The Life of a Bexar County Workplace Campaign for theFund

The fundraising cornerstone of theFund is the Workplace Giving Campaigns in which employees are asked to make contributions to community arts and cultural organizations affiliated with theFund. Since 2005, Bexar County employees have participated in the campaigns. This year, led by coordinating team, Linda Sue Guajardo, Laura Jesse, Yvonne Escamilla (pictured here), they raised over $28,000. This post gives you a sense of how a campaign works and how you organize one at your own workplace.

For more photos of the campaign, see our Picasa album here >>.

On March 1, 2010, the sixth annual Bexar County Workplace Campaign began with a meeting between Rod Rubbo, President and CEO of theFund, and Yvonne Escamilla, the overall County Campaign Coordinator; they established a plan with goals and a time-line of events. Yvonne has organized the County campaign since the first in 2005, but this year she passed the hat to Laura Jesse, Public Information Officer.

A couple weeks later on March 16, theFund presented campaign plans to Commissioners Court for approval of theFund Campaign 2010. The campaign launched on April 28 at a leadership lunch with elected and appointed officials and hosted by County Judge Nelson Wolff. The next week, Campaign Coordinators from each county department attended a training workshop over lunch with theFund to learn how to make presentations. Presentations for the staff began the next day, May 6.

The fund-raising campaign took place over the next two months, and on July 15, they began closing out the campaign. The results were assessed, and contribution forms were turned in to the Auditor’s Office for processing. On August 24, theFund delivered a report with the campaign results to the Commissioner’s Court. After more than 55 presentations and many people’s help and support, the campaign ended with a ceremonial awards presentation.

This year, theFund established three awards of appreciation for workplace-giving campaigns: an Award for Most Funds Raised, an Award for Largest Percentage Increase from Previous Year, and an Award for Highest Percentage of Employee Participation. Each winning department received an original work of art contributed by a funded art affiliate.

"And the Award goes to"

For Most Funds Raised, Bexar County Infrastucture Services. Director Joe Aceves and Coordinator Kerim Jacamen were acknowledged for once again inspiring their department to raise the most funds. Their award Cityscape, painted by Brackenridge High School student Chrysanthemum Brown, was donated through the Blue Star Contemporary Art program MOSAIC.

For Largest Percentage Increase from Previous Year, Bexar County Planning and Resource Management. Campaign Coordinator Nancy Soto accepted the award, a Texas Mission watercolor painted by student John Darrin with SAY Sí.

For Highest Percentage of Employee Participation, the Bexar County District Clerk’s Office. Director Margaret Montemayor and Campaign Coordinator Joan Schaffer accepted the award, a framed linocut of a meadowlark on handmade kozo paper created by Linda Draper of Southwest School of Art and Craft.

Acknowledgments

TheFund greatly appreciates all the consistent and generous participation of Bexar County employees in the Workplace Giving Campaigns.

We thank Blue Star Contemporary Art, SAY Sí, and Southwest School of Art and Craft, three funded art affiliates who donated artwork produced in their programs.

TheFund would also like to thank Ms. Rose Avila of Piedras Negras Café for her contribution of tacos for the Bexar County Information Services taco sale to supplement the department’s contributions. Rose’s contribution allowed Information Services to donate 100% of the proceeds to theFund.

And a special thanks to Olivia Morales, a violinist and former YOSA student, for her performances at the District Attorney’s offices.

How to have a workplace campaign:

1. Call us at 210- 212-8303 to set up an information meeting,
   
2. Identify an On-Site Coordinator and schedule a presentation(s),
   
3. And/Or have an Open House with displays and live performances by our funded affiliate organizations.

Writers Respond to Art @ SAMA

Have you ever marveled at a painting and wished you could wax poetic about line, color, and composition? The writers at Gemini Ink have, and they’ll be sharing their work this Tuesday evening, 6:30, in the auditorium of the San Antonio Museum of Art. Come early to view the Contemporary Art works, and gain your own sense of the collection. Then, listen to Robert Flynn, Catherine Kasper, Regina Moya, and Lyle Rosdahl for inspiration on how to write about it. This collaborative event is free.

SAMA and Gemini Ink are affiliates of theFund. Donations to theFund help provide financial operating support to qualified arts and cultural organizations.

One Bexar County Kid's Passion for the Arts

TheFund recently wrapped up a workplace-giving campaign with Bexar County employees, and we’ll be telling you more about their achievements in an upcoming post. But last year, employees of Bexar County offices raised over $30,000 for the Fund, a 16.4% increase over 2008. Yvette Moran is the Community Programs Management Analyst for Bexar County and has served as Campaign Coordinator for Workplace-Giving Campaigns with theFund. Here, she writes about how the arts plays a critical role in the education and growing self-esteem of her daughter, Paris (pictured).

My daughter, Paris, now 12 and starting the eighth grade, has participated in the arts in several ways. She started at age three with dance and Kinder-Musik programs. She was enrolled in the Guadalupe Summer Dance camp and took Ballet Folklorico/Flamenco with them for a while. She has also done ballet and jazz through a private agency. She was in choir in elementary school at St. Anthony's Catholic School. St. Anthony's also has a good music program for the elementary school that involves learning to read music and playing keyboards.

I think her participation in the arts allowed her cognition to improve, especially when it came to tough subjects like Classical Heritage. The class taught the Classics by developing students’ thinking and problem solving skills. It was no longer enough to just memorize, students had to theorize and deduce. Paris aced the class; her predisposition for the arts helped her.

In Picture Your World, a program of Green Spaces Alliance (formerly Bexar Land and Trust), Paris practiced nature photography in various locations around town. She learned about the beauty of nature in our own environment and how to capture that with a camera. She then used the Say Si! media lab to crop and edit her photos for a contest, and she won an honorable mention for her submission. The winning photographs were displayed under glass in beautiful frames at the San Antonio Public Library Gallery. This was great for her self-esteem. She’ll be taking Journalism and Yearbook in the spring.

Paris is now learning Latin, and I believe her education and training in the arts makes her realize that she can do whatever she wants with guidance and perseverance. She has learned that from all of her art, music, theater, and photography teachers.

Paris is a great student, and the arts are her passion. I used to wish she'd become a doctor or something to support us in our old age. But, now I know that this is what makes her happy and she'll lead a more passionate life if she is doing something she loves. Besides (in my own non-objective opinion) she is good at it, and we as parents need to recognize our kids’ special talents and support them with all we've got.

The Majik Theatre Ends Summer with Broadway

Friends come in all shapes and temperaments—“a worrywart toad and a perky frog,” for example. Two amphibious friends and all their “colorful hopping, crawling, and flying companions star” in the Magik Theatre’s latest production A Year With Frog and Toad. This musical by brothers Robert and Willie Reale was the first professional children theatre production on Broadway. The story follows the woodland adventures of Frog and Toad through winter, spring, summer, and fall.

Sings Frog:

“I’d like to sing a little ode
About my good friend Toad
Toad with whom I frequently take tea
He’s not so good at sports
And of course, he’s got those warts, but
Toad has been a lovely friend to me.”

It’s no surprise that Magik Theatre sold out the opening day. A Year With Frog and Toad runs through September 15. Make your reservations in advance. Visit the Magik Theatre online, or call their box office at 210.227.2751.

The Magik Theatre is one of 27 affiliates of theFund. Donations to theFund help provide financial operating support to qualified arts and cultural organizations.

My Evening @ SAMA with My Dad

Utamaro and his Five Women is not about a polygamist. My father and I saw this 1946 Japanese film at San Antonio Museum of Art, Tuesday evening. It was the second of three films in SAMA’s Japanese film series screening this month. I’m a cinephile fond of foreign classics, and my father spent his high school years in Japan. For us, the rare opportunity to see these black-and-whites is worth the trek to town.

Utamaro, the film’s protagonist, is an 18^th-century painter renowned for his woodblock prints of beautiful women. The five women of the title include two models of his paintings (a courtesan and a lady-in-waiting), a courtesan on whose back he paints a tattoo, and two women pursuing two of his friends. Naturally, passion, censorship, and murder ensue.

While waiting for the film to begin, Dad and I debated whether the film was made after or during the war. My father argued that it was made after the war; it does say 1946. The chemicals to develop the film couldn’t have been widely available during the war. I argued that it was released in 1946, but go back three to six months for post-production, one to two months for shooting, 12 to 15 months for scriptwriting, fundraising, and casting. Surely, they began research and development during the war.

Utamaro and his Five Women was made during the American Occupation, explained Curator John Johnston introducing the film. In order to produce the film, the script had to be approved by Occupation censors. The film could not involve sword fights, and the protagonist had to be congruent with democratic values. Few period films were approved, as they were deemed inherently nationalistic and militaristic. Although the print wasn’t in peak condition, the setting of the Edo period and the frame compositions are enthralling, and I was surprised by a number of near bawdy turns in dialogue.

After the film, we dashed up to the museum’s second floor to see the room of Taiso Yoshitoshi’s paintings, Season Four of Seasons of Beauty: Yoshitoshi's Thirty-two Aspects of Daily Life. The eight paintings astonished me in the way they beam beauty through exquisite precision and detail—the minute, patterned brush strokes and careful, even embossments. Yoshitoshi’s hand was more trained, his focus more fastidious, his patience more infinite than I can imagine. For an experienced pro, the process couldn’t have been too painful, or so my dad thinks. I imagine that sometimes it’s the process of production and execution that makes artists sane and crazy at the same time.

Next Tuesday’s film is The Assassination (1964) by Masahiro Shinoda. Incidentally, it’s Free Tuesdays, so there’s no admission to the museum. If you’re a member, (good for you!), admission to the theatre is free. If you’re not a member yet, pony up five bucks. We arrived at 6:45 and got good center seats; by 7:00, available seats were mainly in the bottom front rows. The parking lot was fuller than I expected, but we still found a spot.

If you see me and my dad next Tuesday, say hello.

Joy-Marie Scott is a writer, arts advocate, and Fund volunteer.

ARTS SA Presents Henry Brun and the Latin Playerz with Judi Deleon

The Charline McCombs Empire Theatre will be shaking tomorrow night with the bongos and timbales of congo dynamo Henry "Mr. Ritmo" Brun and his Latin Playerz Orchestra with his wife, vocalist Judi Deleon. They're celebrating the release of the Latin Playerz 20th Anniversary CD, and the concert's proceeds benefit ARtsTEach, ARTS San Antonio's acclaimed in-classroom, elementary-school arts education program benefiting children in the Greater San Antonio area.

Buy your tickets through Arts San Antonio.

Three-Time winners of Univision TV's Latin Jazz Band of the Year, the group's website is here.

You can get a taste with this video of Henry Brun and the Latin Playerz performing "Quizas, Quizas, Quizas."

And if you can't make tomorrow's concert, tune in to Brun's radio show, Ritmos Del Mundo, Saturday evenings at 10 p.m. on KXTX 89.1 FM, Texas Public Radio.

ARTS San Antonio is one of 27 affiliates of theFund. Donations to theFund help provide financial operating support to qualified arts and cultural organizations.

Bakumatsu in Japanese Art @ SAMA

Ever wonder what life in Japan was like before westernization? Bakumatsu, the age of the last samurai, is one of the most agitated and romanticized periods in Japanese history. It's this "twilight of the shogun" period that is featured in a current exhibit at the San Antonio Museum of Art, with 19th century prints by artist Taiso Yoshitoshi and a Japanese film series.

The Serpent (Orochi) is the first of three films that SAMA will screen on Tuesday nights. A silent film made in 1925 by director Buntaro Futagawa, it tells the story of a samurai who tragically falls on hard times.

The series' schedule:

Tuesday, August 10, 7:00pm
The Serpent (Orichi), 1925

Tuesday, August 17, 7:00pm
Utamaro and His Five Women (Utamaro o meguru gonin no onna), 1946

Tuesday, August 24, 7:00pm
Assassination (Ansatsu), 1964

For more information, check SAMA's site here >>

View Curator John Johnston's interview on "Great Day SA" here >>

The San Antonio Museum of Art is one of 27 affiliates of theFund. Donations to theFund help provide financial operating support to qualified arts and cultural organizations.

Maria A. Ibarra's SCARS @ the Esperanza, last weekend

Only two performances left to catch Ibarra's latest, most personal play, "Scars," in which Ibarra vividly relays her fight with cancer throughout the life of her 10-year old son:
"a compilation of video documenation, journal entries, poemas, canciones, cuentos y maldiciones."

“Scars” can be seen at 8 p.m. today-Saturday at the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, 922 San Pedro Ave. Admission costs $10. Receive a $1 discount with your FUNd Card.

For more info >>

Listen to an interview with Ibarra on TPR here >>

Read the review in today's Express here >>

The Esperanza Peace and Justice Center is one of 27 affiliates of theFund. Donations to theFund help provide financial operating support to qualified arts and cultural organizations.

SHANE on the Big Screen w/ TPR's Cinema Tuesdays

Don't miss the opportunity to experience this classic Hollywood motion picture on the big screen; Shane was nominated for six Oscars, winning one for Best Color Cinematography. Catch it tonight at Santikos Bijou Cinema Bistro as part of the Cinema Tuesdays Series presented by Texas Public Radio.

"Alan Ladd plays the titular character in this classic Western. Former gunfighter Shane rides into town looking for work, and takes up with a family of homesteaders. The son, Joey, idolizes him; the mother, Marion, grows to love Shane but neither party dares speak of it. Meanwhile, a local gang is threatening the family, hoping to drive them off their land. The gang’s muscle? Jack Palance, clad in black, who hardly speaks in the film, but is one of the most memorable villains of the Western genre."

For screening details, see TPR's site here >>

Read Roger Ebert’s Great Movies essay on Shane.

Texas Public Radio is one of 27 affiliates of theFund. Donations to theFund help provide financial operating support to qualified arts and cultural organizations.

Last Week to Catch Snow White & the Seven Amigos

The Magik Theatre proudly presents Snow White and the Seven Amigos, running through August 7. Based on the classic Grimm Brothers fairy tale, this hilarious musical spoof takes place long ago in the mountains of Central Mexico. Call for reservations; they already have many SOLD OUT shows. Call 210-227-2751 or visit Magik Theatre online.

The Magik Theatre is one of 27 affiliates of theFund. Donations to theFund help provide financial operating support to qualified arts and cultural organizations.

Happy Friendship Day!

Celebrate your best friend with a theFund Card, a discount card for our affiliated arts organizations. Here's just a sample of the discounts you can give your pal while supporting theFund, too:

Two-for-one admission at Jump Start Performance Co.
15% discount at Mission San Jose Book Store
1 complimentary ticket to a Majik Theatre show plus popcorn
$1 off adult admission to San Antonio Museum of Art
$2 off tickets to Texas Public Radio's Cinema Tuesdays

For more info, click on the card.