The Empty Bowl Brunch holiday event that takes place every December at The Art Place isn’t being held due to COVID-19 reasons, but the fundraiser is still taking place in a different form.
Here’s what The Art Place is doing instead; the gift bags will go on sale starting Friday at 4 p.m.:
In order to maintain our Empty Bowl tradition, and keep our patrons safe, we’ve decided to make Empty Bowl Gift Bags.
Each bag will contain 2 bowls (made by the TAP pottery department), 2 coupons to GreenWise Market to get soup from their amazing soup bar, and 1 cookbook.
The cookbook is filled with recipes from 20 years of empty bowl including some of the most popular soups!
Bags will be ready for pick up December 7th-18th. They are the perfect holiday gift, or a great way to carry on the Empty Bowl tradition until we can be together again.
We only have 75 bags available for sale, so make sure you order early! All proceeds benefit the Mountain View Arts Alliance this year to help support Arts Programming during this difficult time.
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There’s a new look—and a new link—for the online presence for The Art Place, which also has released some details of what’s its offering this fall.
The old website isn’t being updated any longer, but here’s the new URL, where you’ll find information on upcoming art classes (and registration links), as well as art gallery events, Center Stage North community theater showings and more.
The Art Place (3332 Sandy Plains Road) also rents out its black box theater and conference rooms and classrooms for private events.
Each month The Art Place showcases the work of local artists, and next Thursday is the opening reception for a month-long gallery show featuring fused glass artist Nancy Cann starting at 7 p.m.
On Oct. 4, The Art Place will present and interactive glow event, “Art in The Dark,” from 7:30-10 p.m., featuring art installations, hands-on activities, a glow wall and theater in the dark.
The Art Place also is the home for Center Stage North, which will have staging of the play “Point of Order.” from Oct. 11-19.
The community theater organization also recently announced its 2020 season and will soon be selling subscriptions.
The Art Place, which is part of the Cobb Parks and Recreation Department, works in conjunction with the volunteer support of the Mountain View Arts Alliance, which helps raise funds for classes and events and conducts outreach.
The Art Place has resumed fall hours, and is open Monday-Thursday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. through Oct. 25.
For information email: info@artplacemarietta.org or call 770-509-2700.
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Last call to RSVP for Thursday’s Steal It! Pop Up Art Festival event from 7-9:30 p.m. at The Art Place (3330 Sandy Plains Road), which will feature the work of more than 30 local artists.
Admission is free, but drink tickets are $5 each, or two for $10 (and you’ll need to show your ID).
Like other similar events at The Art Place, this one is being presented by the Mountain View Arts Alliance, which supports the center’s work. It’s also the opening reception for an ongoing art sale, with items hanging in the hallway, gallery and lobby space in The Art Place.
All art on display will be under $50.
On Thursday, there will be 10 “pop up” booths featuring art for sale, live music from the Americana duo of Buttered Bourbon on the patio, previews for CenterStage North Theatre‘s upcoming show “Sylvia,” service dogs from Canine Assistantsand light appetizers.
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Saturday is the final installment of the Summer Stars Concert Series at The Art Place, and the entertainment will come from blues-oriented slide guitarist and recording artist Peter Karp.
The free concert begins at 7:30 p.m., and the lawn opens at 7 p.m. A table for eight is $40. No alcoholic beverages are allowed.
Concessions are in exchange for a donation to the Mountain View Arts Alliance, or you can bring food from home.
The Art Place is located at 3330 Sandy Plains Road.
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In October the Mountain View Arts Alliance will be honoring the memory of Pete Borden, a longtime East Cobb resident who was actively involved in community theater.
The memorial event will take place Oct. 10 from 7-9 p.m. at The Art Place (3330 Sandy Plains Road), and will include the unveiling of a memorial stone hand crafted by local artist Julie Mazzoni.
Borden died in March at the age of 81 from lung cancer.
Born in Texas and a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Borden was a brick mason by profession and active in Cobb theater organizations, including The Art Place, as a playwright, director and actor. He also was a member of the Catholic Church of St. Ann in East Cobb.
Borden also wrote a regular column for many years in The Marietta Daily Journal and advocated for local arts and theater organizations in that space.
Shortly after his death, the MDJ reprinted one of Borden’s columns from 2012, as he recalled an early 1990s flap on the Cobb Board of Commissioners over arts funding and an anti-gay resolution that cost Cobb County its official 1996 Olympics participation.
In a message on its Facebook page about the memorial event, the MVAA said:
If you would like to perform a scene or song or skit or even a roast tributing Pete, please advise and we will put together a program.
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East Cobb commissioners Bob Ott (left) and JoAnn Birrell (right) wouldn’t support Chairman Mike Boyce’s call for a property tax increase of 1.1 mills at Tuesday’s budget retreat at the Cobb Civic Center. (East Cobb News photos by Wendy Parker)
One of the objectives laid out before a Cobb budget retreat on Tuesday was for county commission chairman Mike Boyce to “leave . . . with clear direction from the board.”
That board, the four district members of the Cobb Board of Commissioners, provided him with nearly everything but that in a three-hour meeting at the Cobb Civic Center. Instead, Boyce left openly frustrated as he begins a series of budget town hall meetings next week, starting Monday at the East Cobb Senior Center.
He’s proposed a millage rate increase he says will close a $30 million budget deficit that’s projected for fiscal year 2019. During the retreat, told the commissioners “if we want to keep what we have, the bill is 1.1 mills,” a reference to his recommendation to raise the general fund millage rate.
Revealed earlier are draft lists of possible closures of libraries, parks and other “desired” services that have galvanized public pleas to preserve them, and in some cases, by raising taxes.
Here’s a Cobb Budget Journey interactive the county has released to provide background on the budget and millage history in recent years.
Commissioners picked away at a number of budget expenses, such as the cost of new police vehicles, transferring operating costs for the Cobb Safety Village to the Cobb Fire Department and proposed Sunday library hours, unwilling to give Boyce an unqualified yes vote.
Bob Weatherford of West Cobb, who is in a runoff election the day before the budget is to be adopted in July, told Boyce that “you’re asking us to commit to something before we’ve had the town halls.”
Even South Cobb commissioner Lisa Cupid, his most reliable ally on the budget, wondered aloud about having town hall meetings to solicit more public feedback, since “every single e-mail references [full funding of libraries]. They’re telling us it’s a matter of priority.”
Boyce kept making the case that “I’d rather have something to take to the people.
“I have to pass a budget, but I also have to count votes,” Cobb Commission Chairman Mike Boyce told commissioners at the retreat.
“What I’m asking the commissioners is to join me in this program,” he said. “I get it. You don’t want to stick your neck out. But this isn’t hard.
“It’s $30 million in an economy of billions,” Boyce said, his voice rising. “You would think we’re living in Albania! I just don’t understand.”
Near the end, Boyce said even if the tax rate went up two mills, it’s still lower than most other local governments in metro Atlanta.
“We owe it to the people of this county to continue this level of service,” he said, suggesting that if they couldn’t, headlines would read that they’re closing things like parks and libraries.
Some county government department heads and staffers in attendance loudly applauded when he said that. Boyce received even louder applause when he said:
“I will pay a huge political price. But I’m willing to pay it. I don’t want to live in a county that’s worse than when I came here.”
After the retreat, East Cobb commissioner Bob Ott told East Cobb News that he “heard some frustration” and credited Boyce with providing more budget details than what commissioners have received in past years. Ott has said for several months that he wants to see more proposed spending cuts before he’s willing to consider a tax increase.
He couldn’t support a millage rate increase on the spot “because I haven’t seen the cuts.
“A lot of what he asked for today we heard in October” at the commissioners’ previous retreat, Ott said.
Ott doesn’t support closing any parks or recreation facilities that were disclosed last week and contained on a draft list of possible options for budget reduction. They include Fullers Park and Fullers Recreation Center in East Cobb.
“I’m not going to support closing something that is heavily used,” Ott said.
District 3 commissioner JoAnn Birrell said that “I have no interest in closing parks.” Birrell, who is up for re-election in November, told East Cobb News she’s eager for the town hall meetings to get more citizens’ input before budget deliberations begin in July. She said she’s received many messages both in support of and against a tax increase.
The Mountain View Arts Alliance is asking members to fight to keep The Art Place open.
“We’re still looking at everything,” she said, adding that “shutting down” items on draft lists “won’t add up to $30 million.”
On the draft parks and recreation list in her Northeast Cobb district are the Mountain View Aquatic Center, the Mountain View Community Center and The Art Place.
The Mountain View Arts Alliance, a non-profit citizens’ group that provides support for The Art Place, has distributed a letter urging its members speak out at town hall meetings and contact their commissioners:
“Increasing the millage rate would provide the funds necessary to close the 30 million dollar budget gap. This money goes toward programs ranging from road maintenance to emergency services to libraries to the PARKS department, which encompasses The Art Place as well as dozens of recreation facilities and public parks.”
The MVAA is also asking its supporters to “please wear your brightest blue to show support at town hall meetings.”
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