What did you think of the 2021 meet ups?

Thank you so much for participating in our Wheat Ridge Creates Creatives monthly meet ups this past year. Please take a few minutes and let us know what you liked about them and what you would like to see changed as we head into 2022. The feedback form will be open until January 31, 2022 and we will send out a calendar for 2022's monthly meet ups in mid-January's monthly newsletter.

*This survey is closed*

Activities include:

Blind Seed Grab—bring seeds to add to the mix!

We’ll have native pollinator seeds, local vegetable seeds, and specialty seeds from Rare Seeds and Seed Savers for you to take home or swap.

Ask a Farmer!

Local farmers will be on hand to answer your most pressing questions and tell food growing stories.

Demonstrations!

Bees! Tools! Seeds! Come see what we have in store.

Food Drive

Bring donations to support local Wheat Ridge non-profit, The Family Tree!

Fun for the Family!

Bring the whole family for music, merriment, food, and fun.

MUCH MORE!

Raffles! Surprises! Art! Crafts! Community! Don’t miss the Harvest Festival!

See you there!!

The final Art on the Farm this year is on Saturday, October 30 from 2 – 5 p.m. This event is free and open to the public and will give visitors a chance to experience art being created firsthand. This beautiful event is headed into its fourth month and is the most dynamic creation to date to come out of the monthly creatives meet ups. Join other creatives to demonstrate your art, listen to good music and enjoy the Wheat Ridge Community! Everyone is welcome!

There will be pumpkin carving, face painting and costumes! 🎃👻

• Check out the Art on the Farm Facebook group to learn more about each event!
• If you are an artist interested in demonstrating and or exhibiting please do! Bring all your own equipment to the farm at 1:30 and please sign up here so we know who to expect.
• Email us at WheatRidgeCreates@ci.wheatridge.co.us with any questions.

Localworks is in the beginning stages of creating a makerspace in Wheat Ridge! A makerspace is an entrepreneurial ecosystem that fosters the development of jobs, business ideas and community creativity by providing access to tools (welding, woodworking, machining, etc.), rapid prototyping (laser cutting, laser printing, etc.), metalsmithing (jewelry, fine metal crafting), glassworking (lampworking, glass fusion), and office space for entrepreneurs looking to bring their ideas to fruition.

Makerspaces operate as nonprofit 501c3 and are membership-based organizations. In May, Localworks entered into an agreement with TinkerMill, a makerspace located in Longmont, to help Localworks create a makerspace in Wheat Ridge. TinkerMill works closely with the City of Longmont’s economic development efforts to encourage start-up companies and the development of new products. TinkerMill is a powerful advocate for entrepreneurship, science, technology, engineering, and art. The makerspace business model aligns with Localworks’s mission and vision as set forth in our Articles of Incorporation and the current 2021-2023 Strategic Plan. The makerspace business model will ultimately provide a revenue stream to support the community and business programs that Localworks is known for and also support and grow the business community and entrepreneurs in Wheat Ridge.

Find more information: https://wearelocalworks.org/makerspace/

Art on the Farm

Come join the Wheat Ridge Creatives for another fun night of art and community on a neighborhood farm. The monthly Art on the Farm event series launched last month and continues August 28 from 4-7 p.m. There will be a wide variety of artists giving live demonstrations and answering any questions you may have. Kids are welcome, please leave pets at home. We hope we will see you there!

Artists interested in participating can sign up here or email us directly at WheatRidgeCreates@ci.wheatridge.co.us.

Sina March Paints What Moves Her

By Melanie Mayner (Courtesy of the Neighborhood Gazette)

What is art?

Merriam-Webster says that it is, “The conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects.”

However, art is so much more than its definition, and its meaning can be different for every discipline – visual art, performing art, literary art and more.

What is art is an age-old question, and one that Wheat Ridge artist Sina March has had to address many times over the years. For her, the definitive answer to this question is difficult, but she believes that art is the result of seeking expression and creativity. She refers to Swiss-born sculptor/painter Alberto Giacometti, who said, “The purpose of art is not to recreate reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.”

Her oil paintings have a personal perspective, and she says she paints what moves her. It might be an interesting composition, an image triggered by a memory, or the challenge of capturing emotion. However, her images usually focus on people

LOCAL ARTIST SINA MARCH’S IMAGES usually focus on people and the light, the latter seen here in her recent oil painting, “Lakeside.” COURTESY SINA MARCH

and the light. You can see the latter reflected in the light on the water of her recent painting of the nearby historic amusement park, “Lakeside.”

Originally from upstate New York, Sina became interested in visual art as a child, encouraged by her family (all creatives themselves) to express herself through drawing, painting and sculpting in clay.

In pursuit of a lifelong career as an artist and educator, she went on to receive her Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art and Education at the University of Illinois. After graduating in 1972, she and her husband came to Denver, where she pursued a corporate career at Mountain Bell, while raising their two children.

Still inspired by art, Sina went on to study at the Colorado Institute of Art and the Art Students League of Denver. She also studied with other Colorado artists including Chuck Ceraso and Kevin Weckbach.

When asked if she has always painted in oil, Sina said, “I have dabbled in acrylics, watercolor and pastels, but I always return to the flexibility and brilliance of oil paint.”

Does she have a certain process when painting?

“Not really, although I prefer to paint during the daytime. I also listen to audiobooks while I paint.”

When asked what inspires her work and how she develops her ideas and motivation to paint, she replied: “I’m simply attracted to an image because of its lighting, mood, composition, pattern, color, and when I feel a desire to paint it.”

Are there other artists who have inspired her work?

“Currently, I’m inspired by Kevin Weckbach and my brother, Richard Seehausen.”

Does she feel like she has reached her vision of an accomplished artist?

“No, nor do I think I’ll do so in my remaining years,” Sina said. “On the other hand, I feel like I will have accomplished enough. My biggest challenge is to find balance in this life.”

When asked what color she is drawn to, Sina immediately said red.

“It denotes passion, life’s blood, power, energy.”

However, she doesn’t think about the why, she just likes it.

“All colors are gorgeous in the right setting…even mud!”

Sina has taught classes in oil painting throughout her career as an artist. Many of her students have said she is generous with her artistic knowledge. In unison, they comment that Sina has been a meaningful mentor, providing them with the ability to deeply observe their work and translate the observations to canvas. She instilled confidence in them, but most important, she has been a dear friend.

Sina has had her paintings juried into Denver area art shows for many years and has earned awards ranging from Honorable Mention to Best of Show. This past year, she was honored by being selected as one of the 2020 Colorado’s top artists for the annual Governor’s Art Show & Sale, a very prestigious event.

Sina is also president of the Wheat Ridge Art League, a community art group that accepts new members in any two- or three-dimensional disciplines.

“Join us at one of our regular meetings to meet our members and see their artwork!” said Sina.

To learn more about Sina March and view her artwork, visit www.sinamarch.com

For information on the Wheat Ridge Art League, join their Facebook page or follow on Instagram

Come join the Wheat Ridge Creatives for a fun night of art and community on a neighborhood farm. The monthly Art on the Farm event series launches July 24 from 4-7 p.m. There will be a wide variety of artists giving live demonstrations and answering any questions you may have. Kids are welcome, please leave pets at home. We hope we will see you there!

Artists interested in participating can email us directly at WheatRidgeCreates@ci.wheatridge.co.us.

This Thursday from 4:00-6:00 PM, Localworks is taking Porches and Patios to the Seniors’ Resource Center here in Wheat Ridge. The SRC is an amazing community resource for aging, providing help around the house, respite care for caregivers, and engaging experiences for older adults at their adult daycare centers. Join us to learn more about this amazing community resource and partner. We will also be joined by @wildpreciousoptimalliving @cibomeals Cheryl Garcia with Legal Shield and @twisted_smoothie

Lots of fun including yard games and kids art! #livelocal #livelocalwheatridge #lovelocal #wheatridge #wheatridgecolorado #aginggracefully #aginginplace #agingwell

Wheat Ridge Metal Sculptor Shapes Lamps And Bugs…Yes, Bugs

By Ken Lutes (Courtesy of the Neighborhood Gazette)

“I don’t know where the idea came from, or why. I just wanted to make a lamp,” said artist Jeremy Metz, who designs and creates floor and table lamps from materials commonly used in the electrical industry. In addition to the lamps, he creates metal bugs such as stag beetles or dragon flies – or the kind you might have strange dreams about.

“I know it sounds really corny to say this,” Metz said, “but I woke up from a dream about a desk with a desk blotter on top of it and a little, shiny metal beetle crawling up over it. When I woke up, I thought, I bet I could make that happen.”

The pandemic kept Metz from working his normal job on a regular basis this past year, but that has allowed him time to work on his art. His wife, Pam, encouraged him to do more with his art during this time. He maintains a downstairs nook at Found Antique & Artisan Mall (foundantique.com) – something he says he wouldn’t have opened otherwise.

“I have sold lamps and a lot of bugs from there – they’re very popular.” He takes custom orders as well, and his table lamps may be seen in the bar at Clancy’s Irish Pub.

Metz didn’t start off wanting to be a sculptor of metal art. A year at Metropolitan State College and one at Colorado State University in Fort Collins taught him about expensive student loans, so he took a break and worked odd jobs for two years before settling into a music program at the University of Colorado at Denver, where in 2003 he earned a bachelor’s in music industries studies.

“It was kind of a general music education, where you a learn a little about the business, and a little about music theory,” Metz said. He focused on the music engineering classes, and “even got to use a 1968 Neve (sound mixing) board used by the Beatles to record Abbey Road.”

Metz says that through the course of that education, he began to realize that making a career in the music industry required more “hustle to try to find a studio to get a job in” than he was willing to make.

“I love music, I love to listen to it, I like to play it a little bit. But I’ve always been comfortable with Colorado, and I didn’t want to move to Nashville or Los Angeles.”

That’s when his brother, an electrician at the time, suggested he become one, too.

“He told me, ‘I know it’s not music, but it’ll pay your student loans.’ I had never been in a skilled trade before. I like to work with my hands and be on my feet and solve problems, and it’s been a good trade for me.”

Metz has always made pencil drawings, and he’s played the guitar since he was 16, but he says he was “never really good at those things.” He believes the ideas for the lamps and bugs might never have happened had he not become an electrician and more of a “handy man.”

The idea for making lamps developed over time, as he worked with the materials he used as an electrician.

“About 10 years ago, I wanted to try to make a lamp out of the parts I was using and I thought if I could get a cord to run through (a length of steel conduit) and into the wall, I could make a pretty cool looking lamp.”

He uses two conduit benders – one for three-quarter-inch conduit for the floor lamps, and one to shape half-inch tubing for the table lamps – to bend the lengths “into a pleasing shape.” Fittings connect the conduit to a weather-proof electrical switch box. A pendant kit that has a lightbulb socket on one end and a plug-in on the other runs through the conduit and box. It sounds like an industrial process, but Metz’s designs yield an artistic, pleasing-to-the-eye effect. To that, he adds, “You also have to do it in a way that’s safe and that works.”

Creating the beetles – Metz refers to them as “bugs” – required learning how to weld together pieces cut from steel sheets (body and wings) and metal rods (legs). He buys recycled steel sheets by the pound.

“I’ll come out to the shop and cut out all the shapes on one day, then the next day I’ll bend them into a three-dimensional form that looks good; then I’ll start the welding process.”

He then uses a cutting wheel on an angle grinder to add texture to them and a sander to make them shine.

“I like to go into the garage, close the door, and turn on the radio, and just be in my own space, my own world for a few hours. It’s therapeutic. It’s nice when you start to see a direction for yourself that’s geared toward how your mind works.

“I hope kids will recognize the different bugs and say, ‘That’s a stag beetle, and that’s a dragon fly.’ Maybe that’ll help them to become more interested in insects or sculpture. People might be surprised how easily you can get into something like this without having a background in it – like with my welding set-up. I just went out and bought it, and nobody stopped me.”

For more about Metz’s art – and a weekly podcast produced with his wife – visit metalart303.wordpress.com.

Join us for our first Wheat Ridge Creatives gathering on April 22, 2021 from 5-6:30 p.m. via Zoom. Please RSVP in advance to help us plan for the event. For our virtual happy hour, a free appetizer will be provided by Food For Thought catering for the first 30 registrants!

We'll be discussing what Wheat Ridge Creates is and what we hope to accomplish together as the year unfolds. We'll review the survey report and answer any questions you have about the results of the Wheat Ridge Creates Survey of Creatives. A summary of those results can be found on right side of this What's Up Wheat Ridge page under "Documents."

Best of all, we'll meet other Creatives! "Bring" a piece of art that you’ve created to share and we'll spend time in small breakout rooms sharing our work and getting to know one another. Every medium is welcome – poetry, painting, music, videos, etc. If you don't have art to bring or prefer not to share your work, come anyway—everyone is welcome! Feel free to extend this invitation to other Creatives you know who may be interested.