fine art

On Dec. 1, Antonios San Maron participated in a routine Saturday afternoon activity — he drove to the Sunrise Mall with his parents, wife and three kids, and walked around. "We come every weekend. We come to get a snack and walk around," he said. San Maron, 27, didn't have anything specific to buy. After walking around, he sat with his father in the food court, silently eating with the din of hundreds of shoppers swirling around them. San Maron has never been to the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art or the Historical Brownsville Museum. He's taken his children to the Gladys Porter Zoo a couple of times and says he might go again, but has no plans of attending the museums. For advocates of these cultural institutions, getting local residents into their doors is a challenge they face daily.

Kershaw holiday events | The spirit of the season

The holiday season will be in full swing in Kershaw County beginning next week. Here, a sampling of some upcoming events.

Elgin Catfish Stomp: In downtown Elgin Dec. 1, beginning with a parade at 10 a.m. The day's highlights include crafts, games, vendors, gospel singing and lots of catfish stew. The Elgin Police Department also will host a car show with a contest for the ugliest and dirtiest vehicles to raise money for its toy roundup.

School district sets Christmas program

The students of the Cleveland School District will once again fill Walter Sillers Coliseum at Delta State University for the fourth annual Sights and Sounds of Christmas program. The event will take place from 6 to 7 p.m. Wednesday and is free to the public.
"We will be featuring student art work and musical performances," said Interim Supt. Dr. Jackie Thigpen. "All schools in the district will be represented, so this is a good view of the district as a whole."
Thigpen said that fine arts instructors from each school gathered to plan the event and "hit the ground running."
Thigpen noted that the Cleveland High School Brass Quintet will perform, as well as the East Side High School Choir.
"Bell Elementary Chorus will sing Lipson's Boogie and the Nailor Elementary School Singers will also perform," she said.

Art exhibits: Dec.9, 2007

ONGOING

ALLENTOWN ART MUSEUM, 31 N. Fifth St., Allentown. 610-432-4333. Arts Community of Easton Members Group Juried Art Show: Through Dec. 30. Tiffany by Design: Forty objects including lamps, a stained glass window, metalwork and related materials made by Tiffany Studios and Tiffany Furnaces, under the direcion of Louis Comfort Tiffany, between 1900 and 1925. Saturday guided tours. Through Jan. 6. Alphonse Mucha: Art Nouveau Extraordinaire: Posters and textile designs on loan and including works from the museum collection, of female and floral forms created by the Moravia-born artist. Accompanies the ''Tiffany by Design'' exhibit (included with special exhibit admission). Saturday guided tours. Through Jan. 6. Picasso and Delaunay: The Book as Inspiration: A rare portfolio of 13 prints by Pablo Picasso, which were the result of a collaboration with Parisian fine art publisher Ambroise Vollard to produce an illustrated edition of Honore de Balzac's novel ''Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu,'' accompanied by an unusual and compelling work, a ''simultaneous book'' created by modernist designer Sonia Delaunay-Terk and poet Blaise Cendrars.

Spertus now showcase from top to bottom

The airy new building, which opens to the public Nov. 30, serves as the main educational and cultural center for the Chicago region's 285,000 Jewish residents but is designed to welcome people of all faiths, Sulkin said.

The structure was built expressly to accommodate the institute's main functions, including a museum that displays both fine art and objects from its world-class collection of Jewish-related artifacts. It provides an expanded, state-of-the-art Asher Library, one of North America's largest Jewish libraries with 120,000 volumes, 250,000 periodicals, films, videocassettes, DVDs and documents. A climate-controlled room will house 4,000 rare books and maps.

It also houses the school around which the institute was founded in 1924, then known as the College of Jewish Studies.