The deadline for submission of all entries is February 29.

The contest is open to artists and writers of all ages. If offers first, second and third place awards and honorable mention recognition.

Artwork and writings must be inspired by one or more of the 12 MSI sculptures located in the East and West Dearborn areas and on the grounds of the Ford Community & Performing Arts Center.  Additional information about the sculptures, locations and entry requirements can be found at www.dearborncommunityfund.org or by contacting the Dearborn Community Fund office at 313-943-5478.

Selected artwork and writings will be showcased at the March 28 “Multi-Arts Night” program which begins at 7:30 p.m. in Studio A at The Ford Community & Performing Arts Center, 15801 Michigan Ave. The program is open to the public at no charge.

The Midwest Sculpture Initiative is a project of the Dearborn Community Fund with support from the East Dearborn and West Dearborn Downtown Development Authorities. The Dearborn Community Fund provides and promotes financial and volunteer resources in support of arts, recreational and cultural programs that directly impact the community.

If you are Dearborn resident and architecture graduate Paolo Mastrogiacomo you create a celestial field that helps call attention to all that downtown west Dearborn has to offer.

And that is just what the University of Michigan grad will do this evening at the corner of Michigan and Brady with his colleague Ariya Kelly (and a bunch of volunteers including designers, artists and people from the community) when they arrange the 2,000 sticks in a pavilion design to creative an interactive, but temporary, visual experience for visitors.

This first ever Dearborn “Glow” project will light up the entire corner from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Be sure to bring your cameras. It will be a fun photo to capture and share.

The “Glow” project is adjacent to the Dearborn Historical Museum, a co-host for the project along with the Dearborn Community Fund.

In addition to providing a unique visual experience, Mastrogiacomo sees his project, albeit temporary, as a way to provide our community with an opportunity to stop, play and become engaged while calling attention to downtown west Dearborn and all it has to offer.

Visitors will be encouraged to walk through the “field” and to move the glow sticks at will resulting in a constantly changing pattern. Three sculptures, part of Dearborn’s Midwest Sculpture Initiative which continues through April, are also featured on the site.

The Dearborn Historical Museum will be open to welcome visitors. A children’s activity area, light refreshments and museum tour will be available.

The project team hopes that this temporary interactive creative project will be the first of many and serve to encourage other area artists to develop future projects.

The event is free.

Additional information is available by contacting the Dearborn Community Fund at 313-943-5478.

On Feb. 14 (Valentines Day), Dearborn Public Schools residents over the age of 60 can stop in to any Dearborn Public School or the Administration Building to pick up the new Premier Citizen Discount Card. There will be free cookies for anyone stopping by to pick up a card and as a special bonus the first person to visit a school on the 14th to pick up a card will receive a Target gift card.

“We are proud that many residents in the over 60 crowd are alumni and we welcome them back to enjoy the events and activities that occur in our schools,” said Dearborn Public Schools Supt. Brian Whiston.

The Premier Citizen Discount Card is free and offers all the same great discounts as the Golden Ager card but with a new look and a new offer on school merchandise:

• Free admission to all school-sponsored activities* including concerts and athletic events. (*Due to fees charged to schools for licensing of performance rights, plays are not included.)

• Discounts on select Community Education classes.

• 10% discount on merchandise sold at school stores. (limit 4 items per year)

• Participation in school lunch programs at reduced prices. Reduced price is 10% discount on the total purchase. (must contact school in advance to participate)

“Our students have plenty to offer and community members will be proud of the accomplishments of the young people in their neighborhood. We hope that everyone over the age of 60 will pick up a Premier Citizen Discount Card and take advantage of the free admission and discounts,” Whiston said.

New study says it is smarter to renovate existing buildings such as our Dearborn City Hall rather than lionizing fancy new 'green' construction.

It has been interesting to read some of the comments about whether Dearborn should look for a new City Hall rather than repairing the 90-year-old historic building that our city government operates in today.

We still believe making repairs and the necessary updates to the building is money better spent than packing up and spending money to buy a newer building and then spending more to make it suitable for city government offices.

Architecturally, our City Hall is one of the nicest looking buildings in East Dearborn and it deserves to be preserved and updated, just as you would do with a classic automobile.

Which brings us to a recent article we ran across recently in Time magazine. In that article, the magazine reports that making existing buildings “green” is actually a better strategy than constructing a new building.

“Revaluing building reuse is not just an environmental issue, it’s an economic opportunity,” Elizabeth Hider, senior vice president of Green Markets for Skanska, an international construction firm quoted in the article. “One that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and one that creates American jobs. Because renovation projects use less material, it is good for the environment, but it requires more labor, which has to be local. That’s good for America.”

You can read the full article HERE.

Which brings us to this story that aired recently on ABC News. It is about a small town in Ohio and what residents there did recently to help keep a hardware store open.

It got us thinking about some of the remaining downtown West Dearborn retail stores we have, like Nichols Ski and Snowboard Shop, Steven Bernard Jewelers, Campbells Paint and Wallpaper, Village Picture Framing & Art Gallery, Nigosian’s Carpet and Dearborn Music, just to name some.

How many of us have stopped in these stores in recent months and purchased anything? The story below got us thinking about how important of a role we all play in helping keep open the remaining retail stores we do have in Dearborn.

We all play a part in helping retail stores survive in this, our city . . .

Honorees for the 2011 Mayor’s Arts Awards are:

• Frank Padzieski, The Mayor’s Award

• Isabelle Renaud, Artist/Performer Award

• Kurt Doelle, Arts Educator Award

• Leslie Greeneisen, DCAC Bravo Award

• Cynthia Frabutt, Volunteer Award

• UM-Dearborn, Patron Award

• Artists Society of Dearborn, Organization Award

The Awards ceremony will take place Wednesday, February 8th in the Michael Guido Theatre at the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center.   The ceremony will begin at 7:30 pm and is free to the public.     A reception immediately following  the ceremony will be in Studio A, next to the theatre and will also be open to the public.

The  Mayor’s Arts Awards were created by Dearborn Community Arts Council (DCAC) and  late Mayor Michael Guido to honor those members of our community who create, perform, educate and the support the fine and performing arts in the greater Dearborn area.

 The Master of Ceremonies for this year’s  event will be Dearborn’s multi-talented  Brian Townsend.   Among the groups slated to perform during the evening are the Prysm School of the Arts, the Dearborn High Thespians and a film montage of the DHS Film and Video program.

No reservations are required.   Any inquires can be directed to the DCAC office; 313-943-3095.

Dearborn City Hall was built in 1922.

For 90 years, the corner of Michigan and Schaefer has been the home of Dearborn City Hall.

Now, it appears that could change.

The Dearborn Press & Guide on Sunday reported that a proposal to combine administrative offices for the city and Dearborn Public Schools is getting serious consideration.

Call us nostalgic, but Dearborn’s City Hall building needs to remain the hub of Dearborn. The building may need repair but it is simply too important of a symbol to this city to simply leave it to others (like an art community) or, worse yet, raze.

Dearborn City Hall was built in 1922. According to Press & Guide editor J. Patrick Pepper, the parking garage behind City Hall is “falling apart and could require a complete rebuild within the next couple years. An addition put on in 1981 that connects the main City Hall building on Schaefer Road to the western annex also is in need of a new roof liner.”

Dearborn Public Schools administration is currently is housed in the 1950-vintage Ten Eyck facility on Audette. The Press & Guide reports that the former school building has “several structural issues that need to be remedied. For one, the roof leaks in some places and needs to be replaced. Even more pressing is a settling foundation on the backside of the building that has started to cause significant cracking in the cinder block walls.”

“Those are very major expenses that will need to be address so if there are opportunities to save money we’re definitely interested in exploring our options,” DPS Spokesman David Mustonen told the Press & Guide.

So where would Dearborn City Hall and the Dearborn School District relocate?

Top on the list is the old ADP Detroit sales headquarters on Michigan Avenue. Dearborn Mayor John B. O’Reilly, Jr., told the Press & Guide that the property is about to revert to bank ownership and that within the next few weeks it should be on the market at a bargain-basement price.

The building is located across the street from Ford Motor Co. world headquarters and sitting adjacent to a nearly half-mile-long campus of other municipal properties, the move would consolidate all of the city’s biggest entities into one central location, the Press & Guide says.

The idea of combining administrative offices has been on the table for several years and was one of the considerations in 2003 when the city spent $2.3 million to purchase the 5.9-acre parcel between the ADP building and Henry Ford Centennial Library, the paper says. Part of the purchase agreement with Ford Land Development Co. was that the property, which is a grassy field, had to be turned into an office space within 15 years.

The Press & Guide says Dearborn could have a potential buyer for City Hall in the developer ArtSpace, which is looking to establish a live/work facility for artists in Dearborn. The mayor recently gave the Minneapolis-based nonprofit a tour of City Hall. With its big windows and tall ceilings, the Georgian-Revival style building fits a lot of criteria ArtSpace looks for in a redevelopment project.

“The timing of this is extremely good when you look at all the factors from the efficiencies too possible savings,” O’Reilly told the Press & Guide. “But we’ll do a thorough evaluation of it and if it works we’ll pursue it and if it doesn’t we won’t.”

This time around, patrons are asked to register for the free sessions, which teach people how to use their new electronic devices and to take advantage of the library’s Digital Catalog.

Kindle users should register for the session 6-8 p.m. Tuesday, February 7.

Nook, Sony, and Kobo users should register for the 6-8 p.m. Thursday, February 16 session.

Two more sessions for users of any devices will be 2-4 p.m. Thursday, February 23 and 6-8 p.m. Tuesday, February 28.

Patrons who need help borrowing an e-book from the library’s Digital Catalog, uploading apps, downloading photos or just learning to use their new tech device would find a benefit to the sessions.

Participants are asked to bring their charged devices and all connecting cables with them to the First Floor Training Room on the date of their session. Please call the Adult Reference desk at 313-943-2330 during regular library hours to register and for more information.

In recognition of Doman’s contribution to the book, Oakwood Common will host a book signing event, open to the public, at 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012.

Doman will be available to greet guests and sign copies of the newly published book, which will also be available for sale.

Proceeds from the sale of the book, priced at $20 each, benefit the Dearborn Historical Museum.

In addition to her featured story, Doman is recognized as a natural writer in rhyme and meter. A former elementary school teacher in Taylor, where her husband held public office, Doman had never composed a poem before joining the writers group at Oakwood Common where she has lived for nine years.

Since then, her work has been published regularly in the residents’ newsletter and in several larger writing collections including Oakwood’s annual literary journal, Poetic Resonance Imaging. She is also a regular member of the Common Expressions writers group.

The book signing event will be held in the Rotunda Room of the Oakwood Common Retirement Community which is located at 16351 Rotunda Drive in Dearborn.

For more information, email donna.brandt@oakwood.org or call 800-642-4663.

Dearborn's Bistro 222

Dearborn residents know from living here that we have many great restaurants to choose from and visit. But it is always doubly nice to read stories about our eateries by people who actually do restaurant reviews for a living.

Enter Molly Abraham, a veteran restaurant reviewer who has published several books about her favorites places to eat. In her new list of the Top 12 restaurants to visit in 2012, she lists our own Bistro 222 at 22266 Michigan Ave.

Bistro 222 owner and veteran chef Michael Chamas (LA Express, La Dolce Vita), who trained with Wolfgang Puck and Keith Famie, has won several awards for his fine food since opening in 2009. He now can add another.

Here is what Molly had to write about Bistro 222 to people who want to try a fresh new restaurant and expand their taste buds in 2012.

“The L-shaped room is something of an oasis, entered from the rear through a courtyard-style passageway. Although wine and beer are served, there is no bar, leaving the space for linen-covered tables surrounded by a collection of art. Single page menus offer a list of dishes that include pastas, some house-made, a few vegetarian selections, and a nice mix of seafood and meat choices all freshly garnished with vegetables and herbs. The quiet skill of chef/proprietor Michael Chamas keeps this 60-seat spot a haven for those who appreciate handcrafted fare.”

Congrats, Michael. It’s a nice way to start the year.