That jewel of a city up north found a good way to save money in 2008.

Next year’s proposed budget “eliminates competitive arts grants to individual artists, the arts grant program manager’s job and funding for the Arts Consortium of Cincinnati.”

The local citizenry have sent out a call to arts. Create your own postcard and send it to the mayor:

SEND POSTCARDS to SAVE ART in Cincinnati!

CITY COUNCIL is seriously considering ELIMINATING ALL FUNDING TO ARTS PROGRAMMING.
They almost did it last year–only bags and bags of postcards can change their minds.

PLEASE SEND CITY COUNCIL POSTCARDS BY DECEMBER 15 Send a real “picture” postcard to share some art with one or all of the elected officials listed below. Include the message “SAVE CINCINNATI ART”

If you know someone in Cincinnati, spread the word.

This was on Nightline last night. Their “sign of the times” segment, of course. It’s a quick history of the other Hollywood sign.

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I would totally agree with the assumption that the staggering of letters was a product of terrain, not just awesome marketing. There were a lot of little tiny boulders we had to maneuver around during our own excavation.

And speaking of which, Lexington’s Hollywood sign is decorated, beautiful and will be re-erected in a mere matter of days. Keep your feet on the ground, and your eyes on the hill.

It’s like a dream come true.

Nearly a year ago I found myself in Los Angeles for the first time in my life. It was Christmas time and it was constantly sunny and 90 degrees. I wandered down Sunset and Hollywood and stared up at the Hollywood sign on the hill and thought, “I’d like to see that in Lexington.”

I grew up in a house on the corner of Sunset and South Ashland, just up the street from the Kroger on Euclid and just down the street from Hollywood Drive. The neighborhood — commonly thought to be part of Chevy Chase — is named Hollywood Terrace. It was built at the same time as that other Hollywood, back in the 1920s and hey, why should they have all the fun?

And there could be no better time for the sign. This past summer, the city council voted down a proposal to give this neighborhood a protective Historic Zoning designation. The battle between neighbors was fierce — many were for and many were against — and the scars have not yet healed. We could use a little community spirit.

Well, the sign is now up. It’s been several months in the making, but with the help and kind support of friends and strangers, we have made it happen.

You can find the sign on South Ashland Avenue, just up from Euclid, in front of the Ashland Terrace retirement home.

It will be up there on the hill for the next month and then the real fun begins. We’re going to take the sign down, transport it over to Cassidy Elementary and the good ladies of Ashland Terrace will come down and lend their creative spirits to beautifying it.

Working with local artists Pat Gerhard (Third Street Stuff) and Jamie Givens (Murals & Things by Jamie), the ladies will paint the signs and the letters will be placed back up on the hill for all to see and enjoy.

I encourage everyone to swing by and look at it, give it a smile, maybe take your picture in front of it.

The world is a beautiful place and Lexington’s a wonderful town. Movies and television are great forms of escapism, but sometimes it’s just nice to enjoy the here and now.

We could not have gotten this done without the help of Ric McGee and the board at Ashland Terrace, and are indebted to Rhonda Fister the principal at Cassidy, and also to Jenny & Charlie O’Neill and, yes, my dear mother for their financial support.

The supplies to get this done were largely donated, and we have an utmost of gratitude for Home Depot on Richmond Road, Palumbo Lumber, and Sherwin-Williams.

And of course Jamie and Pat are too kind to offer their time and expertise to the next phase of this project.

If you’d like to help the ladies of Ashland Terrace with the painting of the signs, please by all means drop me a line. All help is appreciated, regardless of your artistic abilities. It should be a very fun time.

For those who were not able to attend the opening Pieces of Me will be on display until Sept. 6th at the Carnegie Center.

WATCH ABC36’s STORY

Eight Women Armed with Cameras
by Jonathan Rodgers and Marcie Crim
Ace Weekly, August 23, 2007

For the past month, eight women have explored their lives in a new way.

The women, all survivors of violence, were taking part in the state-wide festival, Until the Violence Stops Kentucky, which is designed to bring the issue of violence against women into the public forum.

As part of the festival UTVS: Pieces of Me was created to give these women a crash course in photographic principles and set them loose on the city to share their lives and their struggle to piece those lives back together.

The class met every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for three weeks. It began with a rudimentary explanation of photography skills—composition, negative space, the rule of
thirds. Next, we gave each of the participants a camera and told them to shoot an entire roll on just one object. Some of the class participants chose a nearby playground to photograph; other’s focused on neighborhood children.

With the basics out of the way, we turned to lessons on portraiture and then we began to request that the women show the more intimate parts of their lives. At each turn, the class critiqued the photographs for quality, style and content, and the women were given instruction on how to improve their picture-taking skills.
The women grew more confident with each camera and began to turn into real photographers, seeking out inventive subject matter and finding artistically bold ways to tell their stories. One woman wanted to shoot photos of herself underwater in an effort to express rebirth so she purchased an underwater camera and created haunting images.

Another woman in the class kept seeking out bricks to photograph because she has spent, “A lifetime hitting brick walls.”

A photograph of a nameless woman resting on a toilet, smoking a cigarette grabs you—but it is the pattern of large purple bruises traveling up and down her legs that won’t let you go.

All of the photographs clearly allow you to see pieces of the women that are working towards a life free of abuse and addiction. The ages of the women range from very early twenties to mid-fifties. They come from all walks of life and have shared incredibly intimate moments so the rest of us can bear witness to a life on the inside of chaos fighting to get out.

***

Photographs from UTVS: Pieces of Me will be on display at the Carnegie Center beginning Friday August 24th, opening reception at 6pm.

There’s a giant yard sale this weekend. It’s the Woodland Arts Fair. You’ve probably seen the commercials. They say, if you’re tired of your regular boring life then there’s something exciting happening in Woodland Park.

We don’t think life’s boring. We don’t think weekends are boring. So, we’re having a yard sale of our own.

***

Multi-Family Yard Sale

323, 325, & 327 Aylesford Place. Saturday & Sunday. Clothes, furniture, TV’s, kid stuff, electronics, dishes, art, linens, books…just about everything you can think of.

Come, park, shop and then walk to the Woodland Art Fair!

Turn right off of Maxwell St. and find us all on the right side of the street.

As the Treasurer of the Lexicoproject I strive to accomplish my organizational duties in the most effective and proactive manner possible. Not being a student of accounting I must learn from the sources I have available. I am working to process the 458 pages of the 2007-2008 proposed LFUCG budget. While pedagogy suggests starting at the beginning and move to the end; or begining with simplicity and move to complexity, there is a fantastic middle that is Lexington.
As I move through my process of understanding the 2007-2008 proposed LFUCG budget I invite you to follow me on my journey.
I have complete confidence these 458 pages provide a concise and accurate depiction of how and where our money is spent. That being said budgets are funny things. Lets find the humor in the below highlighted line item.

Photographer Nina Berman has collected a series of images and interviews with soldiers who’ve been injured in Iraq. More of her photos can be found here and you can find out more about her Purple Heart Project here.

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