New Family Focus to Arts/Writing Conference!

Mountain Empire Creative Arts Council

invites you to a weekend

to remember . . . and treasure:

“Uncommon Community . . . Uncommon Commitment”

(Check Out Registration/Pricing Above for Reduced Rates, Especially for Families!)

A few months ago, we (MECAC) planned a Workshop for Artists & Writers. A very good idea! I hope you saw the e-flyer. But something has nibbled at my overloaded psyche, and left me with second thoughts about an arts-exclusive focus: Life in the “real world”—the multiple issues that press upon us day by day, and the escalation of national and world problems. Artists and writers, and all sorts of people who simply celebrate art and writing, are deeply concerned about the hard issues that life in today’s world imposes. There is an unending interplay between expressing creativity and handling the ordinary and inevitable hard realities of living.

This leads us to a slight but obvious change of focus. This, in part, is what we want to offer you for a weekend: A way of stepping outside your normal boundaries and busy-ness, to join others who are affected (perhaps unconsciously) or afflicted by the rigors of our national life—Indeed, global life—and want to better understand and withstand and respond to it as creative people.

We often feel torn between our unmet need for creative expression and the rude facts of living in a sometimes “hostile” world. Admittedly, we may feel guilty at times for wanting to run away to a quiet place. (Our artsy self needs tending!) Growing national and universal distress is the elephant in everyone’s living room. Climate change, global unrest, and societal upheaval confront us each morning. Perhaps we would do well to bring our creative natures into a larger discussion of core values, and the problems of today’s very fragile world. How do we live in light of this darkness? How do we respond as writers and artists? How does it invade, inform, shape what we do? Where might it take us creatively? This may be an entry to new life for us.

As people who believe in the value of arts, the practice and enjoyment of them, and their soul-necessity, we can move in small, incremental ways—as people who are not “consumed by consumerism,” or defeated by despair. Consider what some small steps toward inventive living in times of crisis might be. How do we build or join in a supportive community? How do we “tend” each other and care for those beyond us, in a toughening world? We can gather hope from our inner resources, from those around us, and from the wisdom of the past, to create hope for the future. This is Fine Art. Does this sound like a healthy challenge? We believe it is.

Come join the adventure. We will have morning time for art instruction and networking, and evening for fine music. But Saturday afternoon will be a time of reflection and creating our own prerequisites for what it means to us to thrive. Bring your viewpoint and ideas. Listen to what our faculty and your “neighbors” have to say. Something to take home and live well with.

Finally, two new additions: There will be a special track for children/youth, concurrent with the adults! And Mothers’ Day will be honored! All moms (with or without family attending) will be treated to Sunday brunch and a gift to take home. Check our blogsite below for special new registration stats on family options, length of stay and special new pricing to go with it.

For further information, e-mail Susanne at SusanneMBarrett@aol.com

From Our Director: Coming to the Mountain

Coming To The Mountain
By Judith Dupree, MECAC Director

Those of us who live in far east San Diego County (Mountain Empire) have found all sorts of benefits and delights in being part of small communities. The long trip home from everywhere is fully justified by the aura that enfolds our jagged senses when we turn off the freeway and know we’re home. This we celebrate together, often without saying it; no more than a sigh suffices. There are real bonuses to being boondock’rs. We celebrate the clean air, the clear night skies, the special people around us, the balance we find here, despite this frenzied world. And much more.

But – there’s always a flea or two on the back of each critter. The flea for me, and apparently more than a few others, has always been lack of accessibility to the arts. That’s more than one flea; that’s a hound-dog full! That’s a mobile itch that I, for one, can never quit scratching. Music, drama, visual arts, writers’ workshops, learned speakers and doers of various genres, museums, galleries. A multitude of stimulating events remain tantalizingly far away, exhibits and concerts, etc., come and go, usually without me. Always I/we must weigh the extra time and travel costs, and sometimes the uncertainties of weather.

So . . . (Dare I mix my metaphors? Aw, writers do it all the time.) So, we decided, a few of us who were tired of scratching, to make lemonade of our lemon. (One big lemon can make a ton of lemonade. Fleas don’t like lemonade, of course, so you do see the connection, right?)

In all seriousness, I want you to know this: Art has begun to “intrude” in the back-country. MECAC has begun to flourish, because we base it as much as possible on the needs of the community. A known need, to many, a perceived need, to us: Where there is little or no awareness of the poverty of no-art, we pledge to help create awareness. We have begun to offer tastes of art at both youth and adult levels.

In fact, our children’s program is called just that: “A Taste of Art.” We want to “spoil” our kids out here: Art as lemonade? We want to go at the fleas –the inanities of modern life that stifle their inborn creativity. Yes! Just watch Myrna Mora, our Youth Arts Coordinator, with the kids!

We’re excited, we’re busy, we’re learning steadily, we’re avid for adventure. We want to prod the rest of the good folks out here – want to tell you that if you haven’t “itched” for art, it’s time. There’s something in everyone – everyone – that needs a touch of the esoteric to balance out the 9-to-5 practical, often drudging (and begrudging?) daily-ness that we settle into and call normal. Uh-uh; not meant to be the norm! Not even out here in our boonies!

Here’s what I most want to tell you: We are, each of us, created with an infinite capacity to appreciate and describe the indescribable, which discovering and enjoying and, yes, even practicing the arts do for us. It’s an endless, timeless amalgam of the rational [left brain] with the intuitive [right brain]. Something about the synapses connecting, maybe, and voila, Rembrandt! Degas! Beethoven and Bernstein. Uncle Hank with his carving, Cousin Rachel with her quilts, the kids next door who take piano or voice lessons! Voila!, each!

And voila!, Judith, Susanne, Dianne, Mary, Myrna, Marshall, Stephanie . . . Voila!, Norm, the plein air “master,” and all the other itchy, arts-hungry people who’ve joined in! May your tribe increase. And your itches become “Aaah’s!” Have some lemonade; there’s plenty to go around.

A Note from Our Director: At the Heart of Art

By Judith Deem Dupree,
Co-Founder, Director
Pine Valley, CA

At the heart of art . . . that’s where we intend to “plant ourselves!” This smallish venture was raised up out of the rocks and rills of East San Diego County, where art is mostly an individual passion or practice by a relatively few scattered souls. Or so we thought, at the onset. What a pleasure to find out how wrong we were! Artists out here in the boondocks are mostly unknown and under-appreciated, but not rare--simply faced with little outlet for public expression.

It’s been three years since we joined two small nuclei (from Pine Valley and Campo-Lake Morena)- villages out beyond what is deemed civilization. Both little groups were struggling to find expression and draw in warm bodies. It was a marriage of convenience that “took.” After the first year as an entity, we knew we were on to something essential. Full of “essence,” and needed.

Right away, I informed my counterpart from the Campo area that she was the director. And it was a good choice. Denise Morse was a delight to us all, and a dynamo (a very pretty one at that!). Now, Denise has moved to Tucson, and is sure to put forth her extensive passion and energies elsewhere. We miss her greatly yet continue to heartily value her friendship, business acumen, and wise advice.

Now we have done a bit of shape-shifting, as two other stalwarts also tiptoed out for their own mandatory reasons and several new board members newly come aboard. New plans, new directions are forming, along with the prior commitments. We are excited! We note the loss of these first beloved artsies who made it all happen, but the parting was sweet, with nary a dark moment between the lot of us. That is success in anyone’s estimation!

We are now a non-profit, 501 c (3) organization, an affiliate of CA Center for Youth, Nature, & The Arts (CYNA), located in Alpine, halfway "down the hill" toward San Diego. The CYNA director, Stephanie Wells, is a valuable member of our Board as well.

Our purpose and plans? To fill that obvious gap in public art, and to become a bridge for those who know and love the arts, providing both instruction and fellowship. To help those who perhaps don't know much about the arts - "helping them help themselves." Perhaps they lack the means or self-motivation to come out of their respective closets. They’re out there, and we’re finding them. Now, and we hope, increasingly, we’ll be funding them.

The dearest part of our vision, the part we’ve practiced mostly, is working with children. Through the schools, beyond the schools, we’ve reached out with announcements, flyers, ads, word-of-mouth, everything we can think of to tell the children and youth in the back-country that “There’s fun and adventure in art!” They are beginning to believe us!

Our newest venture is theatre arts. We are fortunate to have on board Dianne Holly, emeritus professor of theatre at UCSB. She is a dynamo, and is staging a Christmas play cum carols that will surely be a delight to the local communities.

We’ll keep you posted. We’ve only just begun, as the saying goes. If you live in the [greater] Mountain Empire community, come join the fun - as part of the team, or as someone who wants to explore a bright new dimension in life, or a believer in the art-needs of our children. Or all of the above. We are waiting for you. At the heart of art.