SkeychCrawl has been cancelled due to weather.

This month we are meeting DR Nichols, aka Dorie. DR was born and raised in Midland, Michigan, attending schools there until enrolling in Michigan State University. She studied art in High School and majored in it in college, graduating in 1952.

She taught art at Manatee Country High School in Bradenton, Florida in the 1950s while raising a family of two children with her husband. After these children finished their university degrees, she returned to her art studies. Sh spent time with artists such as Frank Webb, Jean Grastorf, Tom Lynch, Susanna Spann, Tony Couch, Jean Garrison and Al Stine. For her art, she has received may awards and shown in quite a number of exhibits. One of her designs for her church in Anna Maria , Florida, was used to construct a wall sculpture in the Memorial Garden. She feels this is one of her proudest achievements.

DR’s main interest is of wet-in-wet watercolors. She paints any subject that inspires her. One of her favorite artists has always been oil painter Paul Gauguin. She greatly enjoys Japanese woodblock printers; as well as Modern sculptors Brancusi and Alexander Calder. With a range of art styles so vastly different form her own, it goes to show how all art is inspiring.

Meet Our Members!

This month we are giving tribute to Ila Scholla. Ila was born in Michigan in 1933. She was a remarkable artist from an early age. Her high school work helped gain her a place in the Art Institute of Chicago.
She moved to California as an interior designer after school. In 1960, she was commissioned to design interiors for a new hotel in Bangkok Thailand.

She fell in love with the country and started her own handcrafts business. She specialized in jewelry, paper mache and one of a kind object d’arte. She would create these objects, until others would replicate them and then she would move on to other ideas and creations.

She was married to the late Paul Scholla, and American engineer. She inherited his family and they continued to live and travel in the Orient, while running their business. She moved to Savannah after retirement and became a member of several art groups, including ours. Anyone who met her, felt lucky to have known her kind, sweet and talented self.

Here’s a message from her friends:

“When I had to clean out Ila’s studio, Grace lent a hand as did friends from our Quaker meeting and neighbors.  There was an enormous amount of colored paper that Ila used for paper mache work.  It seemed criminal to toss it out and then I thought it could be used in a way that Ila would like as she was big on recycling.  On April 13th our meeting is going to have a fund raiser to help a girl’s school in Tanzania raise money.  The school was started by Polly Dolan and her sister Tracey who attends our meeting every winter.  Our Quaker meeting thought we could raise some money by having a luncheon or an ice cream social and make paper mache bowls decorating it with some of Ila’s designs and paper left from her days in Thailand.

We have some kind souls who are helping and hope to have 30 paper mache items to have a silent auction on April 13th at the Trinity United Methodist Church.   If any SAA member would like to donate something for the cause  or would like to help make some paper mache items I’m sure Ila would be delighted.

This really is a good use of the paper.  The SEGA Girls School takes in desperately poor girls clothes and feeds them, gives them a safe place to attend school, and  helps them develop practical life and business skills.

The girls rise early to help care for their environment, garden or help in the care for their chickens.  The chickens are the first of many school-run businesses that will help the school become self sustaining. Last year they received 1,000 baby chicks and by the end of 2012 they had sold over 10,000 eggs, bringing in funds that moves the school closer to their goal of self-sustainability.  Then the girls change into their school clothes and move on to their classes.  But there is a balance, there is time for sports, music or art and quiet before the day ends. ”

On December 1st, the Savannah Art Association held its 1st Annual Children’s Ornament Decorating Event at the Olgethorpe Mall.

From 11 am to 3 pm, nearly 100 children and their families visited with us and decorated free wooden and card ornaments that they were allowed to keep.
The Mall was pleased with the event and the great participation of the children and asked us back next Christmas.
 

We’ve been lucky enough to find a new space that welcomes Savannah Art Association members. That is the Asian Fusion restaurant TA CA. Located at 513 E. Oglthorpe in downtown Savannah, the restaurant is a beautiful spacious area! Currently we have works hanging there. Here are some photos form opening night.

Thanks to all the folks who turned out for the SketchCrawl Saturday May 12th! We hope you had fun! We got some great art back, which will go up in the Trustees Gallery at the Jepson this afternoon for 2 weeks. We’ll post a gallery tonight of the artwork.

The Savannah Morning News did a nice write up and video of SketchCrawl which you can see here: SketchCrawl!