Arts Opportunities Abound

St. Louis may be a mid-sized city, but it has a myriad of opportunities in the arts. Last week, i attended the annual St. Louis Arts Awards for the third time since I moved here, and each year I am more amazed than the last at the breadth of talent in this town

.  Sponsored by the St. Louis Arts and Education Council, http://keeparthappening.org, and held at the Chase Park Plaza, this year’s 23rd annual awards ceremony honored a diverse group of organizations and individuals as follows: Shakespeare Festival St. Louis, Excellence in the Arts; Jim McKelvey and Doug Auer, Third Degree Glass Factory, Arts Innovators; Jill McGuire, Regional Arts Commission, Lifetime Achievement in the Arts; Warner Baxter and Tom Voss, Ameren Corporation, Corporate Leadership in the Arts; Ken and Nancy Kranzberg, Excellence in Philanthropy; and Winifred Crock, Parkway Central High School, Art Educator of the Year.

To me, what is just as amazing as the range of arts-related opportunities in St. Louis is the fact that so many of them are FREE. 

A 2015 honoree, The Shakespeare Festival, is held each summer in Forest Park, http://www.sfstl.com, and features free performances of plays you’d pay to see elsewhere. The organization will celebrate its 15th year this summer with a performances of Anthony & Cleopatra in late May and early June.

  Every third Friday, the Third Degree Glass Factory, another 2015 Arts Award recipient, located on Delmar just east of the Delmar Loop, hosts a free family-friendly event featuring glassblowing and bead-making demonstrations, music, and rotating gallery exhibits. You also have to check out the amazing glass sinks in their bathrooms! http://www.thirddegreeglassfactory.com

  The St. Louis Muny offers 1,500 free seats to each of its performances. Details here: http://www.muny.org/tickets/free-seats

One of our girls favorite free art activities is visiting the St. Louis Arts Museum for Family Sundays, when they host special activities to get children engaged in the exhibits currently on display. http://slam.org

I am sure there are many more activities I haven’t mentioned, so if you’ve got a favorite free opportunity please share it in the comments section! 

American Sniper hits the target

    Over the years I’ve done all kinds of writing on topics ranging from school board meetings to midget wrestling, but I just realized I’ve never written a movie review. So, I’m going to take a shot at it, with American Sniper.

I grew up watching war movies with my dad, a Vietnam War veteran and movie buff…or maybe movie addict is more accurate. From classics like Sergeant  York and The Bridge on the River Kwai to more contemporary movies like Memphis Belle, our basement often sounded like a battlefield when Dad was watching TV.

So blood, guts and gore doesn’t generally get to me. However, American Sniper hit me differently. It offers a glimpse of what’s going on inside a soldier’s heart and mind.

 Here’s a brief summary: American Sniper is based on the true story of a Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle's sharp shooting accuracy saves countless lives on the battlefield and turns him into a living legend. Back home in Texas with his wife and kids after four tours of duty, however, Chris finds that he can’t get the war out of his head.

Chris is played by Bradly Cooper….who I have to confess I typically associate with The Hangover movies or some romantic comedy….but this role gives him the opportunity to be a real actor telling a meaningful tale. Cooper’s efforts have earned him an Oscar Nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role and the film also earned a Best Picture nom.

Check out more about American Sniper and find local show times here: http://www.fandango.com/americansniper_177733/movieoverview

           Have you seen American Sniper?  What did you think?  Please tell me your thoughts in the comment section

Resolutions Sometimes Come Back Around

New Years Resolutions sometimes come back around

The Timehop app reminded me the other day of the New Years resolutions I’d posted on Facebook four years ago….
If you don’t have the Timehop app, it’s a hoot and you should check it out in the App Store! It will dig through your social media posts of the past to show you daily what you shared a year ago, two years, three years, etc…

Now, back to my four-year-old New Years Resolutions……I had posted a list of three things for 2010: 

1. Order skinny lattes

1. Organize my work contacts and

1. Fall in love with a guy who isn’t a jerk. 

So, four years later now, I literally laughed out loud as I read these because my work contacts…even though I have a completely different job in a completely different city with a completely different set of people are still a hot mess. I’m doing pretty good, however, on Numbers 1 and 3. 

But why are our New Years Resolutions so hard to keep?
Sometimes, they’re simply just too lofty or unrealistic. We don’t create a plan to make them happen, or we don’t have the resources to accomplish them. I’ll blame this one on my still unorganized work contacts….with that key resource being time. I just need to carve out a chunk of time to do it. Maybe that will happen this year…
Although we’re likely to fail, the principal behind setting New Years Resolutions is a healthy one and shouldn’t deter us from trying to keep them. Who doesn’t love a fresh start, a clean slate, a new year, a chance to be a new you?

This year, instead of setting out to accomplish something new, I’m resolving to remember what I already have. I’m resolving to breathe deeper, look longer and hug tighter. Oh yeah, and get those work contacts in order. 

Whatever you’re resolving for 2015, I wish you the best in keeping it…..if nothing else, maybe you’ll get a good laugh out of it in a few years like I did.