Lamar Arts President Letters     

Dear Members of Lamar Arts and Interested Friends,

This year, 2009 begins my second opportunity to serve as President of Lamar Arts, and I am excited and grateful to be entering a “second Phase” of our wonderful and active organization. We have come such a long way since I was President in 2001 and 2002. Thanks to the efforts of a few of the many folks who have been pivotal in this growth. I especially salute:

Hayward and Karen Cox, inventors of our fund-raisers and solid supporters in providing Lamar Arts a home at  the depot. John Votaw, Treasurer and every thing else for so many years. Bill and Teresa Brown, Teresa, our first full time paid director and husband Bill, Thanks to both of you for many, many hours of labor and expertise maintaining the building and office equipment. Jean and Charles Dukes, creators of our most successful fundraiser, The Silent Auction. Virginia Legge, our past Membership Chairman, Gallery committee member and such a creative force on our board. Ellen Granum for organizing our gallery sitters.  Carol Wubbena, our founder, past president, Gallery committee member and webmaster.  Sally and Jim Weber, contributing workshops and creative ideas to the board and instrumental in the building of our Buggy Days Craftsman's Village. Denise Edwards and Ken Schramm, who helped with initial fund-raisers and extended our membership to include people from the entire United States. Marlin Adams, who holds a high standard for the artists who study with him. Beth Turner, who put our books into an understandable form and showed us not to be afraid of accounting. Aaron Brown and Dorothy Carter for Black History Month exhibits and Kwanza celebrations that they have brought to the gallery, local organizations such as the Barnesville Woodturners and the Barnesville -Lamar Community Foundation.

I just name these few, yet so many of you have contributed so much! Because of you, we enter 2009 with a first class gallery in The Depot, a positive bank balance, and a reputation for consistently excellent cultural events and art exhibits. More importantly we have brought together a committed, artistic, community who have rallied around Lamar Arts as a home for creativity, and a place where all participants are welcomed for their unique expressive contribution.

I approach this new Presidency filling especially large shoes. Last but not least in extolling the accomplishments and dedication of our creative community, I salute our outgoing President and her husband, Angela Preston and David Preston. Both have been have been incredibly dedicated community servants as President and Facilitator of Lamar Arts and Lamar Arts Gallery. Both have worked diligently with the board and all members of the community to make sure Lamar Arts created the kind of community profile that would generate excitement and interest, and be taken seriously as a thriving community service organization. While Angela has worked with the exhibits, the board, grants and planning, David has worked to solve the many physical problems that an old building such as the Depot, inevitably has. Angela’s unfailing sense of space has earned her a place as a wonderful Exhibits Designer. Another of the great legacies of Angela and David, with help from John Votaw and Bill Brown, has been the installation of a professional exhibit installation system. This system makes it so much easier to hang our art exhibits. Many of the exhibition installation problems have been solved and our exhibits reflect this.

We enter the New Year, 2009, with a most active and dedicated Board of Directors. With the help of this Board, this next year, we would like Lamar Arts to reach out locally and to surrounding communities with a series of classes, workshops, exhibits, and performances that will offer all people in our community the opportunity to explore their own creativity. We are never too old to learn something new, or to experience the shear joy of discovery that creativity can bring to you.

I solicit input from the community. Let us share our gifts.  We want to hear what your ideas are. Talk to us. E-mail us. Phone us. We want to be accessible to you, our membership. We want to offer programs that will benefit you and in order to do that we need your feedback as well as your continued financial and creative support. Together we will continue to develop a community with an especially unique creative quality of life.  As Hayward Cox likes to say when asked about what he likes about living in Barnesville, he replies, “We live in Paradise!” I echo that sentiment and I know many of you all do too. Let’s keep that image evolving!

I am looking forward to a productive term with help from all of you,

Eleanor Dixon Stecker