At first we were just a few.

But before too long the table was full! What a great time of knitting, crochet, and stitching! I forgot my knitting project, my thread for my sewing project must have rolled out of my bag, and all I had was my sketch book. No one minded while I drew Sarah’s super cute knit chipmunk.

Crystal brought a great selection of vintage crochet books as well as pattern for a great charity project.

We are sponsoring a Craft Hope send out. Drop off your dishcloth donations by the mural exhibit during opening hours (June 15th – June 19th; noon -6 pm) to be included in our send out. The oil spill needs cotton clothes to clean up the animals. I think we all have time to knit or crochet a dish cloth for this great project.

Our next fiber meeting will be a great mix of fun things as the Creative Collision! Bring any mobile project you would like to work on and come enjoy creating with other makers! It will be July 14th from 7-9pm; brookside park again. Bring a fold up chair if sitting at a picnic table rubs you the wrong way.

Kristin Roach

We are all so happy to announce the dedication of the mural and opening of a week long exhibit celebrating all our volunteers!

Ames Collaborative Art (Ames C.art) cordially welcomes YOU to attend the Campustown Mural Dedication  Ceremony
11am – 12noon on Saturday, June 12,at 206 Welch Ave

At this inaugural celebration of the Ames C.art Mural Program, we will recognize and thank the many community members who made the Campustown Mural Project possible.  In a playful riff on the traditional ritual of breaking a bottle of champagne in dedication, Ames C.art invites you to participate in a water balloon-christening of the mural wall. The brief ceremony will lead into the opening of the mural project exhibit in the campustown post office building.

Exhibit open noon to 6 p.m. June 12th and June 15th – 19th, 2010

Everyone is invited and we hope to see all of you there!

Over the last 10 days Griffle has been taking time laps photography of the project for us. We were all so excited to see what it looked like that they stitched it together for a half project release. Check out all the work we have done so far. Thank you so much to all the volunteers who have come out to make this project happen. A special thanks to Fire Station #2 and their continued support!

If you are interested in helping with the mural, just stop by this Thursday – Sunday 11am – 7pm. No experience needed, we need all skill levels to get this project to the finish line.

It’s called Ames C.art (ames collaborative art). The whole idea of it is the facilitation of collaboration between all media and art in order to infuse the community with creativity through public projects – be they workshops, lectures, or on the street art. Ames Collaborative Art. Facilitating the growth, sharing, collaboration of ames area artists and creative do gooders.

At first it will simply take the place of the sewing rebellion and instead of just sewing we will have a once a month workshop on a variety of techniques. The meeting on the 26th will be on drawing for instance.

The second “event” type I want to start up is a reading group at the library. It will cover art topics with an emphasis on community works and public art projects + self development and growth. Like the book Art + Fear for the first book (it’s short, inspiring, and informative). Look for more information on that coming up next month.

The online component of the group will be features on local artists, artist groups, and organizations. There will also be a calender of local events and submission deadlines. And of course a calender of the events the c.art coordinates.

The whole thing will be ambulatory – on the move – collaborating with various businesses, organizations and artists in order to host a variety of events that encourage creativity, growth, and participation of the community in the arts.

Always your participation and support is encouraged. There are many ways to be involved with the ames c.art: coming to events, donating your organizations space for event hosting, teaching a workshop, setting up and hosting an event, writing a review for the website, helping to keep the community event calender up to date by sending me information about your or your organization’s events. Any idea you have, just email me and we can work together to make it happen. And that is what it’s all about: the ames c.art is Ames Collaborative Art.

I look forward to working with you!

Kristin Roach
admin [at] amescart [dot] org