1. Committee Chair Positions: The deadline for expressing interest in serving as chairs or members of the Texas Wax committees of Education, Programming, Communications, and Development.  Members from all area groups are encouraged to apply. Should you be interested in any of these, please send your info and area of interest to Sharon Kyle Kuhn by July 31st.
2. August Meeting:  The August meeting will be held at the Dougherty Arts Center at the usual time (10:30am – 12:30pm) on August 15th.  Carolyn Todd will chair.
3. September Meeting: Plans include:
   • extended meeting time (10:30am – 1:30pm), to include lunch
   • bring one piece of work to present to the group; each person will have 3 minutes for a focused talk about their piece
   • bring a guest who may be interested in encaustic
   • members of the other Texas Wax groups will be our guests

4. Website (and Membership):
   • We have added Paypal to the website to pay for membership.  Use this form to sign up to be a member of Texas Wax.
   • If you’re already a member, get your pages up.  All kinds of information for Registered Users are linked on these pages.  We may prepare a short set of instructions soon – sort of a short form, if you will.
   • We will also be adding Paypal options for patrons soon.
   • Calls to Entry – a new section for calls to entry will be added to the website – for members only.  Should you know of any Calls to Entry you would like to share with the rest of our membership, please send it (or a link to it) to the webmaster, Marilyn Fenn.
5. Majestic Ranch Work Session: Follow up and assessment.  We had a very lively discussion concerning the Majestic Ranch Workshop.  The consensus seemed to be that we all loved our opportunity to paint together, and that for future sessions, we’d like to see more demos, perhaps have more time (another day or two?), do a show and tell at the end of each day, take breaks for slide examples for inspiration.  We need to do something to aid in ventilation; perhaps controlling materials to be used (i.e., no solvents, no oil, etc.).    In the future, we’d like to perhaps offer some more focused workshops — perhaps a basics primer including how to prepare your supports properly, a color workshop, etc.   We discussed finding some place in Austin where we could hold some of these types of workshops, perhaps one day every week for certain period of time instead of 2-4 days all in a row.  All ideas are welcome!
6. Reports: Reports from the committees were too brief to mention.
7. 

   10" x 10" x 1.75" Panel for Ten Fundraising Show

   Fall Fundraiser:

   • The fundraiser will be held November 7th at Bay6 Gallery and Studios.
   • The title is “10″
   • Artists will exhibit up to five pieces each.  The size is 10″x10″x1.5″ (the size of the panels made for most of us by Scot Eddy — it’s really more like 1.75″ in depth).
   • We will have a silent auction, with the starting price set at $100.00 for each painting.
   • Artists will contribute 20% or more of the proceeds from their work, as they like, to Texas Wax.
8. Vendor Discounts:
   • Jerry’s offers us a 20% discount, but they do want to see our membership card.  We need to get our membership cards created.
   • Everyone, please send your vendor recommendations to Sharon Kyle Kuhn; she will attempt to get us more discounts!
9. New Business: Logo Design Contest!
   • Kristy informed us there will be a logo design contest for a new Texas Wax logo.
   • Anyone is allowed to submit their design; the hope is that there will be many submissions from members of Texas Wax.
   • The due date is in about a month (not sure of the date at this writing); August 15th was mentioned.
   • There will be a $250 award for the chosen logo.
   • The logo is to be provided in one or more of the following formats: TIF, JPG, EPS; black and white; color is optional; should include the text “Promoting Encaustic Art” and of course “Texas Wax” (two words, initial caps each)
   • Stay tuned for an official Calls to Entry in which all these things will be spelled out precisely.
   • The Call to Entry will be posted here on the website.
10. Exhibit Opportunities: (watch this space; there will soon be a link to a new members only section for Calls to Entry)
11. Technical Questions: We’d like to reserve ten minutes during each meeting for technical questions.  We had a great discussion concerning technical considerations, and would like to make this a regular feature of our monthly meetings.

TexasWax/Austin will meet at 10:30 a.m. on January 17th at the studio of Roxi McCloskey Morris. This will be the 1st meeting of 2009 and will be our planning meeting for the year. Looking forward to this year with new members..our group show coming up at M2Gallery in Houston opening on May11th. Stay tuned for more plans!!!!

All of our members will be part of the show in November, “Fused Expressions.” In addition, our TexasWax/Austin/San Antonio’s members will display encaustic work throughout the month of August at Jerry’s Artarama just off I-35. Stop by and take a look–it will be on the front and back walls at Jerry’s. Also, Sharon will be demonstrating encaustic monotypes on August 2nd at Jerry’s from 12-3 p.m. Would love to see you there.

Our next meeting will be held on August 16th at 10:30 and will end at 12:30 p.m. This will be the last collaborative meeting for awhile with our San Antonio friends….congrats to Michelle Belto on starting the TexasWax/San Antonio group. They will begin meeting in San Antonio in September and although we will continue to collaborate together in many ways, they will become a separate group. Michelle and I are planning a workshop for the 4 groups (Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio) to be held in San Antonio in the fall. Details will follow later. Again, we will miss our San Antonion members at the Austin monthly meetings but will continue to talk on the forum and will see you in the fall at the workshop/retreat.

Also….congrats and thanks to Marilyn Fenn and Daphne Holland. They were featured artists in the recent Netroots Nation Conference/Texas Kaos show held at Bay6 Gallery on July 19th.

What a great group we have created. It gets better and better each month.