AFA Gallery Member Richard Muehleisen will be taking part in the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic Cowboy Jamboree on Friday, April 11th, at the Scranton Cultural Center, Scranton and Saturday, April 12th, at the Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre. He will be displaying his paintings and pen and ink depicting western scenes as well as displaying some of his western artifacts such as saddles, bridles & so forth. Check it out on www.nepaphil.org. Tickets are on sale now and start at $18.00. For further information, call 570-341-1568.

The STAR Gallery at the Steamtown Mall invites the community to be part of the 2nd Artist’s Market on April 5th- 11am til 6pm. Numerous visual artists will display and sell art and make demonstrations for the public, while local musicians (Bob Ross, Tom Rogo, Tom Gavern, Dick Plotkin, Barbara Cohen, and others) will complement these events. The market will be in the lobby on the 2nd floor of the mall in front of STAR Gallery. For further inquiry call 969-2537 (Gallery’s Phone Number) and join this event.

The Mulberry Poets & Writers Association (MPWA) announces its Seventh Annual Regional Poetry Contest. The overall winner of the contest will receive a $150 cash prize. Two other winners will share $150 in cash prizes - $100 for 2nd place and $50 for 3rd place. Several poets will be recognized with an Honorable Mention.
Judges will be Dr. Richard Brook, Jim Warner, Jennifer Diskin, Susan Jaffer, and Jerry Grealish.
All winners will be invited to present their poetry at a public reading on or about Saturday, June 7, 2008, at the AFA Gallery, 514 Lackawanna Avenue, Scranton, PA. The winning poems will be published in the 2008 edition of The MPWA Journal.
Submissions are due by April 15th - Tax day!
For further information, contact the contest coordinator Richard Aston, of Wilkes-Barre, at 570-829-3163 or by e-mail at astonrj@yahoo.com.

Christa Felice, Rob Hay, Maggie Innes, Cathy Jane Noto, Brie Taylor-Cha and Jessica Zekus will be represented in an exhibition of emerging artists entitled ‘Locus Focus’ at AFA. This year, guest curator Mark Webber found six artists in Marywood University’s MFA and BFA programs he felt worthy of attention.

“These artists know each other and have shared ideas to varying degrees,” says Webber, “and it seemed intriguing that they’ve all developed so forcefully. Most went to Rome together recently. There is, in some cases, quite a closeness and some rich overlap in communication. I felt there was merit in examining a group that has been in some ways influencing each other.”

The exhibit will open on May 1, and there will be an opening reception on the First Friday of May, May 2. The exhibit will be on display through the month of May.

‘Mosaics and Clay and Glass…Oh My!” is the exhibit on First Friday at Marquis Art and Frame in Scranton. It features new, functional and whimsical clay forms by well known potter Maria Livrone. Maria’s studio, the Potter’s Eye, is located inside Arts YOUniverse in downtown Wilkes-Barre.

Opening Reception: April 4th, 5:30 to 7:30 pm The show runs to April 28th.

An exhibit of oils and encaustics by Erin Miele will take place at the MAC Gallery in Scranton from April 4th until May 9th. There will be an opening reception on Friday, April 4. There will be an artist talk at 6:00 PM, followed by an opening night recepton from 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM.
Hours of the MAC Gallery are Monday - Friday, 1 AM to 8 PM. The Gallery is located at 123 Wyoming Ave., Scranton. For further info, call 570-239-2459 or contact www.MelbergerArtsCenter.com.

Earl Lehman is having an exhibition at the Butternut Gallery in Montrose entitled ‘Sacred Ground’. There will be an opening reception at the Gallery on Saturday, April 26. from 3:00 pm-6:00 pm. The exhibit will continue from April 26 until June 15.
Earl says, “Unseen in my work or at least not immediately obvious is the reverence. Each painting is a kind of prayer, more like the sigh of wind in trees or over a field than anything else. I find myself in these places and respond to their beauty and silence. Their eyes locked with mine, life itself.”
The Butternut is located at 42 Church St. (2nd. Floor), Montrose, PA 18801. Hours of the Gallery are Wednesday - Saturday 11 a.m.-6 p.m., Sunday noon-4 p.m. For further information, call 570.278.4011.

‘Hard Ground: The Face of Homelessness’, an exhibition of photographs by Ward Roe will be at the AFA Gallery from April 4 to April 19, 2008. There is an Opening Reception on First Friday, April 4 from 6 - 8 PM, with an Artist’s Talk at 5:30 PM.

The exhibition is done in conjunction with the Community Intervention Center of Scranton, which provides social services for area homeless, among others. The photographs are of clients of the Community Intervention Center, and are for sale. Proceeds benefit the Community Intervention Center, which is celebrating 35 years of service to Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Hours of the AFA Gallery are Thursday-Saturday, 12-5 PM. For further information, contact 570-969-1040 or www:ArtistsForArt.com

Regional artist Earl Lehman is featured in an exhibition of acrylic landscape paintings at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge in Philadelphia. Last year he painted on location at the Refuge while completing PCA residencies in the Philadelphia area. The exhibition highlights numerous large works from counties throughout the Commonwealth and beyond. It will run from March 15 through June 15, 2008.
The John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge is located at 8601 Lindbergh Blvd, Philadelphia, PA 19153. More information can be found at http://heinz.fws.gov or www.earlwlehman.com.

The watermedia work of Karen Rosasco is featured at an exhibition at the EMCA Gallery in Tunkhannock from April 6 thru April 27. There is an opening reception at the Gallery on Sunday, April 6 from 2 to 5 PM.
Karen won the Silver Medal from the American Watercolor Society Salmagundi Club in 2007. She has taught art both at high school and adult levels for 30 years and is a dynamic workshop presenter. Her focus is on composition and layering with fluid acrylics using collage materials.
The accompanying workshop to this exhibit is April 25, 26-27. Call 836-3622 or http://emca.emcs.net for information.

The Division of Fine Arts at Keystone College will present “Senior Exhibition II,” an art exhibit featuring work by graduating seniors, at Lizza Studios in Tunkhannock. The event will feature original art in the mediums of sculpture, painting, printmaking, graphic design, photography, and ceramics.

MEET THE ARTIST RECEPTION: Sunday - April 27th — 1:00 to 4;00 pm - Music, food and refreshments.

SHOW DATES: Sunday, April 27th through May 17th

GALLERY HOURS: Mon-Fri - 9 to 5pm / Saturday 10 to 5pm

More info to come on Keystone Senior Exhibit II.
LIZZA STUDIOS
155 Bridge Street
Tunkhannock, PA 18657
Phone (570) 836-8806
www.lizzafineart.com

The Division of Fine Arts at Keystone College will present “Senior Exhibition I,” an art exhibit featuring work by graduating seniors at LIZZA STUDIOS, Tunkhannock, PA
The event will feature original art in the mediums of sculpture, painting, printmaking, graphic design, photography, and ceramics, and live jazz by local musicians, Jazz Assassins. Refreshments will be served.
A graduation requirement for Visual Art and Art Education students, the exhibit will include three-dimensional work by sculptors Jeff Hopkins, Annie Ranney, Jackie Shattuck, and Dan Ulco; photography by Nicole Sawicki, Rebecca Fisk, and Kristen Lawrence; and mixed media printmaking by Patrick Stump and Allison Dowling. Painters Sadie Allen, Navarre Dickson, Whitney Dyson, and Tami Duffield will present a variety of work ranging from abstract to representational art, and Jennifer Lepore and John Craunakis will showcase work in graphic design.

MUSIC: by The Jazz Assassins.

MEET THE ARTIST RECEPTION: Sunday - March 30th / 2:30 to 5:30 pm - Music, food and refreshments.

SHOW DATES: Sunday, March 30th through April 19th

LIZZA STUDIOS -GALLERY HOURS: Mon-Fri - 9 to 5pm / Saturday 10 to 5pm
155 Bridge Street
Tunkhannock, PA 18657
Phone (570) 836-8806
www.lizzafineart.com

STAR Gallery at Steamtown Mall has opened a Children’s Art Making Corner in the lobby in front of the gallery. Every Saturday from 12 to 2pm children in the community are invited to make art with a local artist for $5 per child. For further information call 969-2537 or Simona Gavern at 344-3048 or just show up to enjoy the activities.

There will be an exhibit of ‘Paintings & Sketches’ of Anna Ostapiw at Something Special from March 20 to May 9, 2008. There will be an opening reception on Saturday, March 29 from 5 to 7 PM.
Hours of Something Special are Monday thru Friday from 7 AM to 3 PM. It is located at 23 West Walnut Street, Kingston. For further information call (570) 288-8386.

Keystone College will host its 2008 Faculty Exhibition at the Linder Gallery at the Miller Library in La Plume from March 23 to April 25. There will be a reception for the artists on Sunday, April 13 from 4 to 6 PM.
Included in the exhibit are works of many Afa members and friends, including Beth Burkhauser, Drake Gomez, Frank Goryl, Jime Grabowski, Judy Keats, Ted Michalowski, Mikki Moser, Karl Neuroth, Ivana Pavelka, Cliff Prokop, Ward Roe, David Schulte, Terra Steel, Bill Tersteeg and Sally Tosti.

On Sat, May 3, beginning at 9am we will paint a mural on two walls at the Gino Merli Veterans Center in Scranton. Our mission is to brighten up the environment by painting an outdoor scene inside to be enjoyed throughout the year. We will have sketched a basic scene and then encourage artists bring it to life with their special approach. It will be a fun day to share with fellow artists and give a gift to our veterans. All supplies will be provided. This is a great opportunity for those of you who have wanted to be more involved at AFA and to develop new friendships. Please join us. Call: Judith Youshock 842-4133 to confirm.

An exhibit of photographs by Michael Poster, “Sweetheart Like You: Roller
Derby Portraits”, opens Sunday, March 30, 2PM-4PM in the
Sordoni Gallery at Wilkes University. The reception is free
and open to everyone. It will be a great opportunity to see the
photographs and meet the Coal City Rollers.

The Sordoni Art Gallery is open to the public and is
located at 150 South River Street in the Stark Learning
Center on the Wilkes University campus, Wilkes-Barre, PA.
The Gallery is open daily, from 12 noon to 4:30PM.
Admission is free. For more information, call 570-408-4325.

Later that evening the Coal City Rollers and the Heavy
Metal Hookers meet in the first bout of the roller derby
season at the Skateaway on Blackman St. Doors open at 6PM
and the action starts at 7PM.

You can find more information about the exhibit here:
http://www.wilkes.edu/pages/1531.asp

Directions to Wilkes University:
http://www.wilkes.edu/pages/273.asp

There’s a campus map here:
http://www.wilkes.edu/pages/273.asp

And here’s a link to more Coal City Rollers info:
http://www.myspace.com/coalcityrollers

The Roberson Museum in Binghamton, NY, has issued a Call For Entries for a Regional Art Exhibition scheduled for July 20 through September 21, 2008. Artists residing within 150 miles of Binghamton are invited to submit works. The juror is Sondra Freckelton, national known sculptor, painter and teacher.
Deadline for submissions is April 13, 2008. Opening reception is Saturday, Jul6 19, 2008. First, Second, and Third place cash awards will be chosen from the exhibit.
Entry Forms are available at the AFA Gallery, or you may call the Gallery at 607-772-0660 or visit the website at http://www.roberson.org.

The Everhart Museum invites you and your friends to Wine on the Wing: A Wine-Tasting Cultural Event, showcasing the current exhibit ‘Flocks & Feathers’. Date - April 10, 2008, from 6 to 8 PM. Sample wine and food as you follow our sommeliers as they migrate to regions around the world, educating you about the history of the wine and grape. Learn about environment impacts on vineyards and how vineyards affect migratory birds. Music, literature and poetry readings will complement the various wines from around the world.
Cost: $35/person for Everhart Museum members
$40/person for non-members
For reservations, call the Everhart at 346-7186

The Luzerne County Community College invites you to the opening to the first United States exhibition of paintings by the Malaysian artist Chew Fang Chin. There will be a Preview Reception on Friday, April 4, 2008 from 6 to 8 at the Schulman Gallery at the Campus Center, Luzerne County Community College, Nanticoke, PA. For further information call 570-740-0757 or schulmangallery@luzerne.edu or visit www.luzerne.edu/schulmangallery/

The Scranton Jazz Festival, which takes place each year the first weekend in August, announces an open call to submit a poster design which will be used on all brochures and posters relating to this year’s festival.

This will be considered an in-kind contribution, but would be a significant addition to your resume. Brochures will be distributed to thousands of people in northeastern Pennsylvania through mailings and handouts. The design will also appear on the programs and billboards for the event. Your artwork will not only be seen by those from our immediate area, but by a large audience from surrounding states.

The following copy should be included on the poster:

4th Annual Scranton Jazz Festival
August 1 – 3, 2008
The Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel
Scranton, PA
www.pajazzalliance.com

Entries should be mailed to the address below. If you cannot mail it, please call 570-347-5219 if you wish to hand deliver it. The deadline is April 1, 2008. For information, call 570-347-5219 or 570-434-7271 or send e-mail through our website – www.pajazzalliance.com

The Scranton Jazz Festival
1509 Jefferson Ave.
Dunmore, PA

The Lands at Hillside Farms in Shavertown, PA, has issued a Call for Entries for a juried show to be exhibited from June 6th through June 15th in the Museum Barn at Hillside Farms. The juror is Pamela Birmingham, the Curator of Education at the Woodmere Art Museum in Philadelphia. She teaches art and art aesthetics, and is a practicing artist with an extensive exhibition record. She received her MFA in painting and drawing from Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts and BFA from Moore College of Art and Design.
Categories include painting - all media - and sculpture, and all work must relate to barns in some aspect. The exhibit is to celebrate 2008, the year of the Barn in Pennsylvania. The Commonwealth is registering all barns built before 1960 to recognize the architectural heritage of Pennsylvania farms.
Entries are limited to two and must be completed within the last two years. More than $3000 is available in prizes. Deadline for entries is May 28th. More information is available on the website at www.thelandsathillsidefarms.org.

To celebrate St. Patrick’s week, Guy Cali will be displaying photographs from his travels through Ireland. The Exhibition titled, “Roundabout” will be opening at STAR Gallery in the Steamtown Mall starting March 13th.

You’re welcome to come see his work. STAR Gallery is located on the 2nd Floor of the Steamtown Mall next to Steve & Barry’s.

The Cultural Council of Luzerne County embraces the inspiration of the Susquehanna River. The 2008 Wyoming Valley RiverFest celebrates the Susquehanna River’s legacy of inspiring art and its continuing ability to do so. The January issue of Art & Antiques magazine says, “Painter, poets, politicians and pundits have long enlisted [the Susquehanna] as an emblem of national identity, economic promise and ecological consciousness.”

For 250 years the Susquehanna has been a source of artistic inspiration for some of America’s most important landscape painters starting with Benjamin West, and Thomas Doughty, and continuing with such notable painters as Worthington Whittredge, Jasper Cropsey, George Inness, and Thomas Moran, all of whose works are featured in the exhibit “Visions of the Susquehanna” on display at the Roberson Museum, Binghamton New York, May 15, 2008 through August 30 2008. In collaboration with the RiverFest Committee, the Cultural Council of Luzerne County is sponsoring a trip to view the exhibit Friday, May 30, 2008.

The Cultural Council is also coordinating an effort to give area artists and photographers the opportunity to experience the river first hand and to create their own visions of the Susquehanna. On Saturday June 21 2008 and Sunday June 2008, The Wyoming Valley RiverFest will offer artists and nonartists alike two separate opportunities to paddle in the wake of these American Masters. Beginning at the Harding Boat Launch Route 92 Exeter Township, Saturday’s trip gives paddlers the chance to travel 14 miles through the heart of the Wyoming Valley and see for themselves the beauty of the river. The trip ends at Wilkes-Barre’s where En Plaine Aire painters will be practicing their craft, and where children will be creating their own river inspired art works. For those interested in a shorter trip, Sunday will offer them the chance to paddle from Nesbitt Park to Canal Park in Plymouth Township. This is the section of the river which figures so prominently in Jasper Cropsey’s monumental painting ” The Valley of Wyoming” a masterpiece of 19th century landscape painting. This section also lets paddles run the Nanticoke Rapids, one of the few sections of fast water on the Susquehanna. Both trips will offer the paddler the chance to see an array of wildlife including Bald Eagle, Peregrine Falcons, and Great Blue Herons and will open a whole new perspective on this nature resource which for 250 years as been inspiring those who experience first hand.

Plans are also in the works for Sundays in May to arrange for artists to kayak to one or more of the islands in the river for a few hours of creativity from a vantage point on the valley that is new to them.

Selected works will part of a juried art show planned for September 2008 in Wilkes Barre.

In this way, the ripples created by artists in the past will expand and will continue inspire into the future.

For more information on the bus trip to the exhibit “Visions of the Susquehanna” and the kayak events, visit the Cultural Council’s web site at www.cclcarts.org or call 570 825-6463

Camerawork, a gallery dedicated to photography in Scranton, PA, is pleased to announce: “Along the Way”, an exhibition of photographs by Ron Rogers.

March 7 ­ April 1, 2008
Opening Reception March 7, 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM

Ron’s inspired travel and landscape photographs will be on view at
Camerawork with the opening reception this coming First Friday.

For more information about Camerawork gallery and the “Along the Way” exhibit visit:
http://www.cameraworkgallery.org/
You’ll find a map showing the gallery location here:
http://www.cameraworkgallery.org/about.htm