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Latest Newsletter features the 2012 Sculpture Garden and Art Tour!

All attendees will be given a program that will take them to Athens, Canton, Ben Wheeler, and Edom where the professional artists’ works, studios and galleries will be open with a number of artists available to visit. Ben Wheeler is also planning a street music fest featuring Upper East Side musicians throughout the day.

A wonderful highlight to the day’s events closes with a visit to the only water sculpture on the tour (created by Kenneth Phelps and his team at inControl Water Systems and artist Billy Williamson), located at Beacon Hill, just outside Kemp, in which ticket holders are invited for refreshments to watch the sun set over Cedar Creek Lake beside the longest man-made water sculpture in the country (when completed).

Tickets for the event are $25 for pre-sales; $35 for event day sales. The event also will feature a hard back, museum style, full color, for the pre-sale price of $39.95 (thereafter, it is $59.95).

If you want to make a real event/weekend out of it, Mill Creek Ranch Ranch Resort in Canton (with great national reviews!) is offering two free tickets for each cottage reserved for the event (or one ticket for each RV reserved) -- a $50 value, if you get on it while space is available. Wear comfortable shoes because the grounds are not made for high heels and they are not handicap accessible.

All proceeds go to the Greater Malakoff Area Garden Club, which is restoring the Historic Bartlett House and Heritage Gardens, which will also be open in Malakoff the day of the tour. The event is sponsored the County Line Magazine.

Download a PDF of this Press Release by Clicking Here.

Sculpture Gardens & Art Tour Book:

NOW Only $39.95 (after tour 4-28-12, $49.95)

A hard-cover, 148-page full-color book of the art, biographies and descriptions of each of the artists in the Sculpture Gardens and Art Tour in the Upper East Side of Texas!

A GREAT MEMENTO of the tour and, even better, a guide to the great artists in four counties of the Upper East Side of Texas, including Henderson, Van Zandt, and Kaufman counties.

LIMITED EDITION. Over half are sold today. There will not be a reprinting of this book.....Only 500 Limited Edition books, and through pre-sales, 1/2 are already gone!

All of us involved with the Greater Malakoff Area Garden Club love books.

However, it was a moment of pure joy when we realized that P.A. Geddie, the publisher of the County Line Magazine, the sponsor of the tour, was also a bibliophile with one particular penchant for museum books. Practically anytime she goes to a show and it has a book on the show, she purchases it and, then like some of us, spend hours evaluating every morsel of its being, from the quality of the art to the design of the book to the descriptions contained in the text.

It was a meeting of soul mates.

But it gets better than that. We, in the GMAGC, had recently been through the publication of a book titled Malakoff,Texas, and we knew better than most how many things can go wrong in the writing, design, editing, and lay-out process, and how much time and money it takes to ultimately get a book to press and on the table for your decision as to whether you want to purchase it.

Our heart’s desire was to publish a book on this tour, because we view this tour as historic – at the least from the perspective of the creation of the James Surls’ Sculpture Gardens: A Memorial to Joe Surls and the James Surls (Annual) Sculpture Competition, but, also, because we wanted people outside the Upper East Side of Texas to understand the magnitude and the quality of the artists who live and produce their art here. We believed that something concrete, like a book, would be the vehicle -- like The Little Engine That Could – that would keep the reality that there is a place in this place chugging along, reinforcing what we know to be the culture and quality of life of the Upper East Side of Texas.

When P.A. Geddie volunteered to design the lay-out of the book, it immediately transformed from being a dream we would have liked to effectuate into an accomplishment. The book would be.

But we needed something more, which our great friends James and Barbara Stewart provided – the underwriting with the purchase of 200 of the books so we knew that, no matter what happened, we could pay the bill to get the book printed.

If we receive little or nothing financially for the Bartlett House and Heritage Gardens’ restoration from this tour, it won’t be the most horrible of disappointments because the one thing we know is that the book will continue to exist and inure to the benefit of the artists, whose work we celebrate in the tour and in the book. The book proclaims their value and all they contribute to the Upper East Side of Texas, and that, my friends, is the reason we’ve done all this in the first place.

by Lyn Dunsavage Young

GMAGC Plans To Open Its Gardens and Educational Program

The GMAGC has spent the last year clearing the property, which has resulted in vandals attacking the main house, spray painting graffiti inside and breaking out windows. As a result, one of their highest priorities is to secure the property.

Once the property is secured, the GMAGC will begin the massive garden project they have planned to attract visitors to Malakoff to learn about the beauty and hardiness of the indigenous plants of Texas.

"We expect this project to be eye-opening, enjoyable, and educational," explained GMAGC president Lyn Dunsavage Young. "For example, once the proproperty is secured, we have a huge undertaking just in preparing the ground for gardens because it, basically, has the consistency of chewing gum, a common malady many homeowners and businesses face in Texas. We hope to begin that transformation so we can hold the spring show each weekend during April.

"Our concept is to transform this property by developing or re-capturing the hardy plants indigenous to Texas over a period of time," explained Young. "The Bartlett House and Heritage Gardens will focus on how you can capture beauty by focusing on the critical elements in raising the plants that have acclimatized to the extremes in Texas weather: the earth, the plants that survive decade after decade, and the environmental resources necessary to sustain their growth.

"We aren't expecting and never will undertake the kind of garden project you can enjoy at the Dallas Arboretum, where they brings in thousands of plants seasonally and create massive displays. "This is a project to impress those who are frustrated by trying to plant flowers that can't survive the Texas heat beyond a brief season. We believe people will be extraordinarily impressed by what can be done with the heritage plants of Texas. The Bartlett House project will be green in the true sense of the word."

In order to secure the property, the GMAGC is selling the eight-foot panels of the black metal fence with plaques recognizing the donors and the reason for their donation (e.g. as a memorial or dedication) that will enclose the property. Each panel costs $299, with the plaque etched in medal. The placement of the plaques will be celebrated with a special event by the GMAGC in the future.

"We've been extremely fortunate in our support from the membership of the GMAGC and the residents and their families in Malakoff," said Young. "They have practically paid for the front fence in the last three weeks because of their enthusiasm for the project."

The GMAGC has just completed their first major project, the publication of the book Malakoff, Texas, which is available for sale at the Malakoff Chamber of Commerce office (10:00-2:00, weekdays) for $59.95. There are approximately 50 books left for sale.

Anyone interested in acquiring either a fence panel or one of the remaining copies of the book Malakoff, Texas, should contact Lyn Dunsavage Young at lyn@fhautism.com or go online to Malakoff,Texas.com or go by the Chamber of Commerce office on North 198. Anyone interested in joining the GMAGC may attend their meetings on the first Thursday of each month at Hernandez Restaurant at 6:30. Membership is $25 annually or $250 for a lifetime membership, which allows attendance at all events and access to the Historic Bartlett House and Heritage Gardens without cost.

The last public event the GMAGC held was last December, in which over 300 people attended to see the property, when paths had to be cut to the house so visitors could see it.