July 2006 Page 4

> [Posted from Sand Springs, Oklahoma]
If you might be interested in showing some support for Americans serving in uniform (some of whom are artists) check out the link below... a bona fide serious and freely provided thing we can do without making (or not-making) a political statement:
www.anysoldier.com

> Here is a link to the MISSOURI ARTS COUNCIL news of the month. These councils exist in every American State, and if you aren't already signed on for their automatic updates, then you should be. Your taxes at work, if nothing else... they do a good job, and have for a long number of years.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

July MACnotes is now available on the MAC website. Articles include:

Happy New Fiscal Year!
FY06 Final Report Reminder
2007 Missouri Arts Awards
Call for Panelists
2006 Guide to Festivals
Another Postage Increase?
Opportunities
Conferences, Workshops & More
MAC Calendar
Click here to access July MACnotes (PDF file).

SUBMISSION DEADLINE
If you have news items for MACnotes, please send them to Keiko C. Ishida, email preferred (keiko.ishida@ded.mo.gov) at least two months in advance of the event or opportunity deadline. News items will be published if space allows and may be edited. If you have any feedback on MACnotes or no longer wish to receive it, please notify Keiko C. Ishida at toll free 866/407-4752, 314/340-6845, or keiko.ishida@ded.mo.gov.

Missouri Arts Council, a division of the Department of Economic Development, annually awards approximately $2 million in grants to 400 Missouri organizations for their art activities. As public leader, partner, and catalyst, MAC is dedicated to broadening the appreciation and availability of the arts in the state, and fostering the diversity, vitality, and excellence of Missouri's communities, economy, and cultural heritage.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Missouri Arts Council 111 N. 7th Street, Suite 105, St. Louis, MO 63101-2188

> SPECIAL TRIBUTE

I want to take this space in your attentions to honor three CURATORIAL INTERNS who worked with me at the Saginaw Art Museum, without whose devotion and labors my so-called "achievements" there would (most certainly) not have occured as timely or as well as they are said to have done:

~ Katie (Katherine) Fruchey ~
Came to us from the now all-but-defunct Museum Studies program at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant. She worked her butt off during the collection moving phase, staying beyond the terminus of her expected tenure. She decamped to Berkeley, California thereafter for the purpose of attending JFK Museum Studies program, and has been employed by a major bookstore chain in the Bay Area ever since. Her sense of humour was tantamount to mine, and she gave as good as she got.

~ Alex Fintonis ~
This young man arrived as a volunteer whom I urged to become an Intern. He and Katie worked together week after week, slogging through the outdated chaotic collection storage, gently handling and moving one artifact at a time, helping me get those galleries and exhibitions ready in the early days, and helping the museum set up its first Preparatorial shop. I am somewhat responsible, then, for the fact that he met his wife, the wonderful and skilled Mary Penn (then Assistant Curator of Education at SAM, now Curator of Education at Castle Museum of Saginaw County History), during his tenure with us... and, may I say, when I was wondering why the two of them spent so much time together talking over the front desk... the result was a wonderful baby. Alex is now working in the jewelry repair profession, and being a Dad.

~ Sara Gonzalez ~
As a senior in high school, Sara expressed an interest in art museum curatorial work. She ended up coming one day weekly, spending the majority of her time doing the laborious nit-picky stuff of sorting and interfiling Couse and Roecker archives. She is currently about to enter her second year as a student of fine art at Delta College near Saginaw. Perhaps her most memorable experience would have been the day I asked her to (and she did) replace all the burned out bulbs in our changing gallery... almost 20' above the floor, atop a large and gnarly industrial hydraulic lift.

> Sally Armstrong, Director of Art Carthage, says that BRYAN FLOCK, a Joplin artist whose Main Street gallery is called "Wasted Time", has begun publishing "The Current" in town. Now I gotta go meet this guy and see how little time he's wasting.

> Department of "DO WE REALLY NEED THIS?"
My brother, George, was the first to let me know that there is about to be yet another GUGGENHEIM art museum... this one in ABU DHABI (a nation which refuses diplomatic ties with Israel, building a museum whose original funder was and the architect of which is Jewish.) They expect it all to cost, roughly, $400,000,000, or thereabouts, give or take... for edifice and collection.
a. I was kinda sorta hoping it wouldn't have to be designed by Gehry again. How 'bout Rem KoolHaas instead!
b. What happens when the oil actually DOES run out? Sand fleas anyone?
c. Pardon my cynicism.