UUCM’s November partner, Nevada County Citizens for Choice received $1,482, thanks to generous UUCM members, friends, and visitors.  These weekly donations add up.  Thank you all.

Our December Share the Plate recipient is Hospitality House. The mission of Hospitality House is to bring homeless people in Nevada County into a circle of community caring that offers shelter, sustenance, medical care, advocacy, opportunity, dignity, and hope as they assist them in transitioning from homelessness to housing. In addition to Sharing the Plate, UUCM members prepare dinners on the third and fifth Fridays of every month, and the entire congregation makes monthly donations for needed items.

Thank you, each of you, for your continual compassion and justice-centered generosity.

A message from Board President Taylor Carey:

Since November 5th, our lives have reverberated with the aftershocks of the electorate’s wholesale repudiation of our Unitarian Universalist principles and values.   Our nation has gone through political crises before, but I recall no time in which our cultural and social values have been so fractured. Even the Civil War represented a lesser breakdown of social order.

Reverend Kevin has devoted our Sunday services to plumbing and exploring the depths of the distress currently troubling our hearts.  In keeping with that theme, our Board of Trustees would like to have an opportunity to visit with you directly to hear and discuss your questions and concerns.  The members of the Board have their own issues and thoughts on the subject, of course, but this is our turn to listen to yours.  The Board’s authority is limited and not everything you bring to our attention can find its way into undertakings. Our hope is that we may come to an understanding of congregational needs in these dubious times and translate as many as possible into action.  

After the service on Sunday, December 8th, members of the BoT will gather in the sanctuary to listen to your thoughts, concerns, hopes, and desires that draw more than their fair share of your attention.  Although we anticipate that the recent election and its rippling aftermath will likely provide the most fertile fields for conversation, we are open to anything that you feel the Board should consider.  Please pick up a plate of refreshments and a cup of coffee and join us.  

Please bear in mind that this is not a formal meeting.  If you have other commitments for that time, keep them by all means.  For those who would like to participate but can’t after Sunday service (or for those who simply thought of more things to say), we will repeat the effort via Zoom on December 10th at 7:00pm. 

CLICK HERE to join via Zoom on December 10th at 7pm.

For the next three months, the Art and Aesthetics Team is privileged to host an exhibition of the work of our own Lin Jovanovic in the UUCM library. Lin is a mosaic artist. She takes broken pieces of pottery or tile and uses them to create something new, something even more beautiful. That process was the theme for the month of November, so It seems especially appropriate to be showing her work at this time. Lin’s art work will be on display by the second Sunday of December, but her official reception isn’t until the 15th. Please have a sneak peek if you just can’t wait, and then join us on Dec. 15 to celebrate her talent and creativity and to ask all your burning questions.

Here, in her own words, is Lin’s story:

I took my first mosaic class over 25 years ago and I was hooked! What a blast to break up tiles with a hammer and challenging my brain to construct a design with those broken pieces and the spaces in between.

Career and family limited the time I could put into my art, but moving up to Grass Valley and finding a house that had a ready-made studio and a storage area (affectionately called The Hoard) took away many limitations and opened me to explore and deepen my skills and passion for this art form.

I work with almost any material that takes my fancy – some common place in this work like tile, stained glass, smalti (small bits of mosaic glass), and dishes – some more fanciful like figurines, nuts, metal bits, fused bobbles, stones, or shells.

In looking at my work to prepare for this exhibit, I noticed my drive to master many techniques and mediums in mosaic art. Two D is one expected choice, but I love 3-D and sculptural expressions, the magic of the light of glass on glass mosaics, the whimsy of pique assiette* (crockery), the way a color freedom mosaic bends the mind, and the wonder of micro mosaics to fascinate. For me these are all ways to play and to bring an experience to the viewer that is visceral and sparks curiosity. I appreciate you taking a look.

*From goldbugmosaics.com: “Pique assiette or trencadis is a style of mosaic that incorporates ceramic shards, broken dishes and other found objects into a design. While traditional mosaics used small cubes that were relatively uniformly shaped, pique assiette or trencadis tends to use nonuniform pieces. The term pique assiette has a French origin and various sources say it means ‘stolen plate’ or ‘broken plate.’ It also refers to someone who is a ‘scrounger’ which of course fits because most pique assiette art is created with recycled or ‘scrounged’ materials.”

The annual tradition of providing Christmas gifts for the children of our community is ready to begin. The Christmas Giving Tree is up in the foyer and the gift tags are in place. We have chosen CASA/Child Advocates as our recipients for this year, and they are asking for 2 to 3 new books for each of the children. The gift tags have the initials for the child, their ages and genders, and the subjects they are interested in. They range in age from 3 months to 18 years old. The Book Seller in Grass Valley is supporting our mission by providing 20% off when you show your gift tag for the purchase of these books. Now, that’s the spirit!!! We can give a gift of love to a child in the foster system and we can support our local book store. 

Please take a tag from the tree and give a gift of reading to a child. There will be someone at the Christmas Tree to help you sign up. Please, when you take a tag, sign in on the sheet. If you choose to buy your books at the Book Seller, take your tag with you and present it at the counter for a 20% discount, but be sure to save the tag to use to label your gift when you bring it into UUCM.  All gifts must be back no later than Sunday, December 8, and they need to be gift wrapped and have the label visible on the front of the present.  We are asking for new books only for these Christmas gifts, but if you have favorite children’s books, you can always donate them to the CASA lending library.