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Check this page frequently for the most up-to-date information about The Chestnuts and upcoming happenings. Questions, ideas or recommendations regarding future events? Email Lolly Brown, here.

Chestnut’s “Events” Descriptions

There are several categories of events in our annual cycle. Most of these are available to active members only. The one exception open to the “Community” are the Paint Your Heart Out Workshops (PYHO). Registration for PYHO events are offered in advance to members and if spots remain they may be offered to non-members.

Community-Participation Event

1. Paint Your Heart Out Workshops (PYHO) – These are typically Plein Air themed painting events led by experienced Chestnut-member artists who volunteer their time. Each year, we offer a variety of themes to choose from, including: Plein Air 101, demonstrations by some of your favorite artists, focus on a particular subject matter (water, trees, sky, composition), marketing and selling your work, and more!

Non-Chestnut members from the community may register and pay on our website but do not qualify for the significant member discount. Sign-up is offered in advance to members and limitations on the number of participants results in very few slots being open after the membership-registration window. 

Chestnut-Member Events

1. Art Shows/Sales – We schedule a spring and fall event of this type that teams us with a local nonprofits—often parks—that have the following of an affiliated “Friends” group. These exhibitions are held in a facility owned by the partnering organization to avoid having rental expenses undercut the proceeds.

Our practice has been to donate 40% of the overall sales to support the partnering nonprofit. We then split the remaining amount with our artists getting 45% for their paintings and 15% goes into the Chestnut Group’s coffers towards offsetting our general operational expenses.

2. “Paint Outs” – Members get together for outings to paint for our art shows, to practice, and to learn and experience community among other artists. On occasion, more experienced members will volunteer in advance to stage a painting “demo” or to circulate to offer suggestions during such field sessions. These activities bring opportunities to increase the participation of members on any skill level. It can start with simply seeing the types of equipment and set up to paint outdoors or bringing a chair to watch other painters translate their ideas into two dimensions.

These are free to members and are also intended to encourage more of our painters to participate in instructing (it’s how we learn the most) while building networks to help get names and faces together. There’s no substitute for connecting into this rich community of painters than through active participation.

3. Open Critiques of Your Artwork – The feedback from a membership survey indicated there is interest in offering occasional opportunities to bring a few of your paintings to a session where member artists offer “critiques” of each other’s works. We hope to try to stage some of these events. The response has been positive in the past.
4. “Pop-Ups” and “Wet-paint” events – These gatherings occur when a specific venue or organization we have sponsored events with invites us to paint live, on-site during a defined window of time. These opportunities are posted in advance. The paintings that result are often offered for sale at the end of the day or displayed as a body of work noted as being from such an art event.