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This is truly a museum for the casual and creative Austinite. With two locations and loads of interesting exhibits and programs, AMOA is a great cultural destination for students, adults, and even parents and caregivers of young children.

The downtown location is a sleek and modern space, while the Laguna Gloria campus, AMOA’s original home, is housed within a 1916 Italiante villa. The primary home of the AMOA Art School, Laguna Gloria is located on property once owned by Stephen F. Austin, and was the residence of the legendary Clara Driscoll. Overlooking Lake Austin, and with 12 acres of beautiful grounds and gardens, Laguna Gloria is worth a visit purely on historical merit. Both locations have permanent and changing exhibits, and both have space available for private functions.

One of the hallmarks of both AMOA locations is the informal structure and feel. No stuffy, hallowed grounds here instead you find welcoming, easy to navigate floor plans full of surprising and interesting exhibits. You can tour at your own speed, reading the descriptions that are mounted next to each exhibit, or you can book a gallery tour, which are available with different age groups in mind. The compact size of the exhibit space adds to the experience the visitor can spend time with each exhibit, getting more from the experience than one where you rush through to make sure you see it all. The exhibits are right out there something to keep in mind when you bring kids there are no barriers between fast little critters and the actual exhibit.

Still, the AMOA makes a point to be accessible and interesting to children as well. In addition to offering a number of free events for families, the museum has a permanent FamilyLab. The FamilyLab is a fantastic experience for kids of all ages. It is a hands-on, interactive place to make art with creative and colorful items supplied by the museum. They also have children’s books on hand, along with bean bag chairs, in case your little one just needs a cuddle. The mirror tunnel is endlessly fascinating, and all activities in the FamilyLab are offered at no additional cost to museum admission. The second Saturday of every month AMOA offers a reduced admission for families, with art instructors leading families in creating art projects to take home.

AMOA offers art classes for children and adults, with a limited number of scholarships available. Class themes include ArtPlay, ArtABCs, Life Drawing, Watercolor, Children’s Book Illustration, and many, many more. They have for the Art School. They offer periodical education programs for teachers, docents, adults, children, and groups. They offer a myriad of interesting events, sometimes pairing visual arts with music, both for their valued members and for the public. Events include their annual fundraisers, the Art Ball in June, and their fantastically popular international food and wine tasting event, La Dolce Vita. Their museum store offers cups, shirts and other items with their distinctive logo, as well as art-inspired gifts.

Ki works as a realtor in the Austin real estate market. He keeps visitors updated on current mortgage rates along with providing a graphical Austin MLS search.

Author, director, comedian, physician and all round polymath Jonathan Miller has been all over The Times and the BBC this week running the West End into the proverbial square ditch. Miller insisted that because his version of Hamlet was cast by relative unknowns he couldn’t get a gig in the West End. “Producers might have been swayed” he contends, “if I’d been prepared to put in for more luminous names”.

Attacks may not come any more thinly veiled than that, but Miller continues his tirade by discussing the two versions of Shakespeare’s seminal tragedy that are currently sulking moodily in the West End. The version at the Wyndams Theatre is fronted by a Mr Jude Law whom Miller suspects “can’t act better than the young unknown who played him for me” whilst at the RSC they have “that man from Dr Who”. Of course, Miller is referring here to hip, young actor David Tennant who will be leading the company from 24th July.

Of course, Miller’s remarks have not gone unnoticed by the theatrical powers that be. The artistic director of the RSC, Michael Boyd, hit back by declaring that though he “understood” Sir Jonathan’s frustrations, Tennant was not cast as Hamlet just “because he is Doctor Who”, but “because he is an excellent actor who deserves to play the role” Boyd went on to site the work Tennant has already done with the company before becoming a household name, starring in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet and The Comedy of Errors.

David continues: “Of course, the fact that David went on to become hugely popular as Doctor Who and for his other popular TV roles, means that he brings with him audiences who would not necessarily have booked to see Hamlet which can only be a good thing,”…

Hang on a minute, we’ve suddenly veered into fairly familiar waters haven’t we? Theatre producers refuting claims of ‘dumbing down’ by insisting that they are ‘drawing in new audiences’. One envisages Webber and Mackintosh, probably capped in berets, calling out from their golden soapbox at the head of a long line of theatrical liberators. But can theatre really be dressed up in this ‘Masses Vs Classes’ kefuffle? Art, surely, is for art sake?

So then we come to the crunch, how does this affect quality? Does sticking Christian Slater in the Edinburgh run of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest make the production any better or worse? That, of course, is nigh on impossible to answer; would it even have got the gig without his big Hollywood name plastered all over it? One thing is certain though, it does make the play stand out. A familiar face is recognisable whether it is a pleasing sight or not.

With established West End musicals like Chicago casting, well, dubious pop stars like Kelly Osbourne and Duncan James for brief turns in its run, we may question some of the underlying motives working behind the scenes. Are performers like Osbourne and James really the most talented people vying for the role, or are they cast because they have the highest profile?

Similarly, the front page of this week’s Stage Newspaper is adorned with the exclusive story that Gareth Gates is to make his West End debut in a one night Stiles and Drewe tribute gala at Her Majesty’s Theatre. Accompanied by a throng of ‘Any Dream Will Do’ and ‘How do You Solve A Problem Like Maria’ finalists, the more cynical reader may question why this fairly underwhelming spectacle is splashed across the front page? The answer, quite simply, is because Celebrity (Sex’s flatter and more nauseatingly vain half cousin) sells.

Miller’s attack on West End producers might carry more weight if star-studdied performances, good or bad, didn’t attract the biggest crowds. Perhaps if theatre was given a more central role in popular entertainment audiences would be more familiar with the art form and worry less about catching a famous name in the lime light. Until then celebrities will draw the biggest crowds, the highest prices and, unfortunately for Sir Jonathan Miller, the best theatres.

Samantha is a London theatre fanatic and regular West End theatregoer. She writes and researches some of the biggest London shows you can view examples of her work here London Shows, Dirty Dancing and Joseph.

With so much content beaming freely across the web, consumers have never had such unfettered access to entertainment. Dilating bandwiths have meant data transfers have shrunk to infinitesimal speeds and, as entire fleets of pirate P2P websites and media data streamers career off all over the place, the notion of actually paying for entertainment is quickly becoming rather odious.

With a West End theatre seat costing you easily in excess of 20GBP, the economic future of live drama is looking decidedly well, shaky. Pair this with the increasing dependence that West End shows have on celebrity and many have forecasted murky waters ahead.

Matt Wolf from the Guardian describes the recent Hollywood invasion of the West End as the “visiting celebrity cavalcade” come to rescue the dwindling audiences dribbling through the gate. A few years ago, Sheriden Morley described in the New York Times how the influx of celebrity had “turned London audiences, once the best and most perceptive in the world, into mindless stargazers.”

Pretty stern stuff isn’t it? But then, that might not be the whole story. After all, can we really declare that traditional theatre has lost its bite?

It certainly hadn’t just over ten years ago, when Sarah Kane’s Blasted premiered at the Royal Court. The fury that splashed over the front pages of nearly every national newspaper the next morning was burnt into the mind of anyone that dared to assume that theatre had lost its power to shock. The violence in the play is no worse than is found in the tamest of Tarantino flicks so why the outrage?

Quite simply, in the cinema, on television or on DVD, the action happens elsewhere, in a shifting world behind a screen. In the theatre, the action is right in front of you; you can hear it, feel it and, if you were really so inclined, you could reach out and touch it. You can watch actors enact the most brutal or intimate scenes on hi-res plasma screens anywhere, but only in the theatre can they watch you right back.

What’s more, It might not just be the available ‘experience’ that saddles defiantly in theatre’s corner. Theatre, it seems, has quietly started embedding itself within popular culture. Although slightly fewer than its predecessors, Ofcom insists that the BBC’s hunt to cast a new West End version of Oliver!, “I’d Do Anything”, steadily attracts over 5 million viewers. Match this with the recent crop of copycat shows like “Hairspray: The School Musical”, which is currently preparing to air on SkyOne, and it may look like there’s fight in the old girl yet.

To many, theatre may not seem like the most viable economic prospect; who would want to pay for entertainment when they can get huge budget content streamed to their home for next to nothing? But then that may be the whole point, where as ‘content’ can be zipped, transfered and then unzipped at any computer the world over, theatre cannot.

Theatre will be affected by technological advances, of course it will, and it may need to change in order to progress, but it cannot be trampled over by the digital stampede because it is a totally different entertainment animal. Streamers may supersede television schedules and force licence fee funded institutions into remission, but it cannot replace what it cannot do to begin with. Theatre is temporal, magical, immediate, personal and not, under any circumstances, available to download.

Samantha is a London theatre fanatic and regular West End theatregoer. She writes and researches some of the biggest London shows you can view examples of her work here London Shows, Dirty Dancing and Joseph.

The darkening financial climate is pretty much unavoidable at the minute. If you’re not queuing up at the supermarket spending 15% more for half a dozen eggs than you would have done five minutes ago, then 150 journalists and financial advisors are lined up round the block to tell you about it.

Fuel costs are rocketing to record new heights and the price of a barrel of crude oil, if you really wanted to buy one, is nearing the astronomical sum of $200.

That, of course, is not nearly the half of it. The slump in house prices and the rise of inflation mean that families with standard mortgages do not have anywhere near the amount of disposable income than they did two years ago. Match this to tightening credit crunch and the future looks depressingly frugal.

With times being so distinctly tight at the minute, surely families are less likely to indulge in expensive little trips to the West End. Or are they? The Sun, amongst others, are calling 2008 the best year for British tourism in years. With this dodgy financial situation looming, growing worries about carbon emissions and a heroically strong euro, many holidaymakers are choosing their vacations a little closer to home. City breaks and long weekends are on the up which means that, despite what you may think about luxuries like West End theatre trips, they may be a lot more economically sound than taking far flung foreign holidays. A night out at the theatre in London as part of a city break may be just the tonic for the bubbling inflation costs.

This, of course, is if the West End continues to offer the same package as they do now. Great glittering epics like the Lord of the Rings or Gone With the Wind use state of the art stagecraft to recreate their vast dramatic landscapes. Expensive hydraulic systems twist, turn and contort the sets to change from one scene to next. Meanwhile, Hollywood A-listers currently grace the cast lists of anything from Mamet to Chekhov and hoist inflated gate prices as they go. In short, some of the more indulgent shows in the West End can afford to ’shed a few pounds’ so to speak.
The morbid financial climate will mean that families have to cut back on certain extravagant expenses, naturally, but it might be fairer to say that adjusting how we use our money will help us out a lot more. With more people choosing to side step foreign holidays in favour of shorter, city breaks then our love affair with institutions like the West End may not be a one night thing after all, but instead be with us well into the long term.

Samantha is a London theatre fanatic and regular West End theatregoer. She writes and researches some of the biggest London shows you can view examples of her work here London Shows, Dirty Dancing and Joseph.

Learning to dance is fun - and it is easy. In a sense it is like learning a new language - a language in which moods and emotions are expressed in movement; a language of rhythm, grace and harmony. It is new - but in a very real sense it is the oldest language in the world, for dancing is the oldest form of art.

We know people danced as far back as the beginning of recorded history. The dance appeared in various forms in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome.

Dancing gives expression to a deeply rooted emotion in man so profound as to border on reverence. This is evidenced by the fact that some early dances were a part of religious rites. The Bible mentions dancing in numerous places - one of the most frequently quoted verses being that taken from the 150th Psalm: “Praise ye the Lord in all your songs and dances.”

There is an instinctive urge in all of us to express rhythm. Primitive men satisfy this urge by beating drums and dancing around a campfire until they drop from sheer exhaustion. We, of the civilized world, satisfy this same instinctive urge in a more cultured way. We dance in a conventional manner to rhythmic music and conform to certain set patterns. We observe the rules of conduct that society has set for us.

Dancing is a wholesome, natural outlet for the emotions. It develops grace and poise, timing and balance. Men take pride in their ability to lead their partners with assurance and poise. Girls enjoy the ability to follow their partners smoothly, expertly and correctly. The ability to dance develops personality, and above all - it is fun.

Unfortunately, however, many persons miss out on this fun because they do not dance well. Girls are apprehensive that they will not be able to follow their partners. Men are worried about stepping on their partner’s toes. Many persons are reluctant to try to learn to dance, because they believe they do not have a sense of rhythm.

This is regrettable, for all of us have a sense of rhythm. Rhythm is one of the governing laws that make for order in the universe. Rhythm appears in many phases. The competent typist has rhythm; the public speaker, the musician, the author all make use of rhythm in the practice of their arts. Even the engine in our automobile has rhythm - it must fire in perfect time to operate successfully.

Even after learning a few of the simpler steps, some people are still afraid to relax and keep time to the accompanying music because they fear they will make a mistake and be ridiculed. This fear of criticism and ridicule can be so overpowering as to cause certain persons to become immobile. If the desire to dance is thwarted often enough, a psychological block can be set up in the nervous system which leads to discouragement and a desire to stop trying, and these folks say, “I have no sense of rhythm.”

Dancing has been described as poetry in motion. By observing the similarity between the rhythm of speech, particularly as applied to poetry, and the rhythm of motion, as applied to dancing, anyone who can recite a simple jingle in rhythm can learn to dance.

Occasionally a person will come to our studio and insist that he absolutely has no rhythm. We frequently ask such persons to read: “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” After pointing out to them that they do have a sense of rhythm, or they could not have recited this poem in perfect meter, they develop confidence enough to apply themselves to learning rhythm of movement.

I have never met a person who could speak, who could not recite poetry rhythmically. Reciting poetry, naturally, is easier for most people than moving the body in perfect rhythm. Some people learn to coordinate more easily than others, but with practice it can be learned, and it is simply not true that you, or anyone else, cannot learn to dance because you do not have a sense of rhythm.

Who Else Wants The Dance Lesson To Be A John Travolta On The Dance Floor?

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http://www.thedancelesson.com/

After taking a few lessons the student may find that he has a hitherto unsuspected talent for the art of ventriloquism, which only needs proper cultivation to be made a source of amusement and profit. As in music, there is a certain technique which must be thoroughly mastered before one can become proficient, and certain exercises conducing to voice production and culture which must be faithfully gone through with before one can give an efficient exhibition before the public.

One must learn how to use the mouth and tongue to achieve certain results, how to speak interiorily with entirely motionless and almost closed lips, and how to make each of the sounds or voices used distinctive in tone, pitch and character.

The successful ventriloquist must also be cool, confident and something of an actor. The voices to him present no illusion, and he can judge of his success only by their effect upon his audience. I say no illusion, but this is not quite true; for though he knows that he is creating the sounds, if he is thoroughly proficient, there seems a sort of isolation between himself and the voice which discourses with him. If he is talking with “a man on the roof ” and his performance is perfect, the voice almost seems even to him to be that of another person and he enters into argument with it with as much earnestness as if this were so.

The farther removed a ventriloquist is from his audience, the greater the illusion he creates, and yet it is remarkable how near the auditor can stand to the performer without being disillusioned. During a performance given at a fair in Masonic Temple, Boston, several years ago, I had for my stage only a round dais at one end of the hall, raised scarcely two feet above the floor.

The audience stood so close to the platform that I could almost touch the foremost persons, and I felt that under such conditions I could have very little success. But even here, a bright young lady who stood among those in the first rank of the crowd and directed her attention entirely to my face and lips in order to test the matter, afterward assured me that the illusion of “the man Under the floor” was perfect, and that the voice did not seem to proceed at all from myself. This may sound egotistical, but I simply relate the incident to show the perfection which may be obtained, and for the encouragement of those among my readers who desire to take up the art.

Unlike the magician, who requires an elaborate “fit-up” to properly perform his illusions, the ventriloquist always has the mysterious at his command. From a haystack by the country roadside or from behind the closed portals of an empty store or the depths of an open sewer in the city, he can evoke “spirits” to amaze and mystify the hearers, which yet exist in nothing more substantial than his own voice.

A half-hour’s exhibition of ventriloquism with the aid of mechanical figures, which carry on a bright and amusing dialogue with the performer and possibly contribute a song or two, varied by conversation with invisible people or imitations of various tools and musical instruments after methods which will be explained later, will often be eagerly accepted as an agreeable departure from the monotony of readings and vocal and instrumental music usually given at local entertainments.

Are You Serious About Wanting To Be A Ventriloquist? Here’s How To Master This Time Honored Art!

Click here for FREE online ebook!

http://www.theventriloquist.net/

Have you ever heard those familiar words, “I’m bored,” coming from the mouth of your child? If so, then kid crafts are the answer. Provide the kids with craft materials and boredom will be a thing of the past. Read on for ideas about kid crafts.

Kid crafts essential materials include paper, crayons, safe scissors, and glue. Paper for kid crafts can include construction paper, plain typing paper, cardstock of various colors, and many other options. Even junk mail and old magazines can make interesting art projects. Crayons are nice for younger children, but the stores are now filled with other options, such as washable dry-erase markers, watercolor pencils, and gel pens. Kid crafts supplies can run into money, but even on a budget there are many possibilities.

Other materials kids can craft with include recycled junk and found objects. By recycled junk, I’m referring to empty cereal boxes, toothpaste boxes, cardboard from packaging, plastic containers, and even tin cans. If you let kids craft with tin cans, however, you need to make sure the open edge of the can doesn’t have any sharp edges. Simply file these off or squeeze them flat with a pair of pliers.

Found objects include leaves, twigs, rocks, snakeskins, and other natural item a child might find. Perhaps there is a sheep farm nearby. If so, wool scraps can often be found stuck to the barbed wire fences. Any or all of these items can be used in kid crafts.

One of the most fun and popular kid crafts is making a collage. Kids can glue anything down when making a collage. Use heavy paper for the background, and then let the creativity begin! For an extra challenge, a collage can be built around a theme, like food, animals, or babies. Old magazines can be searched for just the right pictures, which can be cut out and glued to the background. The older child might wish to cut out details from magazine pictures and reassemble them in new and interesting ways. They might cut out interesting words and headlines and add them as well.

Younger kid crafts can include collages made of glued down pasta, beans, popsicle sticks, leaves, and many other materials. Don’t forget about glitter, too. If the budget allows only a few kid crafts splurges, remember that kids of all ages, particularly girls, really enjoy crafting artwork that includes glitter. But whether your kids are boys or girls, young or older, suggest some kid crafts the next time your kids are bored!

Art Posters come in different themes. Framed posters or popular themed posters that are popular are usually inspiring or motivating posters usually for the work place or office wall. The more popular for home decoration and design are movie and child posters.

Art posters are the most popular for the home or office wall and often come in matted poster frames. If you order posters online you can often purchase them as a framed poster. Poster frames add a touch of class to any art print.

When matching a poster or art print to a frame you often have a design or frame wizard to help you see what the final product will look like and you often have poster frames that come in a variety of material from wood to metal frames. With dozens of variations you should be able to match a poster to any frame.

It is usually best to match color elements in a poster with a frame and the wall it will hang on. The advantages of buying a poster online and having it frames an mounted at the time of checkout is that it is done professionally and can save you a considerable amount of time.

A properly framed poster will have a hard backing and or mat and will usually be covered with glass. Glass also helps protect the inks in the poster from fading. Try to avoid placing any poster or art print in direct sunlight to protect it from the damage of ultra violet light. This should apply to any art work, painting or print.

When shopping for posters as a gift or home design or office design project consider matching frames and just buy framed posters. Think of all the themes such as animal, vintage, floral, nature or inspirational and motivational posters. It often just takes a few minutes at checkout and will be delivered directly to your door usually at lower costs than framing a poster yourself.

Archaeologists have for years told us of the arrival over 60000 years ago of the first humans in Australia. These first Australians come from many Asian countries crossing the continental land shelf. The northern part of Australia started to populate with people many of whom moved into the Kimberly, Arnhem and Cape York Regions of Australia.

In the North of Australia these first humans faced an harsh environment, with wild weather and animals. People made homes in Sandstone caves, which even today some of these caves show traces of these early inhabitants. Daily living implements, shells, leaves, bark, sticks and stones covered the floor. People soon discovered that ochre provided a great tool to paint and soon were making records of their daily life.

With these rock paintings which were the original Aboriginal Art scientist have proven the date on these paintings with carbon dating of the pigment. Also many items around the cave had a story emblazoned on them with easy to find painting products. Many of these paintings have even been tested using that latest most up to date testing methods.

Radiocarbon dating is limited to a maximum age of around 40 000 years, and the newer techniques are required for dating of older materials. AMS is a new radiocarbon dating method enabling the dating of much smaller samples of carbon than the traditional radiocarbon (C-14) method.

Pieces of Ocre have been associated with nearly all discovered sites and most have been dated at over 10000 years. The reason we dwell on the heritage of Aboriginal art is simply to prove that it can be traced back to the stone age. While aboriginal art now uses a lot of the latest artistic materials, many of the old favorites are still in use, so ochre, bark and wood is still popular.

As an artefact Aboriginal art has proven itself so one has to ask what about as an investment. The news here is that Native Australian art is starting to really grow in value and appreciate as an investment.

There are so many ways to celebrate art and decorate walls and rooms that , aboriginal art offers something that is original with nearly every one been hand painted on location. Because of this it is much easier to get a painting from a new painter while they are unknown. Image getting an early Albert Namatjira you couldn’t not smile.

Even if you spread your purchases over a couple of artist and spread your luck you could still have a chance of making a $300 dollar painting into a $50000 dollar investment as has happened wit a couple of artist and investors. I suppose you could say it’s all about luck but I think its quality choose paintings you like and you cant go wrong.

The basics about learning to draw and paint perspectives can be found in hundreds of art books…

For an artist they are a valuable guide to help an artist gain the skills of realistic looking drawings and paintings. Using horizon lines, vanishing points and view points you are helped to master your perspective awareness.

With full knowledge of how to create realistic 2-dimensional drawings, an artist soon gains confidence that they can create lifelike paintings…

* Your picture seems to have depth and substance even if it has been produced as a flat image

* Your pencil drawing gives the mood and atmosphere of reality

* The subject of your portrait painting appears as if you could touch their face and feel their breath on your hand

Yet, perspective drawing can seem to be a mystery to an art beginner.

Even the best artists can rely upon the rules of perspectives too much. Top professional illustrators can end up producing artificial looking paintings even when every effort has been made to respect perspective laws…

* Objects look distorted

* Extreme flatness is the overall effect

Your own unique artistic viewpoint gives you the key to understanding and using perspectives.

There are many reasons why you see a different world…

* Physical differences… You could be shorter or taller

* Each person has different eyesight… You could be long-sighted while the person standing beside you could be short-sighted

* You will see colors differently… You could have perfect color vision while others are color impaired

Your emotional response to the art subject also affects the resulting drawing and painting. If you have a passion for the subject your interest levels will be high. The finished picture will be better.

Knowing that you see the world differently gives you an advantage. You can justify your artistic vision. Whatever an art critic might say about your paintings and drawings… You know your art is your own view of reality…

Your Art is your own perspective on life… “Enjoy your painting and drawing”