 Hello, everyone. Thank you for tuning into the Art So Wonderful show. And I'm Bruce Wilson, Executive Director of Art So Wonderful. And I am so happy today that I have my wonderful executive assistant with me, Laura Tebow. And she's going to help co-host this show, probably going to actually run the show for us. And so, Lauren. Thank you, Bruce. How are you doing today? Well, let's talk about what's going on. We have a lot of exciting events coming up for Art So Wonderful. There's going to be a jazz fest at the U-Mall. That's happening on June 4th. So make sure you're there. It's going to be from 2 to 4 p.m. And then on the 9th, we're going to have an art so... Wait a minute. Where's the one that's going to be? That's going to be at the U-Mall. All Universal Mall. June 4th, 2 to 4 p.m. We look forward to an Art So Wonderful jazz fest. It's going to be in the center court. Right across from our Art So Wonderful gallery. Following that, on the 9th of June, we're going to have an Art So Wonderful gallery and open mic at Crew Coffee on Church Street. That's going to be exciting. That's going to be so fun. That's going to be good. That's going to be from 5 to 7 p.m. Yeah. We're very lucky to have our event coordinator doing the cameras right now. He's helped planning on the Crew Coffee in all our events. So that's cool. That's going to be awesome. Yes, thank you, Hunter. In July, we have something very fun to look forward to. That's going to be our 9th annual Art So Wonderful fundraiser gallery. It's going to be an Art So Wonderful tattoo expo. We are looking for local tattoo shops to come set up boots and come show the community what you're all about. It's a great opportunity for artists, and we're looking forward to an awesome event there. Let's talk about that one a little bit. Yeah, that's going to be at the Burlington Marriott downtown. Battery Street. Right on that street. What an incredible space to have a fundraiser, especially at the Marriott. That's like a premier spot. And then also to give tattoo artists an opportunity to showcase what they do and promote what they do via social media and actually provide some... What are you going to do? Parafine? Are they going to be selling stuff? What are you going to do there? You can set up examples of your work. If you have any t-shirts or, you know, merch, hats, wristbands, bring your artists out. You know, really promote what you've got going in your shop and get your name out there. Get some clients, hopefully. Yeah. That's going to be July 29th. Plus, they get... Plus, not only that, but they can set up appointments for people to come get tattoos and pick some art while you're there, you know? Oh, yeah. While they're there, somebody can pick some art that they like. Maybe they sell an art, tattoo art. That's so incredible. The tattoo art? Oh, my God. It's like incredible how they draw it. If you ever look through a tattoo book... Truly, yeah. Wow. So much going on. And so I'm really looking forward to that. Normally, we have... Well, not normally, but we have a different type of art when we do things that our annual art show at the Marriott on the 9th of year. And so usually we have... I think last year was like acrylic art and then the year before that was graffiti art. And so to this year's tattoo art... Awesome. I almost forgot. Kadina's going to be there. Oh, yes. We got her girl, Kadina. Kadina's going to do some live painting, baby. Body paint. Oh, Kadina, we love you so much. I wonder if she's going to have any male models. I doubt it. Wow. She actually might get some male models, but if she asks me, it's going to be stick to the female. Or ex-hunter. Yeah, hunter. I think I'm going to say, oh, let me stick a body for her. I don't know, but that's going to be fun. What else would that be? It's going to be awesome. So we are also doing a fashion show at the University Mall. It's going to be an art so wonderful fashion show in August, August 13th. We're going to run the runway right through our art so wonderful gallery. And the stage is going to pop out through our doors. It's going to be great. We're going to look forward to models from every store in the mall. There's going to be music. There's going to be raffles. It's going to be art, of course. What kind of music are we going to have, Hunter? I mean, at the fashion show. Movie type music. Awesome. Doing some runway beats. It's going to feel like a New York fashion week right in our U-Mall. Yeah, it's going to be our cello. Our cello fashion week. And that's going to be awesome. I can't wait to see that. You know, we've done like three or four already in the mall. And they are always being incredible. And so I can't wait to see this one, you know. Me too. Me too. That's going to be it. Oh, that's right. Because we've got Balaluca. It's going to be in there with the jury too. Wow. They have some incredible jury, Balaluca, in the University Mall, who said they're excited. I know. We're really thankful to have them on board. And you know, we're looking forward to keep setting things up for that. It's going to be a very filled event. Yeah, definitely. Awesome. Well, guess what? So today, we're very fortunate to have Lisa Weber from one of the owners at Crew Coffee painting one of our electrical boxes. Yeah. We speak right now. That's right. And that awesome, in the electrical boxes, where's it at? It's on the corner of... It's in South Winterski Avenue in Bankstreet. South Winterski Avenue in Bankstreet. Right in front of a handy service center. Right. And the other day, we was all out there and trimming the grass. And she was painting it black, priming it. And it's going to be so nice. She's sending me the design. Oh, God. I can't wait to see that. Lisa, let me go out around town and look at your other boxes and see if... Guess the inspiration. Yeah, guess the inspiration as well as is any designs going to look like hers? I'm like, nobody's got to design like you, Lisa, because this her design is like, God, it's going to be popping. Little twos. Little twos. It's going to be popping out there, man. It's going to be so nice. And we really love our artists. And we love to... One thing I also wanted to love to do is help artists showcase their talents in art, in places, in public places. So we have over 60% of the murals in Burlington. And we have murals in St. Albans. We have murals in Berlin. We have murals in Winterski, underneath the bridge. And all those cool murals we got... The last one we did was at Pearl Street Beverage, where you... It's dedicated to essential workers. We have an incredible large mural at the University Mall in the Fulcourt. We are in the University Mall. We have one says Vermont with six-foot letters. We're going to change your t-shirt. You guys will see those Vermont t-shirts coming out. Everybody is going to want one. And we have one in the H. Y. Anna House. We have murals in so many cool places. And the whole thing that I'm excited, always, to get excited about is to see... We help artists put stuff in public spaces, man. Especially downtown in any city. How big is that? It really is so awesome that we can get the artists' work represented in places where people don't even have to go out of their way to look for art. It's really meaningful. I think it definitely brings a strong sense of community, getting everyone involved, and being able to see, you know, beautiful murals and painted electrical boxes and everything that's going up. You know, the art so wonderful has been helping piece together. Yeah. Then we got the one... I'll tell you a quick little story from our lead muralist, Jamie Bedard. On Union Street, there's a mural that says, Black Lives Matter, and it's like, I don't know, 50 feet long or whatever, and eight feet high or whatever. And so we have a art so wonderful has a graffiti abatement program as well. And so what we do is help clean. We clean up graffiti to keep the city really beautiful and a lot of restorative organizations like send individuals to us who might have tagged up to town to help clean it up. Part of what art so wonderful do, it all does. It's like, guess what? And we go out and help them clean it up. Guess what? Now you can put a cool mural up there, part of your community service hours. And so how awesome is that because we believe in restorative justice. So we have a lot of murals that represent that. You see the ones behind Handys and all the graffiti art ones and Union Street. So I am so excited about the murals. It really makes me feel good when I see them and I see individuals working on them and they give them opportunities to like you said, we both said, showcase their talent. Because guess what? They get, when you showcase your, they give a chance to showcase their talent. They can put it in their press kit, their resume, their job application, you know, and show people this is where my art is, right smack downtown on this building. How big is that, you know what I'm saying? So that's what Art So Wonderful and our pair of company service rendered incorporated do. That's who we are, you know. And I'm always ready to put a mural up there. But the thing, I never put a mural up there. I never put a paint brush on myself. So I'm the good, me and one of the directors like, we're so good at priming the wall. They think Bruce, you just primed the damn wall. You don't even try to draw a little stick of a person. You just primed the wall. You're so good at it. So that's what the executive director do. He's priming one. I'm so happy to do that. Because I want to make sure there's a lot of paint up on the prime and things like that. So Art So Wonderful and our murals is incredible. So you got something coming up too, you know. Let's talk about your program. So we are working on a program called Gardens for Goodness. Okay, go ahead. Can we talk about that one? Gardens for Goodness is super exciting. So we want to bring accessibility and the community to more resources and hands-on experience in growing crops, growing food, permaculture and learning about what plants thrive here in Vermont and the ecosystems and the plants that go along with those. We want to also focus on plant medicine and naturopathic medicine. There's a lot of wild plants native to our area that you can go right out into your backyard or a local park and find and utilize in your day-to-day life. So we want to teach more Vermonters about that and how to find those and process these plants and store them. So all these years from now, I'm like, damn, I got to go look at those a million dandelions growing in my damn yard. I need to get those out. Now you told me something about dandelions. What is their word? Right, so even dandelions are a plant medicine within themselves. You can use the flower, the leaves and the root and they're all medicine. They have anti-inflammatory properties. There's a lot of things you can do with them. They have a lot of nutrients surprisingly in minerals in them. Things you would never think of and they feed the bees. So it all feeds in to the ecosystem of taking care of ourselves and the planet. What other plant that, what are some other plants out there ago, medicinal? What other types of plants? I'm just curious. We went over it. We all went over it the other day but let's see it again. So there's a St. John's Wharf which is another herb that you can find here. Echinacea is like a flower. It has properties. Even oats, an oat straw is very soothing. What does that do? Oats straw? Have you ever had a rash before and taken an oatmeal bath? So it's very soothing to your skin and it's something you can go find in a field. So it's awesome. And when we're going to be doing that stuff too, we're going to be going like all the types of things we're going to be doing is going through the culture of finding things. You guys have, the curriculum is not written yet but I know we talked about how exciting that's going to be for who are the people we're trying to attract at this work with you? We want to work with everyone but we want to also focus on our senior citizens and bringing them out and back out into the nature and getting them involved with holistically taking care of their body and doing natural medicine. You know, whether that's something they used to do and they've, you know, over the years fallen out of touch with due to accessibility or if they've never had it accessible and it's something they want to learn about, we really want to get everyone out there. I'm willing to bet you senior citizens are going to know a lot already because through their ancestral, you know, they can teach us some stuff too. In our part of tour, we're going to go to the senior homes and what was the plant thing you were talking about? The seniors in their senior place, homes. We'd like to go to senior homes. We're going to bring garden boxes, hopefully to hang in their windows and have them do a little hands-on arranging of different flowers and have a little garden right outside their window for them. That's cool. I know a lot of people who just like to have plants, you know, and just, like me, I like to have some plants up in our so wonderful gallery. We do, yeah. How are we going to, well, you guys will teach me about lighting and all this type of stuff. The light in that place, the light is like, you can grow, I don't know, you can grow a lot of it. Turn into our garden. Yeah, a garden in our so wonderful gallery. So I'm looking forward to that. You know, we're going to, anybody want to donate, anybody want to donate a plot to us? Well, you talk about it, you ask. Oh, yeah, so we're looking for a plot of land currently to get all of this where we can put beds of vegetables for food and then a plant medicine garden with different herbs in it. Yeah, of course, some organic soil. We can do that. How high, how high does the soil need to be? Like, you know, you put organic soil, does it, over top regular soil? Can you do that? Well, if you're doing it in a raised bed, but if we're digging into the ground, well, it'll also be a few feet dug into the ground. A few feet. Yeah, so that's, you know, that's not a problem. We're not looking for an acre or nothing. No, no. Like a plot, right? Like a decent plot where we can grow things and take it to the seniors and everything you say you and me are going to do. So I'm excited about that too, because I was an old little country boy in Chicago. Only summer homes. And they used to make me go out there and, well, that kind of, when they say come ride the horses, I was like, yeah, I'm out here. When they say like, well, you need to slump the hogs or do the guard, you know, plow the guard, and I'm like, oh, God, I mean, I didn't really care. But I learned a lot because I had to. And quite frankly, that's what brought me to Vermont to live, you know, because of the mountains and the lakes. And I was a city boy, you know, in Hyde Park, but I was also a country boy because I was in the country. So I'm glad I was, I'm able to be able to do both, you know. And I'm glad we're going to be bringing it back, you know, because got to, man. Right, it's very important. These are skills that you utilize and keep in your life, you know, to take care of yourself. And it's something that should be taught to everyone. But, you know, that, so the good thing too is that, you know, we're not going to use like I always say, I'm not going to use my little tiny brain as much no more and say, go ahead, yes, you can do this. I mean, just making a decision that you can do it. I mean, you already know you can, you know, because we all, all of us, all we want to do is good stuff. So how can you say no to something good? Never, I would never say no to something that's working good or that you want to do good. But we also will be working with what is, you know, like the different, what's the name of the departments? Then I will be working for plants. The horticulture? Horticulture and botanica. Oh yeah, botanica. Botanica classes and through the high schools and probably more around the colleges who we work with through our United College Club program. And that's going to be awesome. So we have some professors on our team and just, you know, who know how to grow stuff. Right. They know how to plow or fill and know what you're supposed to do, you know what I mean? What things you can do. So I'm excited to learn about all of this and so far I've learned a lot just listening to you and, you know, Meg and Hunter about the things that we know we hope to grow and cultivate. Right. So let's talk about your program Oh, outside the lines. Outside the lines baby. I'm going to be teaching a collage program. We're doing, you know, a variety of ages for that but it's going to be working mostly with vintage national geographics. So they're really awesome material in there but we're going to be learning how to cut out the pieces and layer them. And overall artistic expression and the story they tell too. There's a lot of intuition and kind of subconscious processing I feel that goes behind putting together any piece of art but especially collages seem to really tell a story because they're already pictures so we're going to be going over, you know, kind of the thought process and the physical process with that. I'm so excited for that. Like you said, not only when they put the collage together I don't know what the curriculum is yet but people will have a story to tell around it. Isn't that awesome? Because we love stories. We love to hear, you know, why did you put this in that order of fish or the sun and the moon you know, why a person might have done that. It's awesome to hear the stories behind it and so I know we got to get our back room together and we need that truck bra and so we need to get our back room cleaned out because it's around 700 square feet so it's going to be nice size to do our classes and our art so wonderful gallery in the university mall and so I can't wait for that, you know I really can't wait for those classes to start people are going to really enjoy those classes as well, you know and then also too I want to start, you know, do like our current event, do some type of current event like since you're telling stories I always want to do it I have a book club called Starving in Mines book club and I want to make sure that they get going again and people talk about a lot of things sometimes they talk about traditional books they might read and then sometimes they talk about we don't have to be the traditional book that you read because you can be a common book that you want to share or you can be some current events that's happening in the world today it can be about not only current events but it can also be about the vacation you took you just want to talk about the vacation that you have taken, you might want to show something at the Starving Mines book club so our book club is a little different and that's what makes it so nice you can pretty much like just talk about anything, you know it's about words how good is that so I want to make sure that you get that going and so I'm happy about that oh won't you talk about Juneteenth event about what you're making for the city, the town of Essex for the town of Essex we're going to be making a collage poster board for the Buffalo Soldiers nice so that's going to be for Juneteenth the Buffalo Soldiers were an African American cavalry in the Civil War and our poster board is going to be honoring the troops that served in that and kind of showing you who they were and their energy and what they were all about so you remember that circa you remember what circa 1863 2 to 1950 1 you probably know estimated, circa's estimation I didn't realize that the Buffalo Soldiers went into the 19 especially 1950 but we did a little due diligence and it was a lady Buffalo Soldiers that's going to be included including your artwork on the sandwich boards that we're going to be putting in the communities around Essex town that everyone know when this is talking about the Buffalo Soldiers and then on the other side is going to say the circa, I mean talk about the history of it but it was a cool lady she was the only female yeah because she was the only female and she was also the first African American female to enlist in the army so she has her nice spot on the board yeah I saw that she's so beautiful and I'm glad you put a big picture of her there and then they all had these incredible uniforms they did, there's some pictures of them wearing like full furs you know I got some cool pictures so that's going to be also and also if you're some younger it was like young? yeah there were some young kids there you had to not have been older than like 12 or 13 there was all dexter there was all uniform too and the kitchen staff there was chefs in the middle they white on they had some uniforms they were decked out just like pretty much every African man I know today they always decked out on something wow so that's going to be a good one so all your supplies are coming in real soon we just got to go get them what else what else are we doing what else is happening we have quite the surprise so we have a new event space coming to the heart of downtown it's going to be over 5000 square feet we're calling it it is the function the function ample parking right it's an optimal location we're very excited for everyone to see that definitely we went up there and looked at it and you and Hunter and I and you're like that's got to be that's got to be turquoise and the floor just need to be I'm like what happened over here I'm like come on Lauren let's what we need to do here but it was so cool I know I like I love your questioning so we don't have to do much there so what do you think our timeline is to get that space I think that we should be to do our first then Hunter have some ideas and people we might want to bring in I'd say by the beginning of July yeah baby by the beginning of July we'll be ready to start getting events going in there and it's going to be a versatile space so the sky is almost the limit so we can do lots of things in there so we can definitely do open mic in there right that was one of the things you guys said right open mic and then you can teach some of your classes and you can teach your college classes and we can teach some like a the garden stuff what's in that program sorry gardens for goodness and wow so many things and it's rice mackdown I think we should jump on with we already work with high schools and colleges like BHS should come do some stuff there like what could they do there they could help us what could they do we could have a program an arts program running an after school arts program right downtown right there yeah yeah and I think Hunter we should open a recording studio in there that would be awesome that's awesome I don't have to twist hundreds I don't have to twist his arm behind his back to say that like a media maker oh yeah awesome I love that part we always had recording studios I was going to open it up in the back room in university mall space but I changed my mind because I would rather use that space in the back to do classes as well as like we got all these couches and stuff coming we get down to chill like it's just going to be another chill out center guys you know we opened up with chill out centers before in every mall large mall in the state but we're going to put a chill out center back there and classes back there and I was going to put a recording studio back there but I think downtown is better yeah that's going to be even better yeah this spot really has unlimited potential you named it the function I'm like I like that see you at the function what's going on at the function hey what's going on at the function that's cool right hey what's going on at the function what's going on at the function today oh we have an art so wonderful event there you go so that's going to be awesome and um we had we got to unload our space that we had the Burlington towns in the mall which is um we had youth centers in there and that space in there we had art galleries in there and we've used that space since 2003 Burlington town center and they closed they closed now so we still got unload that space that we looked at two spaces to our art so one for gallery we got some moving stuff we got some stuff to do we got hundreds hooking up up some box trucks to do it so but first thing first we got to get that space in the back empty but that's I already got people doing that going to be doing it so I just got to when I go to the mall today I'll check it out but um I know so cause now I'm dreaming you got me dreaming Lauren take the green up with turquoise that was you to say turquoise yeah dark blue we're going to pick out the colors tomorrow we're going to go pick out paint we're going to do it today we're going to pick out paint today we painting next week getting it all set up and going yeah so that's going to be cool um yeah that's going to be awesome so out of here the function the function we're here first on art so wonderful show yeah you heard it first so what else we got no we got something else did you say something about the fashion show oh yeah I did let don't know again about that cause it's always good to get maybe somebody want to model be a model cause we're definitely going to need some mills I know you can bring like tons of women but we definitely need mail models yeah any mail models they would like to come model at our fashion show it's going to be the art so wonderful fashion show at the U mall that's happening August 13th that's um a Saturday maybe I should get my number or something or they can get my email art so wonderful art so wonderful my email is art so wonderful a r t s so wonderful numeral 2 at gmail.com anybody interested in doing being a part of any of our events and projects or anything just email me Bruce Wilson and um and then I'll send it to Lauren or I'll send it to our art director Alondra Delaquesta who's our art director and curator of our galleries and she'll get right back with you or if anything that you want to do or if anything that you want to do in our programs programs or events then um Lauren we'll deal with that and Hunter they will make sure that happen we welcome everybody to be a part of everything we do because that's what our programs are all about is about working with people youth people, communities, business we have a clear record of doing that and we have, our programs have over 50 awards for doing this work we do and people recognize what we do you know and it's, you know we don't charge nobody to be a part of our programs you know what I mean people are doing an electrical box right now we provide all the paint for our murals and brushes and supplies to our incredible sponsors that we have we just want you to be feel free to do the things that you want to do, healthy outlet that's what we try to do a healthy outlet I be always telling my team I tell Lauren every day we provide a service to the day going world we're providing a service to the world and we know we do and no doubt about it and we strong on that they can tell us if they want to but it's not just our jobs our service to the world we don't charge nobody nothing to be a part of our programs actually we, and we help you with jobs job shadowing, mentoring, tutoring we help you get into scholarships through the community people we know, you know we work on a central level with our governors and senators and mayors and legislators people who know me or hear me talk or anything they know this and so we don't mess around like today's Friday we only Monday we will send out the e-mail today believe me, people who know me they know I am ain't no, ain't no it's the truth so I don't know, I feel good about people who help us, we have a lot of creative work so excited, yes what you got, you got anything else on that well speaking of the U-Mall don't forget June 4th Art So Wonderful Jazz Fest that's something to certainly look forward to that's going to be 2 o'clock at the U-Mall yeah, it's going to be so nice right across from the Art So Wonderful Gallery maybe you want to get there a little early and check out the art in there we also have the open mic Art So Wonderful open mic gallery at Crew Coffee that's right at the top of Church Street that's going to be June 9th that's going to be so awesome 5 to 7 come check out you never know who you may catch on the open mic hold on, let me say one thing you're right when our sponsors are Underground Closet we're going to do some raffles and you might win you will win some cool from Underground Closet everybody loves that shop that's just awesome Zach is going to see if he can show up and give away the price okay Zach, come through you will and then bring up one more time just to put in everyone's head that wonderful 9th annual Art So Wonderful Tattoo Expo that's going to be a fundraiser gallery once again just to put in everyone's head we are looking for Tattoo Parlers and artists come set up your booth show everyone your work sell some of your shirts or hoodies get your name out there set up some appointments for yourself it's going to be a great place to market and meet other artists get connected in the community and also support a great cause Art So Wonderful that's going to be a let's get my email again so you can email Bruce Wilson let's go Arts Art So Wonderful Numeral 2 at gmail.com Arts Art So Wonderful Numeral 2 at gmail.com Lauren is explaining what we're talking about right now and putting in like a subject matter the art gallery fundraiser programs and projects events you might have I know you all have some skills out there too that Lauren we all need to hear about and Hunter we all need to hear about what your skills are and especially any art through showcasing art gallery but we definitely want you to be a part of everything we spoke about just a little bit about the tattoo event that we're going to have for our fundraiser at the Marriott guess what so it's only $25 well I think we haven't decided on how much it is for our booths but anything you sell you keep 100% of the proceeds 100% so we've got to make sure our artists are taking care of themselves and doing what they deserve so what else is that it and we should close this yeah that seems to be about it cool man you guys are going to get the paint for the electrical boxes so we have electrical boxes all around we created art so wonderful boxes and like other artists and art places have took on our model and do a lot more art boxes we got it from Burlington to South Burlington to St. Albans art so wonderful and we just created those boxes in around 2010 or something so wonderful electric boxes but if you're interested in doing some boxes or helping us with murals we got some murals we got to redo and we have 60% of the murals the 60% of the murals in Burlington are ours and so we always do murals we plant murals all the time because we love to see them so just highlight me highlight Lauren should we close this thank you for tuning in to the art so wonderful show and I'm here with my lovely executive assistant Lauren and I'm here with Hunter who's our, right today he's our camera man hey Hunter we're about to close this out and he's our event coordinator so we got to run things about him unless we surprise him about let's put it in a recording studio then it's a no brainer friend we know we got a yes on them from him so thank you for tuning in we'll talk to you soon