The recent blog posts seem to be updates on the Winnsboro Art Walks so I guess I'll keep it going.  This month the theme was Mardi Gras.  We weren't going to participate this time but several of the regulars were going to be out of town so we decided to help fill the void and Glynda started sewing and we did some cheap shopping o the internet.  My crown costs $3.50 and Glynda's shoes were $6.99 - always of course plus shipping - but even that wasn't too bad.  As I explained on the FB post about this pic, it was done with a green background and a green screen program. The computer does a "find and replace" and in this case it's a "find green and replace it with red" so where you see the reddish tones in the costumes you need to use your minds eye to replace that with a bright, shiny green. Fun evening!!

Here's the 4 minute video - starting the the Art Center reception.

January Steampunk Art Walk video

Here we are dressing up for fun again.  There were a lot of folks on this one including several out-of-towners and the fourteen minute video attached shows you all about it. 

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.

Going home from Brewbakers on a rainy Blue Monday night . . .

This is special!

Perhaps you thought that all of my excitement about the little town of Winnsboro was just the raving of an old guy - but take a look at this list! It's a list of state cultural districts as designated by the Texas Commission of the Arts.  All of them!  And you see the names of all the big cities in Texas on the list - but down at the bottom is the little town of Winnsboro.  The ONLY rural Cultural District in Texas!  Pretty special!  Almost half of them are listed as having "website coming soon" - but not Winnsboro.  Here's their site.

Christmas Sharing

Hospitality House Christmas Party! 

A young little girl to Jack: "Do you go by Jack so no one will no you are Santa?"
Jack: "Yes, how did you know?". :)

This is a post from Jack's wife Linda on FB.  That's Jack with the little girl in the picture.  The beard really belongs to Jack and it's there all of the time.  But Jack has a lot of Santa on the inside too.  (And he writes, sings, and plays the guitar too - really well!  He played at the Wildernest Treehouse JamFest!)

More Photo Elements 9

I've been playing with several things in Photo Elements 9 today - skipping the watching of tutorials and just playing with stuff using the limited amount of knowledge I've picked up in the last couple days.  These two are different treatments of a photo on the Cibo Vino Restaurant website.  I like both of them.  (BTW - take a look at the right column on my blog further down where I've added a few links to some of our favorite places here in Winnsboro.)  My main project is the poster for the next music event here but I can't post that because it has several things on it that are just in the wishing stages right now.

---

November 2011

I like to look through my pictures at the end of a month to see what we've been doing with our time.  Of course there are some posts from November below this one but here are a few more pictures with some captions:  It was a pretty busy month!

Worked on our Wood County Master Gardeners Spring Conference arranging a speaker, acquiring a raffle prize, and worked on poster ideas.

Created the "Scrapbook Song" DVD for Alex

Found a picture of grandson Colby on FB.  He lives with his father. (Starnes)

Spent a morning traveling around Wood County taking pictures of fall color - but this one is in the back yard.

Had tree removal done at the house and tree trimming done at the Treehouse

Did some refinish work in the chapel and we replaced the cross with one more appropriate.

Spent an hour or so one morning taking fog pictures.  This one is almost the same place as the 'fall color' picture above.

Attended the Winnsboro Fine Art Market

Found a picture of granddaughter Haley on FB.  She too lives with her father. (Gattis)

Had the JamFest T-shirts made and have sold most of them now.

The sign for the city of Quitman is going in.  I worked on the project.

Attended two afternoons of music at the Winnsboro Fine Arts Market.

We are adding some stone pathways at the Wood County Master Gardener's Wildscape Garden at the Mineola Nature Preserve.

A cold Christmas season night in downtown Winnsboro!

Attended several music evenings at Brewbaker's Restaurant and Pub.

I completely rebuilt the upper pond - removing the stone, cleaning and repairing the liner, dug  it deeper but made it smaller, and replaced the stone, pump, filter, and waterfall.

And, of course,there was Thanksgiving and the week of prep that goes into it.

Another weekend at Crossroads Music Co. & Listening Room!

Here Comes the Sun. Listen to this and compare it to the Beatles sound! And look at the smiles - they're having a good time playing this!

Dave Walser and Brian Magnus on cello.   We saw these guys at Crossroads last night and it was a unique experience.  Dave Walser was a member of Beatlegras, a trio that played mostly Beatle music and they did a great job - and Dave voice was a big part of that.  We were all singing along last night especially with the encore - "Hey Jude"!  In addition to Beatles music he also did some Bob Dylan, some James Taylor, and a couple of his own songs.  Wonderfully enjoyable evening!  We liked every song!  Brian is a freelance cellist and cello teacher.  He also plays with Heather McCready (which I've posted about before - another Crossroads favorite) and with the Allen Philharmonic. (Another parenthetical - the other two members of Beatlegras, Milo Deering and George Anderson also play with Heather.)

The night before we heard Druha Trava, from the Czech Republic. These guys make it to Crossroads every year and I've wanted to check them out the last two times they were and we finally did it this year. They've been touring the US for six weeks and played in Wichita, Kansas the night after they played here. You may have seen my FB post - in the Czech Republic they have only one top music list (not one for each genre) and Druha Trava has been number one on that list this year.

I don't know how Gus continues to bring in these quality musicians to play at the modest venue of Crossroads Music Co. and Listening Room. I think it must be something like the Wildernest Treehouse Jamfest. It's just a neat place to play and the finances sorta take a back seat. (Speaking of seats, we've been fortunate enough to get good ones for these two shows and the photos here were taken from our seats.)

It's unusual to have two shows on one weekend but it happened this weekend. Nothing more now until the Saturday after Thanksgiving when they'll have the sixth anniversary show!

You know you're old and in a small town when

you say "Look, Jeff moved his car".

The pub, which is part of but behind Brewbaker's restaurant, opens onto Market Street.  The restaurant opens onto Main Street.  Jeff is the owner of both. We were going to lunch down Market Street and saw Jeff's car parked outside the pub - it's a yellow BMW convertible so at least it's a special car.  A hour and a half later on our way home from the library we were driving back down Main Street and noticed his car in front of the restaurant.  So I said "Look, Jeff moved his car". I guess small things get noticed when there aren't that many big things happening.

Antique Car Parade - One of the "Funnest" Days of the Year in Winnsboro

Yep - that says "Willis" on there!

Lots of folks having a good time, lots of old cars!  More cars than you can take pictures of.  I said I'd do just a few this year so I only took 47 pictures!

Alex at "Blues Monday" at ZAZUZ Pizza

Come on in!

Our new Monday dinner.  A good pizza at ZAZUZ's in Winnsboro and music.  Our A&E buds Gene and Suzanne make this a regular stop too!  Alex pretty well led this session!

Winnsboro has a Spring Fest too!!

It's hard to tell what's happening here . . .

. . . so I included this one!

Bottom of the Blue Bell ice cream cone at A&E!

Sideline activity during the shoot-out re-enactment on the streets of Winnsboro!