Fine art featured at The Green Room

Special to the Mountain Democrat

Stop by The Green Room Social Club in Placerville and check out an exciting collision of art and music spheres.

Artist Sheri Hoeger’s work will be on display at the downtown club, 251 Main St., March 15-28. A reception is planned 4-6 p.m. Saturday, March 18, with music by Deb Smith, to coincide with Placerville’s Third Saturday Art Walk.

Hoeger is an artist living in the woods of the Sierra Nevada foothills. Armed with a high school education, a supportive husband and a childlike sense of wonder, she launched her decorative arts business in 1988.

She went on to become a force in the decorative art world, creating works for hundreds of interiors, appearing on television, opening a teaching studio, creating a highly successful line of stencils and being featured in numerous books and magazines. Hoeger’s public art can be seen in locations throughout the Western Slope, including murals at the Marshall Cancer Center in Cameron Park.

Since transitioning to fine art, Hoeger has been featured at galleries in California, Oregon, Arizona and Maine as well as inclusion in national juried online shows. Her work still conveys that childlike sense of wonder, along with a deeper appreciation for nature and human connection that comes with a lifetime of learning and living creatively. For more information about the artist visit sherihoeger.com.

Arts, freedom of speech & promoting the Common Good

We live in interesting times. To listen or not to listen? To ponder or not to ponder? To agree or to agree “not to agree?”

These are the questions.

Our nation’s founding fathers took up these questions in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention, less than three years after laying down the arms they took up against a sea of troubles from across The Pond.

How could a diverse, flawed — human — group of people yet to be born peaceably resolve the issues that would inevitably arise as society grew and evolved?

Freedom to speak out

Their answer was the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. Prime among these is the First Amendment. It states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

In a nutshell, this means that Americans have the right to freedom of speech. If we can’t speak freely about matters important to us, then we are under the worst form of tyranny. That includes selfcensorship.

You have the right to speak your mind, whether others agree with you or not. They have that same right. Everyone has the right to speak their ideas in the public square.

Remember what our teachers told us in kindergarten? “Use your words, not your fists.”

It’s that simple.

Art as speech

Art is a form of that freedom of expression. It can provoke, stimulate thought and serve as a forum to discuss controversial ideas or actions.

For example, Star Trek’s Capt. Kirk and Lt. Uhura had the first television interracial kiss in 1968. It shocked audiences and sparked a national discussion. Yet

Solutions

LARIES (March 21-April 19).

ARIES (March 21-April 19).

It will save you time, money and energy to rigorously check your facts. An opinion you took for fact might be nothing more than an unsubstantiated feeling, and to act on it would be a waste at best.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20). The way things are now is how they have always been and not how they will always be. Slow change is change. Keep the faith and keep going, even if it’s a tiny step, or even just a lean in your desired direction.

GEMINI (May 21-June 21). Completion gives you energy because it reduces the amount of open loops running at the back of your mind. When you finish something today, it will be the push that helps you gain a whole new momentum.

CANCER (June 22-July 22). If the things that concern you are unpredictable and out of your control, worrying is pointless. Today, your favorite distraction is not so much an indulgence as a tool to get you thinking along a more positive track.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). Stick around too long in one place today and you’ll get advice, directions and maybe more bossing around than you’d prefer. Get busy on your own thing so the know-it-alls can’t catch you. The best directions to follow are the ones you give yourself.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). “I have been a cloud, a river, and the air,” says Thich Nhat Hanh. You have also taken many forms in this lifetime and will benefit from reflecting on a few of them today. Give yourself credit for how far you’ve come.