Highland Arts Council Celebrates 25th Anniversary

The Highland County Arts Council will celebrate it’s 25th anniversary this Sunday, November 2nd from 2-4, at The Highland Center in Monterey. Council vice-president Liz Delahoussaye explains.

“This is our annual meeting, which is open to the public, and once every once in a while, we do it up right and have a real fun celebration like this year. It’s going to be a fun afternoon of looking at a lot of stuff and having some good culinary arts as refreshments, and some music from local folks, so we’re hoping a lot of people come out and celebrate with us.”

“We will not be able to begin to represent all the artists that are out there, and when I’m thinking about artists, I’m thinking about all kinds of artists – not (just) people who paint, but people who play music, people who do pottery, people who do woodwork, people who write books – all kinds of the arts will be represented.”

Ms. Delahoussaye talked about some of the Arts Council’s activities throughout the year.

“One of the big things that we do is the Drama and Arts Camp, in the summer, for the kids. They have a strings camp, and they have the drama camp and arts camp, and it runs usually two weeks in total, and it’s a really big thing for getting young kids involved in the arts.”

“We sponsor a number of different concerts throughout the year, either from students at Garth Newel or local community members who put together a show. We do monthly art shows in the Mountain View room of the library. We do do plays sometimes – a lot of it depends on the availability of folks to put in the time for rehearsing and all.”

“The Arts Council does rent a room here at The Highland Center, and it is available to people who want to do arts related things. We have an informal group that meets every Monday orning for painting and drawing, and anyone from the public is welcome to come. Another thing that we do every year now is the Artists’ Weekend, which brings artists from outside of Highland County into the county, and they go all around the county painting. We all have a grand time. We have a wet paint show on the Sunday after, and people can come and look at the art and see if there’s anything they’re interested in.”

Ms Delahoussaye said either she, President Jason Canze, Caroline Smith or Gretta Sandberg could be reached for more information about the arts council and it’s activities, including this weekend’s events. Contact information can be found at the Council’s website at www.highland-arts.org.