Festival

Tapestry ARTicles

Table of Contents

• Celebrating our 30^th Annual Festival

• Thanks to our volunteers

• Spotlight on Artist Jamie Perry

• Arts Education and Outreach Programs

• New Harris poll regarding arts education

• Staff and board updates

• Recent grants awarded to Tapestry

• From the Director

Tapestry is celebrating a milestone in its history. We are a San Jose tradition. Generations of families have been attending our event. We  Our annual festival began in 1976 and has been held every year since. 2005 event dates are September 3rd, 4^th & 5^th.  Times are 10 to 7 on Saturday and Sunday and 10 to 5 on Monday. This year’s festival will feature a great mix of art and craft including photography, jewelry, woodwork, painting, sculpture and more. The Creativity Zone, located in the cool, shady area near the river, is where kids can learn to make art under the guidance of professional artists. This year children will be able to make baggy paper hats, learn printmaking, make masks and weave fun foam into decorative fish. Four stages will provide everything from jazz and blues to rock, country and classical music. Popular performers who will be at this year’s festival include: Sage, Nitecry, Steve Czarnecki and Wally’s Swing World. View list of performers: 2005 Performers Schedule. As always, there will be lots of food and drink available throughout the festival. In the tradition of making something old new again, we are launching a new twilight concert this year. Local fan favorite The Joe Sharino Band will play a free concert at the festival on Sunday evening at 6 PM.

We couldn’t have produced the annual festival for all of these years without the invaluable help of our loyal volunteers. Each year hundreds of volunteers donate time to help serve beverages, staff the information booth, provide hospitality and support our production crew.  Just as generations of attendees come to the festival, we also have generations of volunteers who have been with our Tapestry family over the course of the past three decades. At the core of our volunteer program are what we call our “Key Volunteers”. These volunteers spend the entire 3 days of the festival working on the event; many of them start working Friday evening and continue until almost midnight on Monday. We would like to acknowledge our key volunteers in this newsletter.
View the list of names of our key volunteers.

One of the things artists Jamie S. Perry likes best about Tapestry Art festival is that “they are the most artist friendly show on the circuit, from the volunteers to the staff to the early artist set up on Friday night.” Jamie, a colored pencil artist, has been in “the business” for 23 years and has spent Labor Day weekend with her friends, new and old, at Tapestry ever since. She started her career with a B.A. in Sculpture from the University of Illinois and for seven years was a practicing Registered Art Therapist. Along the way she met a cat and a man - that man was Michael who is now her husband. Along they way they have welcomed several other cats into their family and have hit the road, selling Jamie’s wonderful drawings at 15-20 shows per year. With her combination of talent, technique, and personality, Jamie's award-winning drawings have caused her to become one of the most popular colored pencil artists in the United States.

Read more about Jamie. Go to Jamie’s website and see her artwork www.jsperry.com.

Throughout the year, Tapestry provides arts education programs in local schools and arts outreach to community centers and shelters. We provide arts residencies to teach children visual and performing arts. Our artists provide instruction dance, music, painting and drawing, theatre and multicultural arts. Since 2003 have partnered with San Jose Afterschool and CORAL (Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning) to provide after school arts education programs to more than twenty schools throughout the school year. Organizations such as ours are vital to keeping the arts alive for young people in the schools. With increasing school budget cuts, the arts have virtually disappeared from the classroom. Why does this matter? The arts keep marginal students in school. They build self-esteem and teach discipline.  The arts have been proven to increase students’ ability to concentrate, enhance cognitive skills, improve reading comprehension and elevate math scores.

One compelling reason to teach the arts is that they help prepare students for occupations in many unrelated fields. The corporate world recognizes the value of an employee with an arts education background: “A broad education that includes the arts helps give children a better understanding of their world…We need students who are culturally literate as well as math and science literate” Paul Ostergard, vice president of corporate contributions, Citibank.

View the list of our program partners.

New Harris Poll Reveals that 93 Percent of Americans Believe that the Arts are Vital to Providing a Well-Rounded Education

Americans are realizing the value of an education inclusive of the arts. As providers of arts education it is an ongoing part of our mission to advocate for arts in the schools. While reduced funding has led many schools to eliminate the arts from their curriculum, there is increasing evidence that parents want the arts for their children. This is encouraging news since parents can be the best allies in advocating to put the arts back into the classroom.

Read the full article: http://ww3.artsusa.org/americansforthearts_news.asp#item28

In October 2004, Tapestry’s appointed An Lu to the position of executive director. An was previously the Associate Director and has worked with Tapestry since 2001. Former  director, Angela Kirkner, continues to work with Tapestry in a consultant capacity.  Molli Pasquinelli continues to be the Education Manager. Additionally, we welcome two new members to Tapestry’s board: John  Spreer and Denise Rainoldi Fenton.  Fernando Hernandez serves in his second year as board president. Also continuing in their positions are Vice President Suzanne Malone and Secretary Colleen Head.  Long time board member Jeff Brobst has accepted the office of Treasurer.

Tapestry has recently received new grants to support our all of our programming efforts. Adobe has provided $10,000 in operating support and Applied Materials has donated $2150 through their Excellence in the Arts fund to facilitate our artists training workshop this fall. The California Arts Council has awarded Tapestry $4250 in support of our arts education programs and Arts Council Silicon Valley as awarded us $5606. We sincerely thank all of our donors.

View the list of all supporters.

Thank you to all of our loyal supporters who have made our 30 years of production possible. Without our wonderful artists, loyal attendees and dedicated volunteers, the festival wouldn’t happen. As we celebrate this 30^th annual festival please take special note of where the money goes. Not only will you have a good time, but you’ll be contributing to a great cause. Net festival proceeds support the arts education and outreach program we do all year long. We teach the arts to more than 3,000 children each year. Our programs reach kids who would otherwise have no access to arts programs. The festival has been free for its entire 30 year history. We are dedicated to keeping it free. However, as a nonprofit organization we do rely on donations. Please help us keep the festival free and meet the needs of our schools and community. When you’re at the festival remember that the beverages you buy from our beverage booths (yellow bubble top booths) provide income which we put directly into arts education programs. This year there will also be donation boxes at the several of the free Creativity Zone booths.  Please donate if you’re able. The same is true for our Sunday Evening concert featuring The Joe Sharino Band. The event is free. So buy drinks and be generous with the donation boxes located at the ticket booths during the concert. Thank you for 30 wonderful years and we look for forward to the next 30!

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