Tuesday, May 4, 2010

"Jacksonville is for the Birds" ~ A Birdhouse Project

The Winter's Project for our "Art Presence" group, focused on highlighting fine art in our historic town of Jacksonville, was "Jacksonville is for the Birds". We'd solicited artists to create an inventive birdhouse to be auctioned in benefit for the "Jacksonville Woodlands Association" (10%), "Art Presence" (10%) and the individual participating artist (80%).

In February we previewed a portion of the completed birdhouses at the local Jacksonville entryway display case. From there, the thirteen various birdhouses nested into windows of main street retail business windows for a period of 6 weeks.

The culmination of an entire project took place on April 17th in common celebration with Jacksonville's Annual Hike-a-thon. In between all the gregarious out-door celebrations of Spring was our Birdhouse Auction. This year not only was there a hike followed by a breakfast, but an additional hike to dedicate a new trail to a local woman, who'd operated a long time business here in town, and recently lost her fight with cancer.

Our Auction went pretty well. Not as many bidders as we'd hoped but our professional auctioneer, Steve Wall, conducted a lively and humorous fundraiser. All in all, ten of our thirteen birdhouses found homes and we raised $261 for the Woodlands too!

Our "Art Presence" group learned alot about how to improve our presentation and effectiveness for next time. We'd succeeded with our first Birdhouse Project!! Next year we're thinking of "The Chair Affair" ~ ~ want to participate? Just start dreaming about your most magical, imaginative chair, table or even ottoman.

2 comments:

Elizabeth B Merriman said...

So nice to be able to see what's up in Jville? To whom was the dedication?

Unknown said...

What a bunch of neat little houses. Haven't been down to Jacksonville since 05 for the last "Jacksonville Retreat" for WSO.

Are you guys ever going to reinstate the blog for 'Southern Oregon Plein Air?'