Children ages 12 and under free
Admission is not included in Friends of City Park membership.
The outdoor concert series will begin this March with seven concerts on selected Sundays in March, April and May.  This series will take place outdoors on the Robert B. Haspel Stage, one of the most beautiful settings in our area for music.  The combination of the oak trees, azaleas and the stage itself make for a very unique musical experience.
Bring your blankets and Chairs (This is an outdoor concert). Concerts occur rain or shine.
Mint juleps, wine, beer, soft drinks, water, and food available for purchase, no outside food, drink, or pets allowed.

 For more information, call (504)483-9386 or email garden@nocp.org.

Artist Focuses on Saving America’s WETLAND in Latest Work
Rhea Gary one-woman exhibition to benefit coastal awareness

 
The America’s WETLAND Foundation (AWF) announces a major exhibition of new paintings by prominent Louisiana wetlands artist Rhea Gary.
 
The exhibition opens to the public Saturday, April 4, at the Jean Bragg Gallery, 600 Julia Street, New Orleans, for the “Jammin’ on Julia” street festival during which all the Arts District galleries hold simultaneous openings. “Jammin’ on Julia” is one of the district’s four major annual festivals.
 
A portion of the sales of paintings in the Gary exhibition, entitled “On the Third Day of Creation,” will be donated to the America’s WETLAND Foundation.
 
The AWF-sponsored exhibition at the Jean Bragg Gallery of Southern Art runs April 4 through 30.
 
“We are proud to be associated with a wetlands artist as prominent in the art world as is Rhea Gary,” said R. King Milling, AWF chair. “Rhea’s vision of Louisiana coastal scenes is ethereal and mystical. She and gallery owner Jean Bragg are being most generous in their support of the Foundation.”
 
Gary took her title from Genesis: “Then God said, ‘Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.’ And it was so…”
 
“This exhibit required much soul-searching,” Gary said. “In our coastal wetlands, this magnificent part of creation is threatened and fast disappearing…Painting is my way to call attention to the beauty of our wetlands and the urgent need to protect and restore them. I want the viewer to see this treasure with my eyes and to feel the emotion that fuels my passion for this unique part of creation.”
 
Bragg said she had long been familiar with Gary’s work, which hangs in important collections around the country and in Europe, as well as in American embassies in Australia, Bahrain, Jordan and Venezuela.
 
 “Rhea Gary is an artist of remarkable talent and passion, committed to her art and to the cause of wetlands restoration,” Bragg said. “I believe art is a driving force in the renewal of our city and state. Her mission to raise public awareness of the America’s WETLAND with her paintings fits nicely with this renewal.”
 
Gary is well-known for her collaboration with nature photographer C. C. Lockwood. For a year, they worked in the marsh and swap areas painting and photographing the same scenes. The result was a teaching CD used around the United States and a best-selling book, “Marsh Mission: Capturing the Vanishing Wetlands.”
 
Gary’s work has been published in several magazines, including Louisiana Life, American Artist, Art and Antiques and many art journals. She has been featured on television on CBS Sunday Mornings, Delta Hands, and Louisiana Public Broadcasting.
 
“My interest in painting wetlands is not in the nuances of landscape but inusing color to bring about an emotional, joyful statement of place. Vibrant color and manipulation of light allows me to visually convey changing heat and energy as day begins and moves into evening. For me, our wetlands are both beautiful and mysterious. There, mood changes frequently,” Gary said.
 
Gary, a Louisiana native, holds a master’s in fine arts from LSU in Baton Rouge, which remains her primary residence. Gary also studied at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts and has attended special programs for artists in France, Ireland and Italy.
 
Her previous exhibitions have included shows in Coconut Grove, Florida; Greensboro,N.C., Jackson Hole Wyoming, Houston, Washington, D.C., and the LSU Museum of Art, Scottsdale, Ariz., Palm Beach, Florida, Huntington, W.V., Richmond, Va., Memphis, Atlanta, Sumter, S.C.,  Fairhope, Ala., Golden, Colo., and, in Louisiana, Shreveport, Hammond, Lake Charles and Jennings.
 
The America’s WETLAND Campaign, the largest, most comprehensive public education campaign in the State’s history, was launched to raise public awareness of the impact of Louisiana’s wetland loss on the state, nation and world. The initiative is supported by a growing coalition of world, national and state conservation and environmental organizations and has drawn private support from businesses that see wetlands protection as a key to sustainability, economic growth and cultural preservation. For more information, visit www.americaswetland.com

New Orleans Creative Glass Institute
Presents: LISA TAHIR

CASTING CRAZE!!!!!!!!!!

3924b Conti St, New Orleans, LA 70119, ph:(504) 482-6003, email: jenny@nocgi.org

Come experience for yourself the magic of pouring molten hot glass into molds that you construct from materials out the local NOLA scrap yard!!  This is a hands on VERY active class for a wide range of students from no hot casting experience to years of ladling hot glass from the furnace into their molds.  I will show you every aspect of found object sculpture making from conceptual idea thru execution and finishing.  The process of sculpture making is 90% problem solving along the way.  We will spend the first night in an orientation of the class and slide presentation.  The second day we meet at the studio and go as a class to a scrap yard where students will purchase any and all materials they may want to cast glass into or use as a part of their sculpture.  We return to the studio and begin mold building, woodcarving, sheetrock carving and casting hot glass into the molds.  Each student works at there own pace with the instructor, teaching assistant (TA), and their classmates in a team style process. Day 3 and 4 we continue to make molds and cast glass and begin resolving finished pieces for the walk thru Review and Show on Day 5 to conclude the class!

Instructor:  Lisa Tahir has had 14 years of experiencing casting hot glass and building sculpture around the world.  She has taught at Urban Glass in NYC, Penland School of Crafts in NC, Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, WA, Toyama Glass School in Toyama Japan, and in New Orleans at Tulane University.  She has been the head assistant to Gene Koss on his casting team and in the creation of his 3 to 8 ton monumental glass sculptures for 14 years.  She shows at Brunner Gallery in the Shaw Center in Baton Rouge, LA.  Her works are in various private collections, residents, and hotels.

STUDENTS BRING TO CLASS ON FIRST DAY:

Sketchbook, pens, etc., long pants that are denim or cotton (NO synthetic materials like polyester, workout wear, etc.), T-shirt, leather welding jacket, or long sleeve thick cotton type shirt to use as a “casting jacket” over t shirt.  Closed toe shoes ONLY, cotton socks, welding gloves or other “tough” glove to protect hands from heat, sunglasses, or safety glasses, any wood carving tools and mallet you may have if you want to carve wood, aluminum foil if you want to use it to apply to the surface of hot glass, any found objects you may want to incorporate into the sculpture like steel, copper sheet, wire, tubes (copper can be dropped into the hot glass for a great color effect), drill and wood screws if you want to make a 2 part wood mold, bring PC-7 two part epoxy if you want to glue parts together, AND… bring yourself with your questions and energy and get ready to see why some of us are addicted to the “casting craze!!!!!”

 CLASS SCHEDULE:

Friday May15, 2009, 6-9pm: overview, orientation, slides and demo and cleanup.

Saturday May 16, 2009, 10am-4pm: Scrap yard trip, studio time, and cleanup.

Sunday May 17, 2009, 10am-4pm: Studio time, and cleanup.

Saturday May 23, 2009, 10am-4pm: Studio time, and cleanup.

Sunday May 24, 2009, 10am-5pm: Studio time 10am-1pm,
                                                          Cleanup 1pm-3pm
                                               Gallery show with individual review,
                                               Refreshments and potluck closing party
                                               Then cleanup again! 3pm-5pm.

There are a total of 12 seats available for this class.  There must be a minimum of 5 students enrolled for the class to run.

Milk Mustache Mobile Tour

Milk Mustache Mobile tour will be in New Orleans April 18-19 encouraging local residents to “Drink Well. Live Well.” We will be reintroducing milk as Nature’s Wellness Drink, by hosting weekend events at the French Quarter Festival. New Orleans families will be able to attend our FREE events within the festival’s “Children’s Headquarters” and partake in several of our event components.
Date: Saturday, April 18 and Sunday, April 19
Time: 11am-5pm
Location: French Quarter Festival’s “Children’s Headquarters”
Why: The “got milk?” Milk Mustache Mobile Drink Well. Live Well. Tour will be cruising through your city hosting free events to encourage New Orleans residents to not only live well, but to drink well with nature’s wellness drink– milk.
New Orleans families will be able to:
-Sample lowfat and fat-free milk from Brown’s Dairy and Borden Milk Products
-Pose like their favorite celebrity for their own Milk Mustache photo
-Sample milkshakes and smoothies
-Receive a health assessment from a registered dietitian
-Receive a five-minute chair massage from a licensed massage therapist

       Take home got milk? giveaways

More info:

•       Whymilk.com

WYES Will Air An Entire Night Of Programming Dedicated To The French Quarter *
WYES salutes the French Quarter Festival (April 17 – 19, 2009 <<http://fqfi.org/frenchquarterfest/>http://fqfi.org/frenchquarterfest/> ), dedicating a special night of programming in honor of the French Quarter. WYES FRENCH QUARTER NIGHT will begin at 7:00 p.m. on WYES Thursday, April 16th and will feature programs throughout the evening that celebrate the history and liveliness of one of New Orleans’ most beloved neighborhoods. WYES will also run spots featuring WYES Director of Broadcasting Beth Utterback noting WYES’ affection for the neighborhood that has played a part in many of WYES’ local documentaries. A special mention of the recent death of noted New Orleans photographer Johnny Donnels’ will be made. Donnels is featured in the locally produced, THE MAN IN THE PINK SATIN SUIT.
 

 

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