Two April Festivals

The Museum is participating in two festivals this month:

1. Visit with members of the Museum staff and Board of Directors at our information booth at the El Centro Music Festival and Fireworks.

2. The Museum will host a session of the Ceramic Youth Art Program at the El Centro Children's Fair.

The information for these events is below, on the museum Calendar of Events, and on the El Centro Chamber of Commerce.

City of El Centro Music Festival & Firework Show

4-20-2012

Stark Field Park
Corner of 4th St. & Lenrey Ave.
El Centro, CA

6:00 p.m. 10:00 p.m.

Festivities to include: Food, refreshments & other vendor booths, musical entertainment including: Safety Orange, Latin Fuze, and Lock N'Load.

For more information contact the City of El Centro Parks & Recreation at (760) 337-4555.

Children's Fair

4-28-2012

Bucklin Park
Corner of 8th St. & Ross Ave.
El Centro, CA

10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Annual Children's Fair features both entertainment & informational activities.

For more information contact (760) 353-8300.

Young Volunteers Welcome

John continues the landscaping project today. Today he brought his granddaughter who is on spring break and had participated in the Ceramic Art Program over last summer. She wanted to try to make another clay pot.

After a few hours of working the clay, she decided that she wouldn't mind helping us with tagging and labeling artifacts. We have prepared some kid-friendly projects so people of all ages can interact with the artifacts, so we were ready for this type of request.

The curation of the collections is our top priority this year so many hands make for light work. Even if those hands are very small.

Landscaping Continues

John Estevane is an Ocotillo resident who started volunteering with the museum today. He is a hobby landscaper who specializes in cactus gardens. He's been working since 10am on planting prickly pear cactus and has plans in the next few weeks to transplant a 10-foot cactus from his yard that needs more growing room. "This is just perfect for that," said John. 

Ocotillo Rocks! Event

by Susan Massey

Chuck Bucher helps Christian Campos 
identify rocks found outside the Desert Museum 
during the program Ocotillo Rocks, Saturday March 31

One hundred and thirty people poured into the Desert Museum on Saturday morning to attend the Ocotillo Rocks event.  Everyone stopped to look at the items in the gift store and especially the beautiful jewelry that  Lydia Walker had brought, including some exquisite silver pieces made by Pima Indians.  Volunteers scurried around putting more chairs in the classroom.  Still not everyone could get a seat.  Joe Rodrigues of the Gem and Mineral Society talked to the crowd of over a hundred about the geology history of the Imperial Valley and about the evidence we can find that the entire region was once a sea.  He showed a collection of rocks from the region. 

Since the room was overflowing and the small children were getting restless, Jessica Brody, our curator, ran a session of the Ceramic Art Program in the lab where she showed them an example of coiled clay pots and gave them clay to work with.  The kids were very entertained.

Joe Rodrigues of the Gem and Mineral Society gave a talk 
about local geology at the  Desert Museum on March 31.
130 people attended the event and many went out 
onto the museum grounds to identify rocks after the talk.

When the talk was finished everyone went outside to walk around the museum grounds and try to identify the rocks.  Joe and John Pyle, president of the Gem and Mineral Society helped them identify and examine the rocks. Rather than take their findings out of the desert, children were encouraged to take videos and email them home. When we came back inside, Joe answered questions and gave each child a geode.  A lot of people stuck around to ask questions and wander around the museum after the event was over.

Cal Humanities Programs

by Jessica Brody

The County Library is participating in the California Reads! program from Cal Humanities. It's a state wide reading program that includes public interviews with the authors.

The County Library has been hosting it's Access Program for Ocotillo in the Museum every 4th Saturday of the month from 9-1pm. Last month the County Librarian encouraged everyone to read the California Reads! book Lost City Radio and this month we had a book discussion as part of the Access Program.

This week Lost City Radio author Daniel Alarcon was in El Centro. Daniel was articulate, intelligent, and interesting - all at once! It was a great start to the program. 

The CalHum team hosted a meeting for their California Story Fund while they were in town. They haven't had applications from Imperial County for a several years. I looked at the other people in the meeting and challenged them to make sure that changes next year. The Librarian looked back at me and said "I have a couple of ideas for you". 

Partnering with Film Commissioner

The Imperial Valley Film Commissioner came out to visit the museum for the first time yesterday. We will be hosting a screening of Bran Neu Dae for the Sundance Film Forward Program on May 2nd and she wanted to preview the space. She was taken with the impressive desert views and the "neat" building.

She was also interested in our vision for youth programming at the museum. We discussed a possible collaboration to increase student submissions to the  Imperial Valley Film Festival next year. We are currently developing a summer program around a concept we are calling "geoblogging" in which youth film their interactions with the desert and learn video editing - encouraging appreciation of the desert and developing 21st century skills at the same time.

Both the Commissioner and the staff are excited about the prospect of this type of programming, but we have to remember that the curation of the collections is our number one priority. Developing other programs at the same time is possible, but will take a lot of support. Another item on the long list of "things to do" is an overwhelming prospect.

El Centro Arts Festival

The Museum hosted a coiled clay art interactive at the El Centro Arts Festival today. Kohl's sponsored our activity and provided five volunteers who worked with nearly 100 kids who visited our table during the day. 

We were excited about participating, but as we continue to build programs, it quickly becomes evident what  we do not have. We bought clay last week in San Diego and we knew tables would be provided, but about on hour after we set up at 8:30am I received a text message that said, "We are roasting out here." I went and bought a shade tent. "We need paper towels." And we needed a lot. I also bought water and some juice boxes for the staff and volunteers. But then we don't have a cooler. Its tough building programs. It is even tougher keeping up with programs that become successful so quick.

 

We really thank Kohl's for being such a great supporter of community activities in the Valley.

It was a really fun day.