With grants written, it’s time to enjoy summer

By Rebecca Petersen | The Daily Journal

Published Saturday, July 5, 2008

More Summer Arts Classes coming your way. Summer Arts Academy II starts the week of July 14 with more opportunities in music, art, theater and dance. The showcase at the end of Session I was pretty fun.

Check out the classes on line at www.fergusarts.org or stop by and pick up another schedule. Angie Zimmerman will be back doing more print making — with classes offered during the day and in the evening. Angie is awesome.

Next week's Concert in the Park has been switched up a bit with Fiddle and Feet replacing the originally planned music.

You'll love Fiddle and Feet. Jamie Gans is amazing on fiddle and Tamara Loewenthal is a wonderful clogger.

That's on July 10.

Then, on July 11, in the morning they'll be offering fiddle and clogging workshops at 10 a.m. at A Center for the Arts. Come and join in.

Clogging is appealing to all shapes and sizes. If you've ever done tap dancing, you'll fit right in.

So, even though my feet aren't exactly flying, I have never had such a flight of fingers in my life.

We just came off of a week of grant writing and final reporting that has left my keyboard (and my fingers) gasping for air.

We've spent months working up this grant to the Bush Foundation, which was superseded by some other grant proposals with earlier deadlines.

That, on top of final reporting for the Big Read Grant and the Minnesota Humanities Forum, created a flurry of activity at the keyboard.

Most of those proposals are put to rest now.

The keyboard is quieting down and the action is just waiting to happen.

It's like this. While it's great fun to write grants and receive grants, it's a lot of work to 1) put them together, 2) implement them, 3) collect the data and 4) properly report on what you've done.

That being said, we're awfully lucky that these opportunities are out there.

They not only encourage us, they help us get ourselves organized enough to put something on paper that makes sense — we hope.

There's been enough summer grant writing. Let's get down to the reading.

Kevin Kling will be here soon. Have you been reading “The Dog Says How,” the book written by Kevin that we've chosen as our Summer Reads?

What other books have you got in your summer reading bag? I just finished “The Last Lecture.” Rena recommended it. I liked it quite a lot. Rena and Erin are recommending “Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future,” these days. Sounds like something we should all read.

There's so much wealth in our community. We need to build on that. I'm thinking bike paths and community gardens might be a nice start. That's been my mantra ever since Blandin Leadership.

Of course it's time for me to buy a new bike and start a new garden and probably sit back, relax, read a book and enjoy what's left of summer.

How about you? More concerts in the park every Thursday

night; Storyteller Kevin Kling on July 25; “Robin Hood” opening July 11; and “Wizard of Oz” opening Aug. 2. Tickets are on sale now for both.

Rebecca Petersen is the director of A Center for the Arts in Fergus Falls.