It's the last day of the International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS) show in Albuquerque, and outside the skies are sunny and dotted with a half-dozen hot air balloons. Inside it's the energy of some 600 pastel devotees that's running sky high. Attendees have been treated to presentations and demonstrations by such pastel luminaries as Duane Wakeham, Alan Flattmann, Jimmy Wright, Richard McKinley, Maggie Price and many others. And speaking of Maggie Price, we learned at the Saturday evening banquet, that she will be taking on the presidency of IAPS this summer as Urania Christy Tarbet, the founder and president of the organization, will be stepping down after 15 years. The excitement of this year's show is the perfect testament to Urania's accomplishment!

Of course much of the show's excitement surrounds the trade show, where the manufacturers of pastel materials sell their wares and showcase new products, which this year includes new semi-hard and medium-soft Richeson pastels (now available open stock), new "confetti" pastels from Terry Ludwig, new Box Top sets from Great American, a new pastel box manufacturer, a brand-new fixative (see Richard McKinley's blog from last week)  and lots more. We'll give you the whole scoop in the September issue of The Pastel Journal.

For artists who sometimes feel like the lone pastelist in their local art community, spending a few days with wall-to-wall pastleists is invigorating. If you couldn't make this year's convention, be sure to mark your calendars for the first week of June 2011. IAPS will be back in Albuquerque. I know I can't wait to return for another shot in the arm of inspiration!

Congratulations to Dan Michael, the winner of our Creative Spark contest No. 7. The Mechanicsville, Va., artist submitted his painting, Fog After Freezing Rain, in response to Cheri Dunnigan's February 2009 challenge "Grappling With Grays."

Michael explains his approach to gray: "I used muted colors overlayed with purplish-blue grays and blue grays to keep the background and middle ground cooler. These were blended together and feathered with a brush to eliminate hard edges. In the foreground, I used less grays and more complementary colors to let the warm oranges and yellows show through and come forward."

The artist will receive a set of Terry Ludwig pastels (Maggie Price Essential Grays, valued at $90) along with a $50 gift certificate. Many thanks to Terry Ludwig for this generous prize donation!

We had great response to this Creative Spark challenge and received a number of wonderful pastels. Here's a few we'd like to share as honorable mentions: The Matriarch by Ariel Freeman; Leaving by Dawn E. Miller; Morning Light by Kathy Hirsh; Grey Barn, Red Trees by Mike Allen; and Broken by Brittany Lane Allen.

To see the past winners and challenges from all our Creative Spark contests, and the current challenge, visit the Creative Spark hub on our website.

What would you say to spending a few days in the "Land of Enchantment" next spring? What if doing so also offered the opportunity to watch demonstrations and take hands-on classes with some of today's top pastel artists? What if you could, at the same time, check out the newest products for pastel artists? Add to it all the chance to hang out with other artists who share a passion for pastel and you've got a good idea of what to expect at the 2009 Convention of the International Association of Pastel Societies.

A schedule of events and classes for the 8th IAPS Convention is now available on the IAPS website. The biennial gathering is scheduled to take place at the Hotel Albuquerque in Albuquerque, N.M., May 28 through 31. Plans also include pre- and post-convention workshops with Richard McKinley, Maggie Price, Margaret Evans, Jimmy Wright and Lorenzo Chavez.

The convention is open to all artists, but there is discounted registration for anyone belonging to an IAPS member society. You can get more information, download registration forms, and view the availability of workshops and classes on the IAPS website.

See you there!

While trolling the web, as I am often wont to do, I noticed that some folks are selling back issues of The Pastel Journal on eBay. After the first flush of flattery passed--some of the prices were impressively high!--I thought about readers paying three or four times what they would pay, if they visited our store, and it about broke my heart. We know that many of you covet your back issues of the magazine as though they were printed on gold leaf--we covet our own collections of the magazine too--and we know that sometimes a copy disappears inexplicably or grows legs or is a casualty of beverage misplacement, which is why we're glad we're able to offer back issues at $8 or $9 a copy. It's a pretty good deal. Incidentally, if you're interested in a little stroll through PJ history, the store is your place. It's a little like looking at photos of yourself taken 10 years ago--you see yourself and your own potential simultaneously and very clearly.

The commencement address that Dana Gioia, poet and chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, delivered to Stanford University graduates on June 17 is a lament on the position of the arts in today's culture. Fortunately, it is also a persuasive and passionate argument for why the arts are important and why his audience of new graduates should make a conscious decision to live lives that are arts-engaged.

Gioia's main point is that we live in a culture that barely acknowledges and rarely celebrates the arts or artists. "There is an experiment I'd love to conduct," he says. "I'd like to survey a cross-section of Americans and ask them how many active NBA players, Major League Baseball players, and American Idol finalists they can name. Then I'd ask them how many living American poets, playwrights, painters, sculptors, architects, classical musicians, conductors, and composers they can name. I'd even like to ask how many living American scientists or social thinkers they can name."

Gioia asserts that today's culture is all about entertainment, the purpose of which is to market things to buy. "American culture," he says, "has mostly become one vast infomercial." While he admits to enjoying film and his big-screen TV, Gioia cautions that there is a price. "The role of culture must go beyond economics," he says. "It is not focused on the price of things, but on their value. And, above all, culture should tell us what is beyond price, including what does not belong in the marketplace. A culture should also provide some cogent view of the good life beyond mass accumulation. In this respect, our culture is failing us."

I felt eager to share his message, because there may be a time when you must make the argument to a friend or to a son or daughter about why art is important, or to a school board about why a curriculum rich in arts is essential, or to your local newspaper about why coverage of the arts is vital, and Gioia's parting words may be of some service (you can see the entire transcript here):

"Art is an irreplaceable way of understanding and expressing the world--equal to but distinct from scientific and conceptual methods. Art addresses us in the fullness of our being--simultaneously speaking to our intellect, emotions, intuition, imagination, memory, and physical senses. There are some truths about life that can be expressed only as stories, or songs, or images.

"Art delights, instructs, consoles. It educates our emotions. And it remembers. As Robert Frost once said about poetry, 'It is a way of remembering that which it would impoverish us to forget.' Art awakens, enlarges, refines, and restores our humanity."

Well put.