February 25, 2021

reader, 

If you're new here, well howdy! Welcome to my weekly blog about Houston arts and culture, plus whatever else I wish to share from my brain. Scroll to the very bottom for more about it.

I'm having a blast doing two weekly Facebook Live chats on my Facebook page: MONDAY MEDITATION CHATS at 10am and THURSDAY NIGHT LIVE arts & culture chats at 9pm. Please tune in every week! And be sure to check out my MONDAY MEDITATION CHATS playlist on my YouTube channel -- you can easily pop onto them and watch. They're short chats about different ways to practice meditation -- I hope they'll encourage you to start or enhance your own quiet time.

For my readers looking for adult events, be sure to LIKE my GISH PICKS ADULTS Facebook page. And if you're a parent or caregiver: be sure to follow my GISH PICKS KIDS Facebook page for not only my KID PICKS but also my SUMMER CAMP PICKS.

As you read, please note that all the words in purple are linked to websites.
WHAT'S ON MY MIND THIS WEEK? SNOWVID 2021 (aka Winter Storm Uri) is on my mind! Last week was such a crazy, stressful time...and many in our midst are still dealing with the fallout. They are in my heart and prayers nightly. And I hope that all of you will take good care of yourselves...we have had an adrenaline high and are now feeling the exhaustion of the adrenaline drop.

There are plenty of resources to help with recovery out there but I want to first bring to your attention a great VOLUNTEER opportunity: CrowdSource Rescue and Texas Relief Warriors are looking for *immediate* help delivering food and water to residents; click here if you'd like to join in (or just show up at 3900 Almeda today, 2/25 or tomorrow, 2/26 between 9am and 9pm).

You can also donate blood, help out at the Houston Food Bank, volunteer at Kids' Meals, and volunteer with BakerRipley. My fave resource for finding volunteering opportunities anytime is Volunteer Houston, which is now an outreach program of Interfaith Ministries. IM oversees Meals on Wheels for Greater Houston and Galveston County and they are in need of dollars after the storm, as is Kids' Meals. Donate to any of the organizations listed here and they'll be grateful!

For recovery resources, click here for information about food and water distribution; click here for federal disaster relief free legal help; click here to apply for FEMA help; click here for general information about Harris County help; and click here to get disaster assistance from JFS Houston. And keep in mind that you can dial 211 for the Texas United Way helpline and 311 for the City of Houston helpline 24/7 every day.

This year is the fifth anniversary of MATCH (Midtown Arts and Culture Center Houston), a special space for performing and visual arts. They've created a lovely commemorative video and have a statement here. The space is currently closed because of the pandemic -- I miss it so much, and I look forward to its re-opening as soon as possible! (note: there is an ongoing virtual schedule which you can see here)
LET'S CONNECT! If you are wondering wassup with me, my offerings are below. If you'd like to keep up with all my doings, please click here to get a sorta monthly newsletter from me full of info about my events and more, including my IGNITE YOUR LIFE! art project. Be sure to follow my Facebook pages too -- Gish Picks Kids and Gish Picks Adults. I'm always throwing words and pictures around somewhere!

⬆️CLICK ON IMAGE FOR MORE INFO⬆️
My ARTS PICKS Spotlight️ this week is the James Turrell Twilight Epiphany Skyspace, which just re-opened a few weeks ago. I love this place of peace -- you sit in a covered outdoor space and watch the sun set (or rise) in a blaze of colors -- nature's palette complemented with a special light sequence that lasts about 40 minutes. It's the perfect post-storm, calm-you-down activity!

Built in 2012, the pyramidal structure accommodates 120 people between two levels. Twilight Epiphany is acoustically engineered to host musical performances and to act as a laboratory for Shepherd School of Music students. Constructed of grass, concrete, stone and composite steel, the structure is equipped with an LED light sequence that projects onto the ceiling and through an aperture in the 72-foot square knife-edge roof during sunrise and at sunset. Turrell's composition of light complements the natural light present at twilight, and transforms the Skyspace into a locale for experiencing beauty and reflecting on the surrounding campus and the natural world. 

The Skyspace is on the Rice University campus, adjacent to the Shepherd School of Music, near University Boulevard and Stockton Drive. It's free and is open all day, every day, except for Tuesdays. Reservations are not required. It's recommended that you arrive one hour before sunrise and 10 minutes before sunset; times for each are here.


And now -- the two virtual events I am PICK-ing this week. Please note that even my VIRTUAL PICKS are always Houston-based because I am very committed to Houston arts & culture.

➡️ Virtual for ADULTS: Apollo Chamber Players partners with Harris County Public Library (HCPL) for the third program of its 20/21 digital season, Pathways of Renewal. The program, titled "Centennial Jubilee", will livestream this Sunday, February 28 at 7pm -- click here for viewing channels. As always, it's a rich mix of artists!

"Centennial Jubilee" celebrates 100 years of HCPL while honoring Black History Month with world premieres by Damien Sneed and Paul Cornish, and newly commissioned digital art by Houston native Phillip Pyle. Houston Ebony Opera Guild vocalists Kenneth Gayle and Crystal White join as featured guest artists.

As with all of the Apollo Chamber Players' 20/21 season, this event is free. For that, I am grateful!

➡️ Virtual for KIDS: Ok parents -- if ya'll don't know about All-Time Access at the Children's Museum of Houston, you need to check it out right now! They have a plethora of virtual activities for kiddos, both live and evergreen. This week's live events celebrate "National Engineers Week" and you can see the full schedule here. Today (Thursday, February 25) there is a "3D Skyscrapers" workshop at 3pm and tomorrow (Friday, February 26) there is a "Coding a Pyramid" workshop at 3pm; register for both of them here. There are also other events to enjoy, tune in to their Facebook page or YouTube page for the livestreams.


HIRE ME! If you want help getting centered -- or for focusing your life -- here's how I can help (I'm available for groups too):

  • I'll be hosting monthly virtual labyrinth walks on first Saturdays from 10-11:30am. The next one is Saturday, March 6th. For more information and to register, click here. The walk is by donation, the suggested fee is $20. You'll learn the history of labyrinths, you'll get many labyrinth resources, you'll learn how to finger-walk a labyrinth, and we'll do a reflexive writing activity after the walk. It'll be a wonderful time of inner exploration!
  • Virtual Life Path Sessions; see more about those hereIt's $100/one hour and $50/30 minutes.
  • One-on-one or small group labyrinth walks or nature mandala-making sessions (or both!), all done with masks and physical distancing. The fee varies based on what we are doing.
  • Virtual meditation lessons for individuals or groups. I've been doing weekly Monday Meditation Chats and was interviewed on Great Day Houston about fun ways to make sounds for meditation (see that here). The fee varies based on what we are doing, and all ages are welcome.

To book me for anything, please call me at 713.492.1173 or email me. I'd love to help you find PEACE in this crazy time.


UPDATES ON GISH PICKS:
In non-pandemic times, and since I started publishing my blog in 2004, it has been a space to promote my curated list of unique live Houston area cultural events (PICKS) on the weekend for adults and kids. Because of COVID-19, those haven't happened since mid-March 2020 so I originally re-worked the format to focus on 5 Houston-based arts & culture organizations in my (Almost) Daily Dose of ARTS PICKS blog each of the NINE weeks of quarantine. You can see each edition - and read about 45 arts groups! - here.
 
And now I'm bringing you an ⭐️ARTS PICKS Spotlight⭐️ each week -- featuring an arts & culture space that is open -- and you'll get info about all of their activities and sometimes a video to bring them to life. Alongside that, I'll also be PICK-ing one local virtual event each for ADULTS and KIDS

I'll keep doing all of that until public events start happening again on a larger scale and I can start curating live event PICKS again.

In the meantime: please enjoy my weekly Spotlights and VIRTUAL PICKS, and please stay healthy!


Sincerely,

Sarah Gish
713.492.1173


P.S. If you want to IGNITE YOUR LIFE now or anytime, check out my list of "12 Ways to Ignite Your Life Daily" -- and watch the 12 videos I made about each Way here. I'm very proud of that list and my work and I hope it will help you live a fully creative life. Meditation, taking care of yourself, enjoying life, and laughing -- plus more! -- is what will get us through this global pandemic. 
Gish Creative | www.GishCreative.com