Victorian Christmas Art Walk

Every third Friday Winnsboro has what's know as the "Art Walk".  It's a promotional weekend event for the merchants but on the Friday evening a themed walk takes place.  It starts at the Keyring Art Gallery and then the participating folks stroll down the streets and visit the downtown shops and restaurants.  Last month it was Renaissance and the month before was Steampunk!  There's also western and Thirty's, and Fifty's, etc. This month it was Victorian Christmas and carolers came along too.  Some stops are just a visit to the merchant and a customer or two, some are a bit bigger as we parade through a restaurant full of folks having dinner.  It's a lot of fun!  Then we gather at A&E for refreshments afterwards.  Michael Alford took the picture above just before we left the gallery last evening..  

Winnsboro in Texas Highways, January 2013 Edition

 And here we are in it!  Glynda and me on the left, then Marilyn and Jim from Art & Espresso, then Doc and Denise from Silhouettes Custom Apparel!  A little tea dueling at A&E - the official sport of Steampunking.  This duel was officially sanctioned by the American Tea Dueling Association!  Both splotched so there was no winner.

Pictures and article are by Randy Mallory

 There was an eight page write-up on Winnsboro and four of the eight are shown above.  This is great publicity for our little town.  There have been several write-ups recently in Sulphur Springs (Liefies Le Vin restaurant) and in Tyler (Silhouettes) and in Piney Woods Live magazine (Silhouettes).  Denise and Doc at Silhouettes make custom apparel and many of their customers are looking for period correct clothing - some of it seen in our picture (but G also did some of it).  The dress-up events take place on Third Friday Art Walks which begin at Key Ring Gallery and participants then walk from business to business sharing the nonsense.  But next Friday it will be Victorian attire and Christmas carolers - should be a lot of fun.  Then treats at A&E.  (Doc and I will get to slightly modify our Steampunk clothing and then will fit right in.)  BUT - next year I'm going to get a real top hat - the one I'm wearing in the pic is just a cheapy costume.

Fall color

Took a short walk around the property a couple days ago and took these pics of some of the last remaining fall color.  I've been reading a new (to me) photography site and in these I tried a couple of the suggestions I found there. I've gotten lazy and don't often use settings other than auto so I shot all of these on aperture priority and that makes a big difference!  They also had some suggestions on capturing fall color and back lighting was one of them and a couple of these have both ideas incorporated in them.  Another suggestions was shooting flowers from below the blossom and that shot, using all three suggestions, is my favorite of the session!

 Originally published in 1916.  Now, almost 100 years later, it's still true but is still not understood, or cared about, by the people that need to the  most!  
  

• You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
• You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
• You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
• You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
• You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
• You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
• You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
• You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
• You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence.
• And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

 William John Henry Boetcker (1873–1962)

This post will slowly go away so I've added it to the part of the blog that doesn't change unless I change it!

RIP Twink!  We will all miss you and we'll always remember the good times!

So I think I'm going to start blogging again.  I just have to be sure to never use the words that refer to the musical event we have here so Google doesn't send all of these people here looking for information.  The event was really cold this time and, considering that, we had a decent turnout.  This one was more like the other musical event that takes place near Austin and is named after the nearby town that starts with a "K".  Meaning that it didn't have bands like we had at the last one - single, duos, and trios - plus a closing jam.

Part of the featured trio but the still camera was basically put away by then so this is all

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In spite of the weather it was a very good time - several folks from Thermalloy were there and even Suzie and Marilyn drove in.  Just too much happened to say anymore about it here.  Our video person had to bail at the last minute and I made a trip to Walmart, bought me a video camera, did a decent job, and have spent much of the last  few days putting together a video (27 minutes) which also turned out well.  If you happen by the house you can feel pretty sure that I'll offer to play it for you.

I'll mention too my hiking stick and cane "business".  A store in town sells them and has over the last year sold three or four.  But he's now started wheeling the display out onto the sidewalk every day and, in October, he sold five of them.  That's kinda cool - helps offset the loss I took on the music thing.

The FALL-2012 concert is coming together quickly!

This one will be a more modest affair.  The Spring concert will be the bigger one And it's looking like this might be the direction we will go.  One evening, 5 or 6 acts in the Spring, individuals or smaller groups. In May we had about 40 musicians here.  This time it will be less than 10.  But the quality won't be any less! We're really happy that Lynn & Lindy will be here this time. They were on the road when we had the previous events so we tried to schedule around them this time.  They'll be off on an east coast tour right afterwards.  Vanessa Peters appearance here is one of those small world things.  She's the stepdaughter of a guy I worked with for many, many years and she's here as a result of a call made by another friend that we also worked with for many, many years who's been keeping up with the MusicFest.  Vanessa has been in Europe for much of the last 10 years or so and has toured there. Now she's back home in Texas and is going to play at Wildernest.  Randy Brown and Shannon Monk are also local.  They are both folks that we wanted to have at one of the earlier concerts but the scheduling just didn't work.  Kurt Bittner will be playing guitar with Shannon.  He's a cum laude graduate of Berklee school of music in Boston and has toured internationally.  Gus is the MusicFest Producer and is also a performer and owner and operator of Crossroads Music Company and Listening Room in Winnsboro.  He's listed as "Gus and Friends" and the friends will include Alex and Amy and maybe a few others.  You'll hear them at the Jacob Hayes Memorial.

So - some great musicians and a night of music at the Wildernest Stage.  We'll be keeping the website updated - www.wildernestmusicfest.com

Woodyfest

We just stumbled on the fact that there is such a thing less than two weeks ago but, on seeing some names in the lineup, we booked our Best Western room and made our plans.  We were hooked by a few names from the 60's and 70's as well as some of the older Kerrville performers.


First a few basics.  It's free! It's a five day event that takes place in three venues.  The opening show is on Wednesday and it's a ticketed event.  On Thursday afternoon there is music at the Brick Street Stage.  On Friday and Saturday afternoon there's music at the Brick Street Stage and in The Crystal Theater - concurrent shows - take your pick.  All three nights have performances at the Pastures of Plenty outdoor stage.  There is $15 parking for this.   Afternoon shows run from 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM and then there's an hour and a half to have dinner and get to the outdoor stage.  The closing event starts at noon on Sunday in the old Crystal Theater.  They call it a hootenanny!  There is no schedule.  Any performer can show up and do one song.  That show was worth the trip and we almost skipped it to start the trip back home.  All-in-all - the whole thing was very well organized!  During the evening performance there was a 30 minute or so stage changeover but that was the only bad mark on it. (There are many other events throughout the town during the week.)


We saw and heard lots of performers, some we knew nothing about, and we really enjoyed them all.  Not enough room to talk about all of them.  I'll just do it in pics. (I'm beginning to master stage photography with my new lens but the Crystal was really challenging with hot spots and colored lights.  The mike for the soloists was in the white spotlight but only one of them used it. Twenty minutes early got us aisle seats on the second row on the right side of the right aisle - was able to take most of these shots without moving. )

At  the Crystal Theater

Ellis Paul on the "Pastures of Plenty" stage

Glynda at the Woody Guthrie homesite.  They are going to rebuild the house

Me at the Woody Guthrie mural.  I wore a "Wildernest Musicfest" t-shirt both days!

Joel Rafael

Butch Hancock

Susan Herndon

Barry Ollman

David Amram. Incredible 80+ man.  Know him from Kerrville He's also a classical composer and conductor.  The backup musicians on stage were in awe twice.  Once when this guy sat at the keyboard and sang a song as he was composing it.  You knew that was true because it was referencing happenings at the Woodyfest as well as the musicians onstage at the time.

Audrey Auld

Bob Livingston.  In Texas music forever!

Burns Sisters (I think)

Andrew Hardin

Radoslav Lorkovic - this was the other time the musicians didn't know what to do.  He was singing a Serbian folksong.

Dan Duggin.  Had to do a lot of Googlin' to find this guys name.  He was a stage musician but this is my favorite of the almost 300 pictures I took!

Butch Morgan

'Nuff said here!

An incredibly sad loss!

Kent Gooding died on July 4th - in his 33nd year!  A wonderful person and incredible musician.  We had just really become friends in the last year as we enjoyed his music at several of the Winnsboro venues and at our JamFest in October and again at the MusicFest in May.  It was an honor to have him here.  We will miss him greatly!  He leaves behind a wife and daughter that would appreciate your prayers.


Here's a video of one of the songs he sang here in October. Kent at the JamFest

A new Shutterly Photo Book for Susan

Click here to view this photo book larger

Build your own high-quality photo books at Shutterfly.com.

Pancho - the early times!

Wildernest Treehouse MusicFest

See the Musicfest website here!

The dates for the MusicFest are May 4-6th.  Buy tickets on the website or call 903-342-1854.

Only 250 tickets will be sold.  

See the website for important information about attending.

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MusicFest on the internet

A Google search just turned up these hits on the MusicFest:

Winnsboro Online Guide weekly email

Winnsboro Online Guide

Wood County Electric Coop website

Winnsboro Center for the Arts website

Winnsboro Chamber of Commerce Facebook page

Heather McCready's press release in several locations

Mineola Monitor

Heather McCready;s Facebook page

Tyler Lenius website

American Classifieds website

Crossroads Music Company website

and all kinds of things on my blog where you are seeing this!