The new artists will be presented during the council's First Friday Fling reception for the artists at the gallery, 325 N. Main St. in Lakeport, from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Oct. 1.

Artists who are returning to the gallery in the October show are Sunny Franson with beautifully executed work of animals and vistas of Lake County.

Ray Farrow exhibits his talent with the palette knife in glowing landscapes from around the lake.

Contributing a different style to this month’s show is Lynn Wagner with her mesmerizing portraits of beautiful people in beautiful scenes.

The glass cases will be exhibiting one of a kind finely crafted jewelry by Anja Koot, and skillfully turned pieces in unique woods by George Waterstrat.

Paula Strother with her strong work in acrylics, and Nancy Webb’s expressive work in oils.

Dennis Robison exhibits a variety of scenes and styles with his work in pastels.

Judy Labelle takes a different tack with pastels showing bold and exciting paintings, and Susan Laymon’s photographs on canvas are a delight to the eye.

Showing for the first time in the gallery is Nancy Webb with bold tropical work in oils.

Continuing at the gallery in pastels are Dr. John Winslow depicting wild life, Judy Labelle with an eclectic mix of work, and Dennis Robison showing a wide range of techniques.

Paula Strother will delight you with her strong work in acrylics; as will, Nancy Webb with her expressive work in oils. It’s a bright show with the addition of Susan Laymon’s photographs on canvas and Nancy Webb with bold tropical work in oils.

The Linda Carpenter Gallery is pleased to again show the creative work of the students from Cobb Elementary School.

Students in Mr. Leanord’s combined class of grades two to three, will display abstract art inspired by Kancinski where they have learned about shapes and lines. Their work is executed in colored pencil, ink and stencil.

A second segment of the work features self portraits which are an expression of the individual done in watercolor. Linda Prather’s Kindergarten through first grade have been studying the trees, horizons and fall colors around Cobb and are creating their work in watercolor, crayon resist and tissue paper collage.

The evening is also the kickoff for the “So You Think You Can Paint” a creative endeavor that invites anyone who would like to add their touch to one of two canvases. One is a study in abstract art and the other a quilt pattern. Try one or both and add your whimsy and/or talent to the canvas.

It’s appropriate that Cleavage Creek Wines will be poured during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, as a portion of every sale goes to find a cause for this disease. Tulip Hill will be pouring for this member of their fine family of wines.

If that isn’t enough excitement, David Neft will be tickling the keys with his fine sounds and delighting us all.

For more information, please call the gallery at 707-263-6658.

Guests enjoy music and dancing at last year's 2009 fundraiser. Courtesy photo.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – On Saturday, Oct. 16, the Soper-Reese Community Theatre will have its fifth annual fundraiser.

The Harvest Moon Dinner and Dance event will take place in the theatre located at 275 S. Main St. in Lakeport.

The reception begins at 5:30 p.m. with wine and hors d’oeuvres in the newly landscaped courtyard (weather permitting).

Guests will be served a four-course dinner and local wines with catering provided by Blue Wing Saloon and Café.

Live and silent auctions will take place followed by dancing with music provided by John Parkinson and the Mendocino Big Band.

This is the second year the fundraiser will be held in the theatre.

Tickets are $100 per person for dinner and dancing.

Forty dollar tickets are available for dancing and music only beginning at approximately 8 p.m.

Seating for dinner is limited to 100, so get your tickets early for this special evening.

Event coordinators are asking that you purchase your tickets by Oct. 8.

For tickets and further information, please call 707-279-4082. Tickets may also be ordered online at www.soperreesetheatre.com.

The event will start at 8 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 26.

Fikes has a large Lake County following and recently headlined the second annual Blue Wing Labor Day Blues Concert.

Born in Selma, Ala., Bettie Mae Fikes was active in the Civil Rights Movement, beginning her singing career with the SNCC Freedom Singers and performing at the 1964 Democratic Party convention in Atlantic City and at various reunions since.

She has graced the stages of Carnegie Hall, Newport Jazz Festival, the Library of Congress and numerous blues festivals.

Fikes' connections to Lake County are deep, and in August of last year she stepped onto a small local stage with five of her favorite musicians and the house packed with enthusiastic fans. The result was her latest recording called “How Blue Can You Get?”

She will perform under the stars on the top deck of the Clear Lake Queen (weather permitting – bring a sweater). If the weather is cool, then we will be inside.

You don't want to miss this event. It is the last chance to see Ms Fikes in Lake County for awhile.

The WaterColor Club is located on the Clear Lake Queen, docked at Ferndale Resort & Marina, 6190 Soda Bay Road, Kelseyville.

For more information visit www.WaterColorClub.com.

Peg Kingman will read from her new book at Mendocino College in Ukiah, Calif., on Thursday, September 23, 2010. Courtesy photo.

UKIAH, Calif. – The Friends of the Mendocino College Library are sponsoring a reading by novelist Peg Kingman, whose book, “Original Sins: A novel of Slavery and Freedom,” was published by W.W. Norton in the summer.

It is her second novel published by the prestigious publisher, which also published her first novel “Not Yet Drown’d.”

The reading will take place in Room 5310 in the Center for Visual & Performing Arts on the Ukiah campus at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 23.

The campus is located at 1000 Hensley Creek Rd. in Ukiah.

Admission for this event is free and Mendocino Book Company will be on hand to sell copies of the book. Kingman will do a book signing immediately following the reading.

“Original Sins” picks up with some of the characters from “Not Yet Drown’d” in 1840.

Grace, who was a child in the first novel, is now a wife, mother and painter in Philadelphia, who senses there is a mystery that would drive Annie, a former runaway slave, and now successful silk merchant, to return to America.

Library Journal says about “Original Sins” that “it is filled with intriguing details about life in 1840s Pennsylvania and Virginia, cultivating silk worms, and the daguerreotype process. And though it is not quite Civil War fiction, it should appeal to readers who enjoy American historical fiction and richly crafted and detailed novels in general.”

A fourth-generation Californian, Peg Kingman has lived and traveled in the United States, Scotland, France, India and New Zealand.

She worked for many years as a technical writer in the high-tech, medical, environmental and marketing fields, and now lives in northern California.

Join the Friends of the Mendocino College Library, an affiliate group of the Mendocino College Foundation, for this literary event. The group sponsors readings throughout the academic year with the next readings taking place in October and November.

For more information about these events, check www.mendocino.edu or contact the college library at 707-468-3051.

Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. Photo by UNL Publications and Photography.

One of my friends told me he’d seen a refrigerator magnet that read, PARENTING; THE FIRST 40 YEARS ARE THE HARDEST. Here’s a fine poem about parenthood, and about letting go of children, by Chana Bloch, who lives in Berkeley, California.

Through a Glass

On the crown of his head

where the fontanelle pulsed

between spongy bones,

a bald spot is forming, globed and sleek

as a monk’s tonsure.

I was the earliest pinch of civilization,

the one who laced him

into shoe leather

when he stumbled into walking upright.

“Shoes are unfair to children,” he’d grouse.

Through a pane of glass

that shivers when the wind kicks up

I watch my son walk away.

He’s out the door, up the street, around

a couple of corners by now.

I’m in for life.

He trips; my hand flies out;

I yank it back.

Ted Kooser was US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. He is a professor in the English Department of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He lives on an acreage near the village of Garland, Nebraska, with his wife Kathleen Rutledge, the editor of the Lincoln Journal Star.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),

publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of

Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2009 by Donal Heffernan, whose most recent book of poetry is

“Duets of Motion,” Lone Oak Press, 2001. Poem reprinted by permission of Donal Heffernan.

Introduction copyright ©2010 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

American Life in Poetry ©2006 The Poetry Foundation

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This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.