River Valley Arts Alliance

What’s Happening in Your Dooryard?

Geoff — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 17:29:40 +0000

What? It’s June already? Get out! We like to say that every year we get a bit better at this whole festival planning thing — and it’s mostly true — but man, when Summer is knocking on the back door we really begin to interpret the phrase “time crunch” literally. It’s crazy how much goes into putting this thing on; from the big-picture stuff like lining up artists and musicians, right down to the nitty-gritty. Like, say, do we want wooden drink tokens, or plastic? (Wooden) Are all of our permits in order? (Almost) And, what are the pros and cons of tents with centre poles? (Don’t even ask). The organizing committee is hands-on. At this point we’re closer to being a well-oiled machine than we’ve ever been, but there are times when all we want to do is get a good night’s sleep. September, we say! We’ll sleep in September! And then there’s Dooryard 4…

Regardless, we’re all beyond excited about this year’s festival. Check out the Dooryard page for our initial lineup announcement. There will be more acts revealed shortly! Grab an earlybird pass while they’re available for $50 — it’ll be well worth it.

Tickets for individual events will go on sale Friday, June 10th via Ticketpro.

See you in the Dooryard! We’ll be the ones with sleepless, bloodshot eyes and huge grins.

Twenty-Eleven = The year of RiVA?

Geoff — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 18:23:48 +0000

Time does have a way of slipping away from you. As I sit here, we’ve just entered our third year as an organization. In retrospect, we’ve accomplished a lot; perhaps more than we’d anticipated back at the beginning. But with accomplishments come hunger, drive, and determination. Underneath the surface there’s been in the making a collusion of events and circumstances that, with luck and perserverance, will result in our most successful year yet.

Two-thousand-eleven will be a busy one. Already we’ve had low points — putting our first attempt at a community arts centre behind us — and high points — the early success of our federally-backed GenerationART program, which aims to bridge generational gaps through craft and culture and to ensure our seniors access to methods of creative expression. As we move from winter to spring, planning will begin on our 3rd annual Dooryard Arts Festival. The success of 2010′s Dooryard was overwhelming, and we hope that this next edition will be the best yet. Be sure to check out the festival page for information on how to get involved.

With the retirement of the 702 Main Street project, we’ve redoubled our efforts to establish a public gallery and workspace in downtown Woodstock. We believe that such a facility will benefit not only our region, but the province and its artistic community as a whole. We are more excited, confident, and tenacious than ever in reaching that goal, and we are hopeful that we’ll soon be able to share with you our new vision for the project.

If you are interested in supporting our ongoing projects, please consider purchasing a 2011 membership via the link on your right, or at one of our monthly members nights at Fusion Cafe. We are proud to be part of a vibrant and growing arts community in the Saint John River Valley.

Dooryard Season

Geoff — Sun, 16 May 2010 05:03:03 +0000

Welcome, again, one-and-all to the newly overhauled (and freshly completed) River Valley Arts Alliance website! From the menu across the top of your screen you will find access to event listings, photo galleries, an artists database, and a little bit of information on what this whole RiVA thing is all about.

Our Dooryard 2010 microsite (accessible from said menu, or via www.dooryardarts.net) has also been launched, just about three months in advance of the kickoff of this year’s festival — which, by the way, is shaping up to blow our inaugural soiree out of the water. On the Dooryard site you’ll find a complete event schedule, a list of participating visual artists, this year’s lineup of downtown exhibition spaces, and information on ticket outlets (including an option to purchased online — hooray!). As we are still fairly early on in the spring, make sure to keep watching the site for further details and additions.

One of the principal requirements we had when we undertook this site design a few months ago was to implement a process for the user to buy a RiVA membership from home, and we’re happy to say that it’s been carried out. If you aren’t yet a RiVA member, all you need to do is visit our membership page and sign up. Once you’ve filled in the required information, you’ll be prompted to make your payment via PayPal, a secure service that allows you to pay for goods and services via credit card or bank transfer.

We’re very excited to be back online, just in time for our press launch for Dooryard 2010. Watch this space for frequent updates on the festival, our community gallery project, and other fun news and events.

See you in the Dooryard!

RiVA 2.0

Geoff — Mon, 10 May 2010 12:22:32 +0000

Welcome to the new River Valley Arts Alliance website! Please bear with us over the next 48 hours while we add content and work out the kinks. The new and improved interface should allow a much more interactive experience, and an opportunity for you, the viewer, to get involved directly with RiVA! Stay tuned…