In his busy shop in Hawthorne, Isao Hirai makes exact scale models of all kinds of things, from Wells Fargo stagecoaches to Mars Rovers. But the 77-year-old artist is best known locally for making the one-tenth-scale model of the Challenger space shuttle, which has been the centerpiece of a memorial in Little Tokyo for twenty-one years. The model returns to Astronaut Ellison S. Onizuka Street in downtown Los Angeles today after four months of restoration. Read more here in an LA Times article.
Challenger Scale Model Returns to Little Tokyo
Posted in Art/Architecture, FYI
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Do You Listen to Records?
We’re a bit late for the party, but Record Store Day was celebrated on April 16th. Yes, even though the world seems to have gone digital, some folks still like to listen to their music on vinyl records played on a turntable. Click here for an NPR story about how record stores are doing during these changing times. You might be pleasantly surprised!
Posted in Music
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News from Dorado
Dorado residents are served by a helpful ESL computer class.
Contributed by Robin Hart
Posted in Community News, Dorado
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California Council for the Humanities
Great article in the CCH Newsletter about Tim Carpenter and EngAGE, including information about our Talk Story grant! Click here and scroll down to page ten to read the PDF.
This also happens to be the 100th post on the EngAGE Blog! If you enjoy reading these posts, please subscribe.
EngAGE Receives Grant for Talk Story
EngAGE is very pleased to have received a $10,000 California Story Fund grant from the California Council for the Humanities this year to support our project “Talk Story: Democracy – How Immigrant Senior Citizens View American Democracy.” The project seeks to enable seniors to share their stories of immigration and citizenship, fulfilled and unfulfilled dreams of freedom, and the meaning of the power to vote. Participants’ stories will be developed into spoken word pieces and performed, then broadcast via radio this winter.
Talk Story is a personal storytelling, writing, and performance program directed by actor, writer, professor, and writing/performance instructor Alicia Sedwick.
The California Story Fund (CSF) is a competitive grant program that supports community-centered, storybased public humanities projects that contribute to our evolving understanding of California, past and present.
Norma Duffy: Butter Cow Sculptor
EngAGE appreciates and enjoys creativity in all of its many wonderful and surprising manifestations, including butter sculpture! The late Norma “Duffy” Lyon, the “butter cow lady,” created sculptures that were a main attraction at the annual Iowa State Fair from 1960 until her retirement in 2006 at the age of 76. See an interesting slide show here.
Posted in Art/Architecture
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News from San Antonio Gardens
Lots of activity lately at San Antonio Gardens, including a rousing intergenerational drum circle and a class in making origami vases! (You can click on any pictures in any EngAGE Blog post to enlarge them.)
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- Everyone enjoys the intergenerational drum circle!
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- Clarence Johnston encourages the enthusiastic drummers.
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- Materials for the origami vase class.
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- Craft teacher Shirley Yu explains the process of making an origami vase.
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- An example of a beautiful finished vase!
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- Clarence Johnston, well-known jazz drummer and Burbank Senior Artists Colony resident, facilitates an intergenerational drum circle. He’s next to the youngest participant, age 6.
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- Visiting relatives from Kansas photograph their mother in the drum circle. She’s next to a very senior participant, a gentleman of 93!
Contributed by Robin Hart
Posted in Community News, San Antonio Gardens
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