{"id":9049,"date":"2011-05-11T11:26:58","date_gmt":"2011-05-11T19:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/?p=9049"},"modified":"2011-05-14T18:43:12","modified_gmt":"2011-05-15T03:13:12","slug":"oconee-cultural-arts-foundation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/oconee-cultural-arts-foundation\/","title":{"rendered":"Oconee Cultural Arts Foundation"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s not often that one finds a space as grand as the Oconee Cultural Arts Foundation<\/a> in such an out of the way location. Watkinsville is a town, village really, twenty minutes south of Athens and an hour or so east of Atlanta. Founded in 1994 as a not-for-profit arts center, OCAF uses a historic 1902 kindergarten building and gym to house its exhibits, classes and workshops. Now funded only by individual and corporate donations, it has avoided the plight of so many non-profits relying on government funding and remains functioning and stable.<\/p>\n

The Gallery Director Charles Warnock and Executive Director Joe Ruiz keep everything running smoothly with the help of Assistant Director Cindy Farley, along with healthy membership support.<\/p>\n

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The building offers high ceilings, huge arched windows, and a large exhibition space. Peeling stucco over exposed brick and creaky old wood floors add to the charm. My painting ‘Oak’<\/a> was kindly lent back to me after its acquisition into a private collection earlier this spring and I was able to exhibit in OCAF’s SouthWorks show, juried by Phaedra Siebert, Curator of Drawing at the Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock. The show ran from April 1 to May 7th.<\/p>\n

I was unable to attend the opening, but picked up my painting yesterday and shot some photos. There is a YouTube<\/a> clip featuring all eighty-nine pieces from sixty-nine artists, with a great Brubeck track – Strange Meadow Lark<\/em>, that has always been one of my favorites to play.<\/p>\n

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Mr. Ruiz assures me that the October ‘Fall Wine Fest’ exhibit at Ashford Manor<\/a> is not to be missed. Thirty-four local restaurants, seven wineries and one brewery will participate, and the event will include a silent auction of art. Here’s an\u00c2\u00a0overview<\/a> from last year’s fest.<\/p>\n

Some random photos of the mostly dismantled exhibit and the lovely garden area immediately behind the arts center.<\/p>\n

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Finally, what made the return trip even more worthwhile was discovering Washington Farms<\/a> on the way home. I came back with a gallon of beautiful ripe strawberries. Not organic, but sweeter than shipping them from CA. The Chandler variety, raised beds, a little fungicide for the humid Georgia climate and row covers during the initial growing phase were tips I picked up from the manager at the stand. I hope by this fall, to have my own bed planted. Here’s a site<\/a> I just happened on, with resources for growing and buying strawberry plants.<\/p>\n

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It’s not often that one finds a space as grand as the Oconee Cultural Arts Foundation in such an out of the way location. Watkinsville is a town, village really, twenty minutes south of Athens and an hour or so … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,5],"tags":[27,1200,972,1198,1197,1103,1102,1196,56,1201,1199],"class_list":["post-9049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-criticism-and-blogs","category-daily-meanderings","tag-art","tag-ashford-manor","tag-georgia","tag-oak","tag-ocaf","tag-oconee-cultural-arts-foundation","tag-phaedra-siebert","tag-southworks-exhibit","tag-victoria-webb","tag-washington-farms","tag-wine-fest"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9049"}],"version-history":[{"count":45,"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9111,"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9049\/revisions\/9111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}