Mammoth Exhibit Underway

I just wanted to give everyone an update on the exhibit that will house the woolly mammoth tusk, jaw, and teeth as the result of the grant received by the Andaste Chapter of Pa Archaeology to acquire these full size pieces and place them in SRAC for the surrounding communities to enjoy.

The exhibit is a 4 man project led by our good friend Brian Denlinger of Denlinger Designs who will keep the muralist, Peter Quiles, construction lead, Tom Vallilee and 3D art specialist, Frank Evans all in sync throughout the project. I think the community will be amoazed at what we have planned, as it will allow visitors yound and old to feel as if they have walked into the past as the exhibit will come out from the walls with trees, water, and rock ledges...

The first mural was underway today - which is on the east face wall and is 13 feet wide and 8 feet tall. It will show our beautiful rolling hills but with woolly mammoths on a winding path and coming down to a watering hole which will be in the foreground. This is the first layer of paint layed on the wall just today for this mural:


In the meantime, Tom is working on the other wall dry walling it for the next mural to be created which will be of the rivers and an ancient fishermen (or women) looking off into the distance...This mural will have part of the river running in front of it with a birch bark canoe drug up on the bank and other stone artifacts spanning thousands of years will be seen here and there along the ancient waterway, just as we know they have been found over the centuries.

The truth is that the Susquehanna River is the biggest reason for so much of what we have....our prehistory, history, our rich heritage, abundant archaeology, and our Center.

We are so very excited to create this exhibit and I hope that you are as well! You can stop in SRAC during our business hours and ask about our latest stages of the exhibit, we'd be glad to show you!

If you would like to donate towards this incredible exhibit that will be a huge addition to our Center and our community, send your donations to:

SRAC Woolly Mammoth Exhibit
PO Box 12
Sayre, PA 18840

November 7th - SRAC Christmas Workshops Kickoff!

SRAC is offering workshops to help you get creative with your Christmas ideas this year and at an ffordable price. The workshops will be held every Saturday in November and December until Christmas. From glass art to children's books, there will be a different workshop every Saturday at SRAC available to help participants make or get special gifts with all supplies and processing included in the registration price in most cases.

Due to limited space availability, with the exception of the book sale on December 4th and 5th, pre-registration is mandatory for each of the following workshops:

Saturday November 7th from 11:30am - 12:30pm
Workshop: Fused Glass Creatures with Mary Ann Taylor
What kind of creature will you make? It's all up to you! All glass, supplies, and firing included. Must be picked the following Saturday (Nov 14th) due to firing process. Registration Fee: $20, $18 for SRAC members



November 7th 12:30pm- 4pm
Workshop: Make a Christmas Oil Painting with Priscilla Ammerman!
Priscilla has been giving painting classes in the Valley for years and her classes are very popular! In this workshop, the class participants will make their own approximate 12 inch by 14 inch Christmas Oil /Acrylic Painting. Registration is $5 for participants who bring their own supplies, $10 if you need supplies supplied. Prices change to $4, and $8 for SRAC members respectively.

To see all workshops occurring at SRAC until Christmas - visit the SRAC Events Calendar and view the November AND December Saturday listings.

To Pre-register for any class visit SRAC at 345 Broad Street 1-5 Tuesdays - Fridays or 11am - 4pm Saturdays; call SRAC at 607-565-7960 during business hours, or email info@sracenter.org.

Questions? You can email me anytime!

Come & See the SRAC Mammoth!

If you come to SRAC at 345 Broad Street in Waverly, NY these days, you will be met by our new large friend...NO! NOT Beryl! The Woolly Mammoth!


We just had this painting added to our gift shop today and from now on it will be the first thing that you will see when you walk through our doors. This was created by our friend, R. Wilson who came in one day and learned about our getting the woolly mammoth tusk and teeth and jaw from Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum this winter and simply said we needed a woolly mammoth out in the gift shop to greet visitors as they entered the Center..That was just a few weeks ago!

Even more impressive, we gave Mr. Wilson the size of the woolly mammoth that we were getting the remains replicated from that the Andaste Chapter of PA Archaeology helped excavate back in 1983, and he drew it to scale! Unfortunately, our ceilings are only 14 feet high...which would have been at the shoulders of our woolly mammoth, so we are going to let everyone know that this painting is of the runt of the litter...

( ;

I told Ted that we better make sure that we don't get flies in the gift shop because the kids will all have their mouths wide open when they come in!

I dare you to not be awed on your next visit as well!

SRAC's VERY Special Christmas Present Workshops

SRAC is offering workshops to help you get creative with your Christmas ideas this year and at an affordable price. The workshops will be held every Saturday in November and December until Christmas. From glass art to children's books, there will be a different workshop every Saturday at SRAC available to help participants make or get get special gifts with all supplies and processing included in the registration price in most cases.

SRAC is also inviting the participants to bring a child to share in the fun of each workshop at no additional cost while making that one special gift together. SRAC's Deb Twigg explains, "There are many memories that I have of the Christmas holidays. Many of them are of making or finding special items for someone, or receiving that special gift that someone made or picked out with me in mind. These are gifts that took more thoughtfulness than money. This along with the current economic times gave us the idea to make these workshops available for others to experience the joy of giving gifts that are sure to be special for those that give and receive them."

Due to limited space availabilty, with the exception of the book sale on December 4th and 5th, preregistration is mandatory for each of the following workshops:

Saturday November 7th from 11:30am - 12:30pm
Workshop: Fused Glass Creatures with Mary Ann Taylor
All glass, supplies, and firing included. Must be picked the following Saturday (Nov 14th) due to firing process. Registration Fee: $20, $18 for SRAC members

Saturday November 14th, Three 1 hour workshops are available at 11:30, 12:30, and 2pm
Workshop: Beaded Trees with Inga Wells
All basic supplies included. Geode slice bases also available for additional fee.
Registration Fee: $6, $5 for SRAC members.

Saturday, November 21st, from 11:30 - 12:30
Workshop: Fused Glass Dishes
Fused glass dish is 4" square. Firing included, and requires 2 firings; therefore items take 2 weeks firing time. Must be picked up on Saturday, December 12th. Registration Fee: $25, $23 for SRAC members.

Saturday, November 28th, no workshop - holiday weekend.

Friday, December 4th from 1-5pm, & Saturday, December 5th from 11am - 4pm
Usborne Book Sale!
Usborne books are known for publishing the very best children's books in the world. They take pride in being part of the overall education and literacy movement in the nation, and believe their products can make a difference in the lives of children. There is also an online book sale going on and orders for this event are currently being taken at http://www.ubah.com/BF34575until the close of the event on December 5th.

What will SRAC get? We will get 25% of total sales (up to $499) and to 50% of total sales ($500 & above) of children's books that we will donate to two lucky elementary schools in the Valley! Now if that isn't a great Christmas present, I don't know what is! order your books today!


Saturday, December 12th, from 11:30 - 12:30
Workshop: Fused Glass Necklaces and Earrings with Mary Ann Taylor
All glass, supplies, finding, and firing included. Must be picked up the following Saturday (Dec 19th) due to firing process. Registration Fee: $25, $23 for SRAC members.

Saturday, December 19th from 11am- 3pm
Workshop: Family Christmas Photos
Complete with a Christmas back drop, participants can bring their pets, family, etc and have portraits taken. The photos will be burned to a CD which will given to each participant to taken to a local photo processing booth for printing. Registration Fee: $10, $8 for SRAC members.

Note: ALL children under the age of ten years must be accompanied by an adult.

Those interested in attending the SRAC Special Christmas Gift Workshops are advised that additional workshops are still being added and can be viewed at http://www.SRACenter.org/Events.

To register for any of the workshops - please call SRAC at 607-565-7960 Tuesdays through Fridays from 1-5pm or Staurdays 11am - 5pm. SRAC is located at 345 Broad Street Waverly, NY.

The SRAC Movie is Here!

I wanted to thank all of you who attended yesterday's 6th annual DrumBeats Through Time. The attendance was great and good times were shared all the way through the event from the luncheon and annual membership meeting, Allegany River Dancers from 2-3pm, and we still had most of the seats filled even for the SRAC movie from 4pm- 5pm.

For those of you who are not aware of it, the SRAC Movie 'Glimpses of Our Past" is now available on DVD. The movie is a 3 part piece about the prehistory of our region that covers from the ice age all the way through early European contact and uses SRAC's artifacts to help tell that story.

It also includes spots by myself, Ted Keir, and Dick Cowles, and even two additional full length presentations, "Why Sullivan Marched" by Dick Cowles, and "The Newton Woolly Mammoth" by Ted Keir...Oh yeh - - they also added bloopers which were quite popular yesterday!

The entire DVD is on sale now at SRAC for just $9.99 plus tax. They are available at the SRAC gift shop and I added a way for you to order your copy online as well below. All proceeds benefit the Susquehanna River Archaeological Center.

DrumBeats Through Time - 2009

Every October is Archaeology Month in PA and since our earliest event 6 years ago, we have held true to our promise that we would host this event, jam packed full of artifacts, history, and Native American culture for FREE every year. Thanks to Guthrie Health, and many other individuals in the community who have donated towards our event this year, we are able to keep our word! Click the image below to download the Event Calendar!

Denlinger Design.

I wanted to take a minute or two and discuss one of the most important friends that SRAC has had over the years, and that is Brian Denlinger of Denlinger Design. In just a week or two, the Susquehanna River Archaeological Center will again show off yet another product of Brian’s artwork – on the front of our building. It has been several months since I went to Brian and asked him to design signage for the outside of our Center, and again he has gone above and beyond what I thought we would get.

Instead of just doing a sign like every other sign in downtown Waverly, NY, Brian thought about who SRAC is and came up with a design and material thafit our brand and works with the exteriof our building as well. He also knewthat we are very active on the internet and also had us add the URL for our website aswell. The result is a wooden sign that is 9 feet by 4 feet in wood that was sandblasted give it a hand carved feeling that gives people the information both in design and text that we want them to know. Here is a picture of the unfinished sign at this point –



Another piece that Denlinger Design produced for us recently that I am sure you must have seen this summer is our “Bears on Broad Street” posters. These posters became so popular that they are collector items in the community!


And yet another piece that you may or may not remember that was created by Denlinger Design was the huge mural that resides in the SRAC Exhibit Hall. Brian digitally reowrked a pen drawing by Ellsworth Cowles in 1933 and added colorization, then enlarged it and added a text area. In the end, he had it all printed in vinyl panels to make the mural that you see today.


The next piece that Brian is working on with SRAC is a massive exhibit that will house a ten foot wooly mammoth tusk, jaw and teeth and include two murals, 3d rivers, ledges, and even a waterfall. This exhibit will span 50 feet of our museum floor! Stay Tuned!

Truth is - I actually am lucky enough to work with Brian in my day job at Guthrie Health and this ishow he came to ask him to do some things for SRAC. Because of this – I have seen first hand his professionalism and respect that he has gained for his work beyond SRAC. From print materials, billboards, photography, video, and even web design work, Brian is the best I have seen at what he does.

But even more than the pieces that Brian and Denlinger Design has produced, it has been HOW it was produced. Brian is just one of those guys that listens to his customers and iswilling to work with them in a way that makes them feel very proud of what they comup with TOGETHER. Unlike other artists that I have worked with Brian explains his reasoning for elements of his work, but is willing to change things and work with you so that you never feel like the end product is what someone else came up with…you are involved every step of the way. Because of that, I wanted to share my highest regard for the work that Brian Denlinger has done for SRAC over the years.

I can tell you that there is nothing better than working with a professional like him when you are a company that insists that you are represented in the public at a high standard everytime.

To see more of Brian’s work or to learn more about Denlinger Design, visit http://www.DenlingerDesign.com.

Working Hard AT SRAC!

With so much work getting ready for DrumBeats - we just had to let our hair down a little...'

Happy Early Halloween from the SRAC Gang!
Cast: Dr. Frankenstein: MaryAnne Taylor, Frankenstein: Ted Keir, The Bride of Frankenstein: Susan Fogel, Wolfman: Dick Cowles, Dracula: Tom Vallilee.

Just click the image below to enjoy the show!

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