The Art Show

(That's me on the left showing Mom and Aunt Peggy around.)
Wow. The Art show was amazing. I can't even explain how fabulously it went. When I first got there I wanted to freak out for a tiny moment because they had our stuff in the middle school's cafeteria and all of our parents were told our Art was supposed to be in the gym...but I knew there would be plenty of people there to lead people to the right place and we wanted people to look at both anyway. It turned out to be an EXTREMELY awesome blessing for us because there was way more light in the cafeteria, air conditioning and we had more people come through, so there was more room for them to maneuver!

Mom, Aunt Peggy and Julie stayed the entire time and really enjoyed themselves. Mom and Aunt Peg walked around for quite awhile looking at the Art, then they decided to rest their feet and people watch the rest of the time. It was fun coming back home and listening to their stories about seeing kids excited about finding their artwork and the great comments parents and teachers made. When you're mingling you don't have time to take it all in and notice all the small things like that, so it was great having that opportunity to hear it from them.


Our PTO ROCKS and had some great snacks and punch for everyone---the middle school I guess didn't set up anything with their PTO and their Art teacher brought some cookies herself, I believe. So without our super (three PTO) members, we wouldn't have had any kind of refreshments. They even bought me an awesome flower arrangement with gerber daisies and sunflowers, my favorites! Some orange ones in there even! :)

(Julie took these pictures for me last night. Lennye is in this one chatting with some students.)
Also my volunteers (Freda, Lennye, Meg, Cindy, Angie, etc...)are some of the most amazing people ever. They made sure I had everything I needed and that everything was running smoothly. Every time I looked over and saw them helping someone find their artwork, I was SO proud. They really stepped up and made me realize REALLY quickly who at my school sees Art, me and what I do as something worthy and important. There were a few co-workers that I felt like should have been there and was pretty surprised/disappointed that they didn't show up. Oh well for them though, it was totally their loss because the show was a total success. My mom couldn't stop telling me how proud she was and how neat it was that my friends were coming up to her and telling her how good of a job I do. That and seeing parents buy their children's artwork, made the work put into it, very much worth it!

(I love me some Rhino, especially when he likes to be glued to me! Here he looks a little mischievous with the half-closed eyes look!)
My buddies Sarah and Kinsley and their families came and supported me too and that was just too cool. Bomar and her family even came though she had a Relay for Life performance with chorus students to get to! Everyone's visit, help and support meant so much to me. It made me feel really good to know I've got all of people backing me up.

(We gave Ryan a matching "green tractor" keychain like ours that he liked so much.)
I got to see some of my former students who now take Art with Rhonda at the Middle School and the ones who were amazing artists for me are now in Honor's Art...that's too radical to see their more "grown-up" artwork and to get their big hugs and be told that they miss me! :) Warm fuzzies!

(Yep, I actually wore a skirt!)
Makes those days where the kindergartners are cutting their shirts off or fifth graders are putting tiny pieces of clay in their pockets to take with them, more worth it. LOL.

(Cheesing it! We didn't get a picture with Sarah, but she was definitely there too!) :)
Want to know our profit from the show?! The middle school received $300 and we made a little over $500!! Not half bad for working from 6-8pm! :) Allen at JES made $700 at his show and I met him last night...he's very nice. The three of us discussed how much fun it would be to find a venue for an entire county Art show where all of our schools would have our Art shows in one place. I think that's really what it should be about, all of us working together and not feeling so competitive as a county.


(The kindergarten sheep project was a big hit!)
Anyway, I've got to figure out how to say "thank you" to all those people who helped me out so much last night. I definitely can't go without letting them know how much that meant to me!