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September 19, 2007

Downtown Afternoon

This afternoon I had my first cup of coffee from The Coffee House downtown. Brand new and student-friendly, I was really impressed with the incredible quality of their coffee and the inviting interior. Original artwork hangs alongside cozy tables and booths, the perfect set-up for an acoustic act. They offer an array of coffee and smoothie drinks; I had an Iced Latte with coffee-flavored ice cubes! The Coffee House reminds me of my favorite coffee place at home in Princeton, Small World. The owners have the same entrepreneurial spirit and community-oriented mindset. When I asked them why they chose to open their store in Geneva, the owners told me they loved the town. I was thrilled to find out The Coffee House is open until 9pm Monday-Saturday. I feel like a cup of coffee downtown could be a great escape from studying, saga-dates, or a routine weekend night. My Intro to Drawing professor last semester, a William Smith alumna, insisted that students should have a place to unwind off campus. A place that would bring students into the community, provide a cultural center, and offer something new.

Looks like The Coffee House joins the ranks of my other favorite places in town. Normal Bread, Alpine Bakery, The Flower Petal Cafe, Geneva Bicycle Center, and The Smith Opera House are other incredible, enterprising bakeries and stores in the community. It's great that Hobart & William Smith students have fantastic resources for when they head off campus!

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Iced Cap from Small World
(The Coffee House website isn't up-and-running yet!)

September 18, 2007

Arts Collective Fall Festival

This past Sunday was Arts Collective's First Annual Fall Festival. Since the spring, I've been working with my friend Andrew Ockenden on creating a stronger, more inclusive artistic community on campus. Our goal is to form a network of musicians, visual artists, and writers. We had a great turnout for our general interest meeting last semester- ideas were pouring out of everyone there and we generated a lot of great ideas for the 07-08 school year. Fall Festival was our baby- the perfect way to introduce Arts Collective to HWS.

Despite the rain on Sunday, the event was wildly successful! Vendors came from all over upstate New York: Dirty Ass Soaps (a member of Utica's infamous Indie Garage Sale), Indie Pendents, Ithaca's Glass, Que Colores, and Red Jacket Orchards. Student bands played throughout the day: Brad Hester & Mike Lashomb of hsem, Ben Mason with some impromptu tunes, and Danielle Devito. Pete and J of NYC (www.peteandj.com) topped off the festival with an outstanding performance. They played for over an hour, making chitchat with the audience and ending with a birthday shout-out for Andrew.

We were lucky enough to have Sal Zalaveta design and execute a mock-graffiti wall. He painted three gigantic boards of plywood "NYC construction" blue and stenciled "POST NO BILLS" on them to simulate the construction areas in NYC. Sal topped off the walls with a stencil of his friend Reggie dancing. We're hoping to set up the boards outside of Scandling Center one day this week to get some more paint on them!

I'm excited about the future of Arts Collective. This fall we have plans for a Techno/GraphArt Dance Party, a WEOS sponsored Art Gallery, and large-scale art instillations. Our first meeting of the year is Tuesday September 25th, wish me luck!

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Pete and J

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Andrew and Me

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The graffiti artists

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One of our lovely vendors

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Laura Valdmanis and Barry Samaha representing Red Jacket


Meggie Schmidt

Hometown: Princeton, NJ
High School: West Windsor Plainsboro HS

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