Capitan Public Library July 4th (MONDAY) Bake Sale & Hot Dogs/Sausages. Come early in the morning for the Bake Sale (items go fast!) and a cup of coffee. Then come by again at lunchtime to enjoy our shady garden area, the parade and these delicious treats:
Hot Dogs $1.50 with choice of condiments (cheese, chili, jalapenos)
Smoked sausage $2.00 with choice of condiments
Nachos $2.00 with choice of condiments
Sodas/Water - $1
PLUS - we will have a $5 for a bag of books on July 4th (as well as the usual first Saturday of the month book sale on July 2.
Watch
for the Capitan Library float in the parade. The theme for the parade
is "Show Your Colors". Our young Summer readers will be riding the
float celebrating Capitan Public Library's 20th
anniversary with patriotic colors!
Can you believe that -- the community has been enjoying
this volunteer library for 20 years! Show your support of the CPL by
buying your 4th of July treats at the library or showing your love of
the library with a donation.
A $5 donation to support a child for the summer reading
program entitles you to either 2 free bags of books or 2 sodas/water on
Monday, the 4th.
Theme for this year's summer reading program: On Your Mark, Get Set ...READ! Week 2 Summer readers decided to spend the beautiful day outside. For information: Call the library at (575) 354-3035
Snake skins, owls and other objects of most interest - Summer Reading Program with Rink Somersby from Asombro Institute in Las Cruces
Article by Dianne Stallings in Ruidoso News June 24, 2016
(see article in entirety at: Pencil perfect http://r-news.co/28T2oa2 via @RuidosoNews
Pencil Perfect:Artist says, "...if I can see it, I can put it on paper."
Linda Ferguson stays busy with commissions by drawing at home and during lunch hour at work. Her art is meant for the emotional connection of others
When
she was in kindergarten, Linda Ferguson was compelled to color within
the lines and draw the prettiest picture. By junior high, she sold her
first piece of art. But the only subjects that really interested
her were horses, down to their smallest physical feature and the
stitching on their tack.
No one else in her family was
artistically inclined, but Ferguson realized early in her life that, "...if
I can see it, I can put it on paper."Her medium of choice is pencil, although she does acrylic on rare occasion and pastels. She works mostly from photographs. "I've always drawn, it's just a God-given gift," she said.
She never
planned to sell her work, but as she became an adult she realized her
art was of the same quality of many others being sold. "It's a
different artistry," she said. "I am not creative. My love is to produce
something very specific to the individual that means something to them.
I don't just go home and draw. I rarely draw unless it is a
commissioned piece of work."
Ferguson never studied art. "I've been asked a couple of times why don't I teach," she said. "I tell them that I don't know anything about art." She doesn't advertise her work and doesn't do shows.
Ferguson
moved from Fort Worth, Texas, to Ruidoso 19 years ago. She works for
Ferguson Plumbing Supply, but is not related to the owner. She quickly
became everyone's go-to consultant as she exercised the same methodical
approach to sales as she does to her artwork.
Initially, she would use lunch hours to work on her art at a drafting table in her office. "I
would hang a picture or two at work and had an art table," she said.
Customers would see her work there or while thumbing through a book of
her pieces she left on her desk to keep "antsy" clients occupied while
she filled out the paperwork on their orders. "A lot of my customers are from Texas and they would tell their friends," she said.
With
specific requests, she broadened her subject matter to portraits, race
cars, vintage cars, dogs, cats, and objects that were meaningful to the
person commissioning the work, such as a windmill or wagon. But she isn't into landscapes or cluttered backgrounds. She prefers boiling a picture down to the subject. "I
call it getting rid of the background noise, eliminating all but the
subject of the picture, having nothing in the background to distract
from that," she said. "Now the subject is just the cowboy and his horse.
It's more personal."
An average commission could take from four to six weeks. "This
year, it's been busy, nonstop," she said. "But it's a variety. I can do
none or be busy the entire year. Because I don't go seek the work, if
it comes along, it comes along. If it doesn't, I'm still happy. There is
more time to ride my horse and motorcycle with my husband and do other
things."
Photo by Stallings/Ruidoso News
Ferguson draws from left to right to ensure that her hand is not on the picture.
"So it develops finished as I go along," she said.
Photo by Stallings/Ruidoso News
The
first time she posted a progression on her private Facebook, the
response was "crazy" and now she regularly follows the development,
ending with a "meet the subject" introduction when a drawing is
finished.
"I have found when I visit with other artists, that is
not the way they draw," Ferguson said. "We all do it our own way. As it
develops, I'm excited too, because you start with a blank piece of paper
and all of a sudden you have things there. I'm just as anxious to see
what's happening as it develops."
When people ask her how big the portraits are, Ferguson said, "I say the right size."
"It's
detail work. I use a magnifying glass to see the details and to draw
when it gets to the fine details," she said. Her husband came up with
that aid about 10 years ago when her ophthalmologist told the artist she
had "terrorized" her eyes. "I wished I had thought of that
earlier," she said. "I can't believe I wasted all that time struggling
to be so detailed without it."
Ferguson said she wants her work to
look perfect up close as well as from a distance with every buckle,
ring, stitch and strap in the right place. If a buyer is dissatisfied
with a finished work, they are not obligated to buy and "everybody is
happy," she said.
Over the years, she's displayed her work at the
Oso Art Reserve in Capitan and the Dolan House in the Lincoln Historic
District. The Hubbard Museum of the American West commissioned
renditions of the wagons in the museum's collection and hung them for
several months. She doesn't often run prints of her work, but has a few
for sale.
Ferguson had hoped to pass along her artistic ability
and her love of horses to her two children, but although both could be
artistic, they followed other paths and neither is a horse enthusiast.
In her downtime, Ferguson rides her quarterhorses Sienna and Durango, or
motorcycles with her husband, Steve.
Young and the old are captured in portraits. Photo by Stallings/Ruidoso News
Capitan Public Library kicked off the Summer Reading Program with Andy
Mason on Monday, June 6. Andy has been the lead-off performer for
several years. Singer, musician and a man of many talents, this was his
second event, with 50+ for the rest of the summer. The program will
run through July - Mondays from 10:00 to 11:30.
For more information about Summer Reading Program or to donate to the program, come by or call the library at 354-3035
THIS blog has a mind of its own. I truly believe it. It does what it wants to do and only WHEN it wants to. Far be it from me to try to control it. "The medium is the message"* is what I learned in Journalism 101 in college. But maybe this blog is channeling HAL.
HAL: "I know
I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my
complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got
the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to
help you."
Sharon: "HAL, you got to help me out here, not make me look like an idiot!" Aside, whispering so HAL can't hear , "I THINK this blog definitely has idiosyncrasies or issues like a real person".
That's my thoughts on this day, June 3, 2016 Sharon
*"The medium is the message" is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived.
