In April we’ll be participating in the Buckman Art Show & Sell in Portland. This is a yearly fund-raising event that helps to raise money for arts related programs offered on the Buckman School campus.

Sadly, due to years of massive budget constraints, the Portland Public School district has had to cut back on many of their programs, leaving the non-core subjects (essentially everything other than math and science) on the short list to be scaled back or completely obliterated from the classrooms. As a result, and not too surprisingly, the one area that has seen the most devastating effect has been the arts (both visual and theatrical).

Thankfully, The Buckman School, through a variety of fund raising events, has managed to weather the district’s financial storm and keep the arts alive on their campus. It now sits as one of the only public schools currently offering an expanded arts curriculum in the city of Portland (an amazing fact given that this city has to be one of the most creatively minded cities we’ve ever lived in.)

Buckman’s yearly event culls together local artists to a two day auction and vendor sale in which the school, the arts community and the community at large can gather together, commiserate and through financial support help to fund another year of the arts at the school. And from what we’ve heard it’s perhaps one of the most fun events to take place in the Portland area all year long.

You can imagine how excited we were to find out that our application to participate was accepted. We love the arts, it’s how we make our living, and so this represented a great opportunity to give a little back to what could be the next generation of up and comers (wee-Picasos and picasettes.) For our end of the fund raising, we decided to do a custom piece (Avery) that would be auctioned off during the show. She is a female lamb character who is nearly three feet tall and has to be one of the cutest pieces we’ve ever put together. She is completely hand-sewn because the material we used was new and proved to be a real bear to deal with on a sewing machine.

The wonderful part of this whole story, beyond the fact that we are a part of this great show, is that we were just contacted by the coordinators of the Buckman show and asked if we would donate another five pieces for the gift bags that will be presented to the musical performers at the event.

What rawks, in a wonderfully huge way, about this is that two of the giftees will be Stephen Malkmus (of Pavement and The Jicks) and James Mercer of the Shins (and Flake Music), a few of my all-time favorite groups. Not to mention that Dirty Martini (local faves) and a variety of other great talent will be on hand as well.

We are now getting ready to put together our little loverlies and ship them off in the beginning of April. We will post some advance (whooooo…shhhh) photos once we are done. So… if you can peel yourself away from another set of reruns of last season’s American Idol or Dancing with the Stars, and you’re in the Portland area, please stop by at the show on Friday or Saturday, April 11/12, spend a couple bucks for a worthy cause and say, “Hey!”

We’ll be waiting for you.