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Dear Friends:
Whew! What a busy weekend I had! It sure was fun, though, to be with so many wonderful people. I was in St. Petersburg, Florida, for my show with the Finn Gallery, and I think I met nearly everyone in Pinellas County.
Thursday afternoon I was the guest speaker for a meeting of the Rotary Club of Belleair. The meeting was held at the Belleair Country Club, which proclaims to have the first golf course in Florida. It's a beautiful and historic place.
Thursday night the Finn Gallery hosted a wine and cheese reception to raise funds for Special Kids Dance & Performing Arts. This is a nonprofit organization that provides classes in dance, music, art, drama, and martial arts to children and young adults with special needs. The classes improve the health, fitness, coordination, self-confidence, and social skills of children with disabilities.
Some of the wonderful people I met during the fundraiser for Special Kids Dance & Performing Arts, L. to R.: Beth Arvilla, Lisa Fultz, Joy Marks, Linda Steele, Christine Golczewski (behind little girl), Melissa Steele (little girl), Lily Alcott, and me.
Friday morning before Finn Gallery's show, I talked to a group of Pinellas County home-schooled children and gave them a tour of my home.Friday night's show was also a benefit for Patti Thiel, a Perioperative RN Intern at All Children's Hospital in St. Pete. Patti oversees a very busy team of open heart staff who performs transplants and open heart surgery on pediatric patients. Patti has been a lifelong lover of dogs and has rescued several dogs with her life partner Robert. Sadly, one of the dogs Patti and Robert had rescued, which had been recovering from a lifetime of poor treatment, turned on Patti and severely mauled her. As a result of the attack, Patti's arms and hands are terribly damaged, and she faces up to a year of rehabilitation and possibly multiple surgeries and skin grafting. I'm very pleased to announce that Friday night's fundraising efforts for Patti netted $1,650.
Patti Thiel is the lovely young woman with the cast on her arm, shown here with some of the many people who came out to support her. Photo courtesy of Tammy Berk.Saturday morning I was delighted to meet a group of teachers who are members of the Delta Kappa Gamma Society. They came to my house, and I gave them a tour and we talked and talked and talked! Delta Kappa Gamma Society International is a professional honor society of women educators. The Society promotes the professional and personal growth of its members and excellence in education. A few years ago I received an honorary membership in the Society through the IOTA State Organization. (The IOTA state is Virginia.) This year I created a special print edition to help raise funds for the IOTA State Organization, titled A Noble Profession.
A Noble Profession is available from IOTA State Delta Kappa Gamma. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this print will benefit the IOTA State Organization and its programs.After the show on Sunday, the Moss Pelicans Chapter of the P. Buckley Moss Society held their meeting at my house. I was very pleased to meet Debra Jackson, a teacher at John Hopkins Middle School in Pinellas County. The Chapter raised over $1,300 to send Debra to this year's Creative Mind Conference, sponsored by the P. Buckley Moss Foundation for Children's Education. However, when the conference was canceled, the Chapter decided to help her in another way. Debra has incorporated art into her curriculum, and the Chapter is going to donate funds to help her purchase paper, paints, and brushes for her students.
Last year, the Chapter raised funds to send another teacher, Dara Vance, to the Creative Mind Conference. Debra and Dara met at a meeting of teachers who work with "challenging" students. At that time Debra was attempting to teach her students about life in Colonial times-a life without computers, video games, and cell phones. The students couldn't imagine such a world, so Dara printed out photos she took at last year's conference, which was held at the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, Virginia, for Debra to show them. The photos were so impressive to Debra's students that they completed their reading on Colonial life and requested to learn more about Colonial times.
Also while in St. Pete, I finished the painting for my show with Kitten's Korner that will be held at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, December 29-January 1. The Old White features the Golf Club, which is the clubhouse at which each of The Greenbrier's three 18-hole championship golf courses begins and ends. Come help me ring in the New Year at The Greenbrier!
The Old White will be released during my show with Kitten's Korner, which will be held at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, WV, December 29-January 1. For more information, please contact the gallery at 304-536-9206.I've made it back to Virginia just in time for Thanksgiving with family in Waynesboro. My daughter Patty and I are setting off on Friday morning for my show with 2nd Floor Gallery in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. The show will actually be held at 2nd Floor's sister gallery Gallerie 13, also in Mechanicsburg. We'll release my new giclée on paper Boiling Springs Remembered, which features the historic village of Boiling Springs near Carlisle. Boiling Springs started as a settlement around the Carlisle Iron Works, which built a blast furnace there around 1760. Among other things, the iron works produced munitions and ammunition during the Revolutionary War. The seven-acre, man-made lake dates to the 1750's when it was dammed to power the iron works. It is fed by some 30 natural springs which bubble to the surface from subterranean caves estimated to be 1,800 feet below the surface. The water appears to be boiling, and that's where the village gets its name. Boiling Springs was also a stop on the Underground Railroad for escaping slaves from the South.
Boiling Springs Remembered will be released as a giclée on paper during my show with 2nd Floor Gallery in Mechanicsburg, Pa. For more information, please contact the gallery at 717-697-0502. Featured in the painting are the Little Stone House, the Ege-Bucher Mansion, The Clocktower and Boiling Springs Tavern, and a gazebo overlooking the lake.Happy Thanksgiving, and please remember to say a prayer for our soldiers who are not with us to celebrate this special day.
Love,
Pat
On November 19, Dr. Linda Wilson, Secretary of the Board of Directors of the P. Buckley Moss Foundation for Children's Education and President of the Moss on the Chesapeake Chapter of the P. Buckley Moss Society, represented the Foundation at Thomas Hunter Middle School's (Mathews County, Va.) "Night of Excellence". Besides sponsoring two Thomas Hunter Middle School teachers to the 2008 Creative Mind Conference, the Foundation originated a one-week, free arts program called "Children's Summer Arts Program" at the Bay School Cultural Arts Center in Mathews with a $1,500 grant in 2004. The Foundation also gave a $1,000 grant to the Bay School in November of this year to help support the fifth year of this program.
The Moss
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74 Poplar Grove Lane
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©P. Buckley Moss 2009