If you live in the Little Saigon area and you are retired then you can find all kinds of activities free of charge or with a nominal fee. We happen to join a group of art activities for seniors at the Nguoi Viet newspaper location. This activity is free of charge and is sponsored by James Irvine Fundation together with the Bowers Museum and the newspaper Nguoi Viet. Each class lasts 8 weeks. We learned about painting using charcoal, acrylic paints etc... We also learned using mixed media (papers, feathers, newspapers or whatever you can find around you to create arts). We spend 7 weeks on a project and the last week is dedicated to graduation. Every two weeks, there is a visit to the museum where we can enjoy entertainment and art activities. This activity has been there for over a year now, but we are newcomers so we had our first graduation on mixed media and our first visit to the museum. All the paintings made by the students were displayed at the museum to the delight of all. On the day of the visit, we gathered in front of Nguoi Viet office and a bus took us to the museum. The bus trip was short but very pleasant, because we were entertained by the students of the class and one of the Nguoi Viet news paper representatives with jokes and songs.
The museum was impressive. Not only could we watch our paintings but we could equally see the original paintings that we used as models.
We could see other projects from the other students coming from different locations in the county : the aluminum foil creations, the paintings on conical hats, the use of other medias like flowers and fruits to create impressive art works etc...(Sorry I did not take any pictures- I was kind of lost among such creative art works). We hope that we will learn those techniques in the future.
We took a group picture in front of the students' art works.
Here are our pictures in front of our paintings
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Our visit did not stop there. In fact we were treated to a good lunch with pastries and ice creams. The weather was really hot. The ice cream treat was very much appreciated. Inside the museum, chairs and tents were set up in the garden for the visitors to enjoy the music played by different musical group invited by the museum. We were lucky to listen and dance to the enchanting music of the islands : calypso, salsa, samba, reggae etc...  |
