Tips and Tricks for Genealogy

Contact: Rhiannon Eades Public Information Officer Athens-Clarke County Library

Phone: (706) 613-3650 ext. 336

Email: ​reades@athenslibrary.org

www.athenslibrary.org/athens

Writer: Kathrin Merritt

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 25, 2020

Athens-Clarke County Library to offer free genealogy database class, March 10

ATHENS, Ga. -- The Athens-Clarke County Library’s Heritage Room will host a free class on online genealogical databases tips and tricks on Tuesday, March 10, at 2:00 p.m.

In this interactive class, titled “Tips and Tricks for Navigating Online Genealogy Databases,” Heritage Room staff will teach participants how to efficiently use the “big four” genealogical databases -- Ancestry.com, FindmyPast, Heritage Quest and FamilySearch.org. These databases, along with other family history research resources, are available for free on the library’s website at www.athenslibrary.org.

You will walk away with improved navigation skills and answers to your questions when searching through genealogical records.

The class will be held in Multipurpose Room C at the library. No registration is required. For more information, call (706) 613-3650 or visit http://athenslibrary.org/athens/departments/heritage/​ . The Athens-Clarke County Library is located at 2025 Baxter St, Athens, Ga, 30606.

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2025 Baxter Street 􏰀 Athens, Georgia 30606 􏰀 Phone (706) 613-3650 􏰀 Fax (706) 613-3660 www.athenslibrary.org

Mind over matter: Georgia Museum of Art hosts Morning Mindfulness program

By Kathrin Merritt

Morning Mindfulness, a program held by the Georgia Museum of Art, lets participants meditate and enjoy art in various exhibits.

Meghan Gerig

All of the vastly beautiful and individual pieces offered in art museums can be overwhelming to try to absorb.Thanks to the Morning Mindfulness program at the Georgia Museum of Art, participants gain new  mindsets to view the exhibits with a different approach.

Morning Mindfulness is dedicated to enhancing audience engagement with art and within their everyday lives. The program meets every other Friday and is led by various instructors who teach innovative ways to view life’s surroundings. Each lesson is held in different exhibits to keep the audience coming back.

Sage Kincaid, the associate curator of education at the Georgia Museum of Art, is passionate about the skills and lessons taught throughout the program. Each technique helps build the participants’ connection with and understanding of the art pieces through thoughtful physical movement.

“We had a walking meditation in the sculpture garden, which was an embodied response to these kinetic sculptures that were moving in the wind,” Kincaid said. “So along with the movement of the sculpture, people were being mindful of their own bodies as they walked.”

Morning Mindfulness promotes self-reflection and also encourages in-depth conversations through art. The new levels of understanding unlocked from the sessions create new grounds for connection.

“I love when people come back together and they have all of these things that they want to talk about — all the wonderful things that they noticed in a painting,” Kincaid said.

Calm, clarifying and inclusive

Participant Jeanette Bowers, who attended the sessions for over two years, likes that the program allows her to develop a deeper understanding of art while also giving her time for contemplation.

“It clears my mind, for one thing,” Bowers said. “It’s just kind of nice to be able to reflect, not only on life — looking at the artwork, I think, helps us understand a little bit better about different things we haven’t considered.”

Bowers said she admires that the program serves a variety of people and is open for all in the Athens area.

Morning Mindfulness, a program held by the Georgia Museum of Art, lets participants meditate and enjoy art in various exhibits.

Meghan Gerig

“There is a lot of youth that comes frequently but you also see a lot of retirees,” Bowers said. “I’m just really pleased to know that it’s available to all of us. It’s not designed for any particular group, it’s available and open to everyone.”

Newcomer Patricia Dixen has attended the program consistently for three months. She said she’s appreciative the program combines meditation with discovering the art museum.   

“Having the first part where it’s really just settling yourself down into the meditation, but then moving and transferring that onto an image, so that you’re looking at a painting or a photograph or something like that, adds a nice richness and depth to the experience,” Dixen said.

A look inside a session

The instructor for the session held on Friday, Nov. 9 was psychotherapist, marriage and family therapist and yoga therapist Tom Camp. Camp focused this session on calming the mind. He led the class in warm-up breathing exercises and 15 minutes of sitting in utter silence.

After the sitting meditation, participants were invited to move around and view the art in the galleries closed off for the program, a process Camp referred to as “walking meditation.” Next, the group reconvened in the main gallery room for a brief discussion of the art. Finally, Camp led a closing meditation centered around deep breathing.

Camp’s meditation practice is rooted in the evolution and redefinition of yoga. He wants to focus on the fact that yoga used to be accessible to everyone, no matter their fitness level.

“Ancient yoga was not physical fitness. It was preparing the body to be able to sit and not be distracting to the mind,” Camp said. “So the purpose of all the poses, really was to strengthen the body, to be able to be in a position with meditation… so finding ways that yoga includes everybody, not just the physically fit, is something that I think is evolving in the community.”

The Morning Mindfulness program will wrap up its fall sessions on Dec. 1 but will be back for the spring semester starting Jan. 12.

ATHICA hosts opening of 2018 juried art exhibit featuring 22 artists

By Kathrin Merritt

Photos taken at the local art gallery ATHICA's new exhibit reception on Saturday, August 18, 2018 off of Pulaski Street in Athens, Georgia. This was the exhibit to be hosted in the independent gallery's new location. (Photo_Christina R. Matacotta, crmatacotta@gmail.com)

Athens Institute for Contemporary Arts welcomed its brand new juried art exhibit on Saturday, Nov. 3.

The juror, Teresa Bramlette Reeves, is an Athens native and University of Georgia graduate. She is the curatorial assistant at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Guggenheim Museum and Artists Space and is the current director of curatorial affairs at the Zuckerman Museum of Art at Kennesaw State University.

All pieces featured were selected from a pool of over 100 applications. The art weaves together to showcase the eclectic voices of each artist. Museum-goers should expect to see whimsical pieces that provoke thought and inspire creativity simultaneously.

During the selection process, Reeves did not have any specific running themes in mind, but somehow each piece, from painting to photograph to sculpture, has elements that play into the next.

“What I saw in a lot of this work was a little bit of irreverent kind of sensibility, which I like, and a lot of people who [are] able to assemble different things into a single piece or collaging things into a single piece,” Reeves said. “There was just this little bit of giving-it-to-the-man connected to some of the work that I really responded to.”

Artists filled the galleries, eager to see their pieces alongside others in the collection and share what inspired their works. For self-taught artist and Lowe’s employee Tamara DeStefano, art provides an outlet for creative self-expression not often found in her day-to-day life.

“I enjoy sitting and being able to create different things that come to my mind, because at Lowe’s it’s very structured. So doing artwork is a way to broaden my horizons,” DeStefano said.

DeStefano’s piece, titled “My Favorite Things,” is an acrylic and oil painting done on canvas that encapsulates all the little things DeStefano loves.

“The piece that I have here is incredibly whimsical and it’s really sort of tongue-in-cheek. It’s got Carmen Miranda and all my favorite things. There’s a beer on her head and there’s ice cream and Oreos,” DeStefano said. “It’s very whimsical and surreal.”

Another featured artist is photographer Ginger Goekjian, who invokes some of today’s social issues with the piece “Sweet Nothings.” The picture is of a woman on her cell phone in front of a giant, reproductive statue of a nude man who seems as if he is whispering into the woman’s ear.

Goekjian initially took the photograph because of the comical scene it imitated but after further exploration she found that the picture came to represent the devastating realities for many women in modern society.

“When I saw it, I thought about whispering sweet nothings …  but then lately … I started thinking that it could also mean something along the lines of women having things happen to them, that are inappropriate, done by men,” Goekjian said.

Adding an unusual art medium to the exhibit is artist and musician Eli Saragoussi with an embroidered felt mounting entitled “Trophy Wife.” The bright and bold materials come together to embody what  looks like a prize to be won.

“My piece …  depicts a wood-grain frame with a mermaid wrapped around a gem,” Saragoussi said. “It’s some sort of thought or emotion or physical something trapped within someone’s grasp, just  being there like a trophy wife — just something to show off.”

With a recent move from Denver to Athens, Saragoussi is excited to be a part of the vibrant and thriving art community here.

“I think it’s really cool that a small, tiny town like Athens has a contemporary art gallery, I think that’s really amazing,” Saragoussi said. “I feel like the art community here in Athens is so dynamic and broad compared to a lot of places I’ve been, like a lot of bigger cities.”

ATHICA, in particular, stands out to Saragoussi for the unconventional art forms that it brings into the limelight.

“I really appreciate that [ATHICA]they invites all kinds of art, including a lot of crafts,” Saragoussi said.

This season’s juried exposition will be on display until Dec. 9 at ATHICA’s new location on Pulaski Street.