ways and today my guest is sidney would link from from the fine art society welcome thank you so much so you must spend almost as much time as i do here at the van ways i think that would be impossible but i do love coming to  why am i saying that about you know the fine art society and the band ways of being so in twined sure sure of all the fine arts of fighting the families were both founded about the same time and we've had an fifty year partnership now the fine art society has a collection of art just stunning by the way think it's all you know mid century to modern there florida artists so they all have a connection to florida all of those a lot of water in the pictures and many people don't even know it's here but our entire collection it's of a little over fifty painting of our has been housed at them you know or they all paintings or their sculptures or there are sculptures as well as a matter of fact a huge sculpture that a sculpture if you will that was down below on the hill and one of our patrons on kindly took it out with their car at one point oh my goodness yeah that well about that was that was quite the day but the car and our patron survived sadly the artwork to know so well so i did something else but you're celebrating your fiftieth anniversary we are we are it's been a wonderful fifty years for the fine art society we also are celebrating just having  achieved over a million dollars in scholarships given out to tell us about in the arts you have the organization the fund raising organization and the fund raising we raise funds to do our programs and to give scholarships and grants and one of the grants is for the yes for if we appreciate but we also give out scholarships every year to students in sarasota county now where they are the ardennes arts dance music or anything they're going into that is  related to the arts and how appropriate again to be at the van ways that with all of the performances here now you know if i had one sliver of artistic talent this is in painting which i do not other than stick figures so i say from my drawings  how would as a florida artist i get you to recognize me and maybe hang one of my paintings on the van was a wall we do have a website it's fine art sarasota dot org and there's also a phone number on there as well just contact someone in the fine art society we generally have members who are our collectors as well as artists as well as educators so we're pretty tied into the community most of the artists here know i know you art or do you purchase it how does that work both but we generally purchase there's a collection process that has to be evaluated by the committee and voted on by the entire membership before we can bring that before we can purchase art  we are fund raising is to make enough money to purchase the art as well as cold as dollar ships and grants that's fantastic so now do you hold these meetings once a year to pick a new piece of art or i would say it's every one to two t and it's fabulous to sit down in the in the reception room the area that looks out on the bay from one of those walls down there we also have pieces by many of the folks who were founders of rolling ringling college of art  design oh great hilton leach was our first purchase for a painting and he was one of the founders of the college and our twenty fifth anniversary piece sits in the main lobby and it's by dorothy gillespie and she's just coming she's she passed away but her son's getting ready to celebrate her hundredth anniversary all about school this year about the same time we're doing our fifth and i'm sure a lot of people that don't have don't come to the van ways all as a patron and shame on you if you don't but  how can they see some of this artwork that you have you have all the collection is open for public tours on the first tuesday of every month in season so basically october through may were running a special right now because we're only doing the art tours and they are free to the public on the first tuesday of the wonderful right now we sort of sometimes are get in your way because our main focus is doing shows and so when we're loading in scenery because the tour normally goes back to day and night and on the stage and it's a little hard to do that when you're loading on the lion king or you have a star in the building so that's why this time of the year it's much easier just to see the artwork and we're celebrating our fiftieth by doing it free this year only  so folks can just come on the first tuesday if they have a group they want to schedule a tour with they can schedule do a five one we would we would and they would contact janet arena here at they always call to set up a private tour and sometimes those can actually go back stage depending on when they when they are ok well thank you again you've been a wonderful sponsor of ours for the eleven years i've been here and we are hoping that will have the art hanging here all the time i hope so too it's been a wonderful