July 5- Salinas Cultural Society First Art Exhibition

Last summer a group of artistically minded Salinas/Santa Elena area residents formed the Salinas Cultural Society as a way to share artistic pursuits and interests. Some of us enjoy photography, some paint pictures, some do quilting or crochet, some create beautiful jewelry, -all types of artistic individuals are welcome. Although the majority do their endeavors for purely personal pleasure, we also have some members, who are professional artists, any and all are welcome.

We have also done some group outings. Several of our Photography members have been on sessions to the poorer barrios of Salinas and to the La Libertad Mercado to take interesting photos of local scenes and people. A group of our women also spent an afternoon at Farallon Dillon to paint and sketch. On a previous post, I also wrote about our interesting day trip to Guayaquil to visit many scenic places.

We also hold monthly meetings on the second Saturday of every month at 10:30AM usually at a local restaurant. Feel free to contact me if interested in joining at uwe_petra@msn.com

So now for the reason for this particular post. 

For months we had planned an Art Exhibition to be held at a Salinas’ venue as a means to display our treasures as well as getting the local community involved. We finally decided on July 5^th as the date and one of our members, Larry, received permission from the owners of Sin bar to hold our event there.

Brochures went out to the local bars & restaurants, invitations & notices went up in Facebook and our event was scheduled from 2PM to 6PM on that date. All participants were to be there between 1 and 2PM to set up. We had +20 artists exhibiting paintings, photos, plants, jewelry and items made from recycled material, cakes, chocolates, wall hangings, tee shirts, and many others. A real smorgasbord of artistic talents.

Our friend Anna and friends supplied delicious food to be sold with profits going to the SCS for future events.

Mary donated an enlarged & mounted photo to be silent auctioned to benefit our SCS- she calls it 'Betty Davies' Eyes' very fitting!

Tee shirts and jewelry by our friend Paola – email her at 
pangoraecuador@gmail.com, trademark is pangora  ecuador,  cellphone is 0999775144to order

       Boxes and paintings for children- Woodcrafts and paintings: Cecilia Escobar Fono: 0998158370

Cakes made to order- Pastel Dulce- mlflorencia@hotmail.com  Maria Laura de Andrade: 0994529492

All kinds of items made from recycled material by Beatriz Celi -call her at 277-9204

The wonderful exhibit and sales of jewelry by the local women http://www.mujerescambia.com/

                                      The Chocolate lady
 Nerina de La Vega  fono: 0997198630  home 2777620 e mail: neriveve@yahoo.es

Selling of Bonsai Plants and miniature waterfalls
  Rodrigo Chiriboga  fono: 0998742110/ 2773493  e mail: rodrigochiriboga@yahoo.com
Patty de Sarmiento: the5elements.ec@gmail.com 

                      Woodcrafts and Paintings: Ines Maria Pena: 0993840031

                                                       More Jewelry sales

Giant Photos for sale by Bruce -www.pacificostudios.com     bruce@pacificostudios.com

                     Wonderful Paintings for sale by Chris - Chris.Difraia@yahoo.com

                           And more by Miguel - miguelart@mac.com   www.miguelsuarez.com

 D'Santis, an artist who works on our Malecon, drew portraits for $10-0993899670  notasdeguitarra@yahoo.com

Marcia with her beautiful jewelry and Belly Dancing outfits plus paintings by her Cuban friend

contact her for sales plus dance lessons at : marciasmith40@hotmail.com

                                 And many more treasures by friends not for sale

A clever idea by Elizabeth- take your picture in her frame & donate $1 to SCS

And not to forget our hosts- Kim and Marie of Sin Bar

And lots of people checking out these wonderful artistic works & hopefully buying!

And last but definitely not least is this wonderful video put together by Bruce of this event

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNna1OhS5Ho

We will be sure to advertise our next event which should be even better now that we have experience!

June 1 to 30- June in Salinas

This was my first ever June in Salinas , Ecuador after retiring here almost three years ago. Every other summer, usually starting in May, we have gone home to Canada and Italy to visit our families.

Of course I had heard (and experienced in later months) that in Salinas the months of June to November usually brought cloudy skies and cooler temperatures. Well, OK,  my Canadian friends, by cooler we are talking + or – 25celcius- LOL

This June however, was glorious with sunny skies most days and warm ocean temperatures, perfect for beaching! Woohoo!

We enjoyed beersbee on the beach- a kind of team Frisbee where the idea is the knock the empty beer bottle of the stick of the opposing team with your Frisbee throw! Great fun to watch and yet another excuse for a get-together on our beach.

June also saw the moving of several of our expat friends to our Chipipe beach area of Salinas. For the last 3 years there had only been a handful of us living here on the best beach but now our numbers had at least doubled. Do I hear a Chipipe cocktail party coming up!

As well, three of our good friends, Mary, Chavela & Lacey, had decided to move to Cuenca, leaving the beach to try life in the mountains instead. We had an excellent and fun farewell pub crawl. Starting at ‘Smokin’, 

then to ‘Will’s Hostel Aqui’ and ending at ‘Sin Bar’ partying at all 3 of our favorite expat bars all in one evening.

June is also the start of whale watching up and down the coast of Ecuador. The whales come from the cold waters of Antartica to mate and birth their babies in our warmer waters.

One of our balconies faces the Pacific looking south ( Salinas is on an east-west peninsula). Half way through June we saw our first whales. Even though we are more than ½ mile from that ocean’s edge and the whales are further out, it is pretty easy to see their huge splash when they breech or slap their enormous tails. Then out come the binoculars so that we can get a closer look. Do we love living here or what!

The other awesome occurrence in June is that flocks of the Blue Footed Boobies come to our shores to fish. We saw many flocks diving on our beach fishing.

                                   One even spent the night on our balcony.

Can’t wait to see what July will bring- another new month for me here in Salinas.