Creativity

A senior-living facility for creative adults offers residents the chance to explore the arts and now to share their work with the community. Residents will be demonstrating painting, sculpture and playwriting skills during “EngAGE in Creativity” a fundraising show and sale on Saturday afternoon at the Senior Artists Colony. The nonprofit group EngAGE: The Art of Active Aging, which supplies services to apartment complexes in Southern California that promote active aging, is hosting the event, said Maureen Kellen-Taylor, vice president of the organization.

Robert Blechl MEDIA DISTRICT WEST -- SpiritWorks Center for Spiritual Living --formerly Burbank Church of Religious Science -- will give a free six-week workshop to enhance individual creativity. "Masterwork: Discovering, Recovering and Breaking Through to the Spiritual Source of Creativity" will be held at 7:30 p.m. every Wednesday from March 8 to April 19. The classes will discuss how to recognize the creativity within, how to deal with creative blocks and how to keep creativity at the forefront in all future endeavors, organizers said.

Jack Kyser addresses businesses in keynote speech at the Hilton Glendale.GLENDALE -- As long as creativity is the power that drives the region's economy, Glendale and Burbank should continue to enjoy strong economies. The challenge is to ensure the region has enough trained workers and affordable housing while finding the right balance between retail and manufacturing. Jack Kyser, chief economist of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., brought that message to local business and city leaders during his keynote address at the Verdugo Workforce Investment Board's Business and Economic Forecast and Workforce Summit at the Hilton Glendale on Thursday.

Paul Clinton SOUTH SAN FERNANDO -- The whiz-kid animators at Nickelodeon's Burbank studio needed a work atmosphere to match their labor-of-love creativity. They got it in March 1998 when Nickelodeon threw open the doors of its distinctive Pop "Googie" architecture studio. With its medley of colorful shapes -- including a mammoth blob of green slime and oversized orange foot attached to the facade -- the Olive Avenue studio brings to mind the zany world of cartoons that Nickelodeon animators create.

Joyce Rudolph What if your kids could spend two hours each morning participating in theater workshops and using their imagination to create their own shows? They can, if they join in the Kids On Stage experience coordinated by Rob Bowers. This year, the Burbank resident is integrating the theme of "What if ..." into the two-week program for youngsters 4 to 12, which begins Tuesday at the Starlight Bowl. "What if" are the two most important words in creativity, Bowers said.

The Burbank Senior Artists Colony staged the annual EngAGE in Creativity ? Celebrating the Arts for All Ages event last week at its East Verdugo Avenue complex. EngAGE, a nonprofit organization that transforms senior apartment communities into vibrant centers of learning, wellness and creativity, believes the luxury of having time should be used to discover the art of living. Contracted by the owners of senior apartment communities throughout Southern California, EngAGE provides a whole-person approach to creative and healthy aging, offering life-enhancing creative outlets along with wellness, educational, intergenerational and community-building programs.

Irma Lemus MAGNOLIA PARK -- The John Burroughs High School Odyssey of the Mind team won first place in a regional competition and will move on to the state finals of the engineering challenge, school officials said. Burroughs' 14-member team took first place in the Structure, Vehicle and Invention categories at the competition, which was held March 24 and 25 in Pasadena. For the second year in a row, the team also won the Ranatra Fusca Award for originality, engineering and creativity.

A huge thank you to the Friends of the Burbank Library, the children's librarians, and all others involved in the summer reading clubs for children at our Burbank public libraries. It clearly took much effort, financial resources and creativity, but it was all deeply appreciated by our family and many of our friends. Our almost-first-grader had to read 15 books for school over the summer, and the library's inspired program with required book reports rewarded by performers, contests and raffles made this process a treat rather than a chore.

Laura Sturza SOUTH SAN FERNANDO DISTRICT -- Orthodontist Farnaz Zand helps people have broader smiles, but her patients get more than straighter teeth at their appointments. "Especially with the young people, it seems that they are so worried about their look, so I try to give them overall self-esteem," Zand said. "You don't want to correct the teeth only. You want to help the person." The orthodontist and inventor initially had a passion for the visual arts, but has channeledher creativity into sculpting teeth and developing new tools for her trade.

Ongoing renovation at the historic Brand Library and Art Center in Glendale forced organizers to secure a new location for this year's annual art exhibition, but they found a willing and generous venue in the Burbank Creative Arts Center. Juror Bonese Collins Turner culled carefully through hundreds of entries from across the United States to choose various award winners for “Brand 41: Works on Paper: Memories,” which remains open through Wednesday. The Burbank Creative Arts Center is much smaller than the Brand Gallery, but there is plenty of room to display the winners and a reasonable representation of the entries, all of which are de facto honorable mentions.

Lillian Hughes reveres the written word, so much so that the fifth-grade Stevenson Elementary School student often spends the lunch hour hunkered down with pencil and paper. “She loves to write, she would rather write than do almost anything,” said her teacher, Ann Marie Golding. _____________ FOR THE RECORD: This article incorrectly spells Ann Marie Goulding's name. _______________ Now, 10-year-old Lillian is working with a team of Cartoon Network artists to bring her latest book, “Mr.

Burbank officials on Wednesday will hold what could be the last public input meeting on a “very non-cookie cutter” upgrade of Johnny Carson Park. The third meeting for a redesigned Johnny Carson Park could potentially be the last, said deputy parks director Jan Bartolo, adding that many of the comments made so far have been folded into the draft plan. A conceptual design of Johnny Carson Park based on ideas submitted from Burbank residents in the two prior meetings will be on display during the meeting, which starts at 6 p.m. at Providence High School.

As the City of Burbank continues the centennial celebration of its incorporation, the Burbank Creative Arts Center Gallery is paying homage to the milestone with an exhibit of art and artifacts from six of the city's most prominent businesses - Warner Bros. Studios, the Walt Disney Company, Cartoon Network, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Nickelodeon and Garry Marshall's Falcon Theatre and Henderson Productions. The exhibition that will run through August 25 was officially opened this past Friday evening with a debut reception.

Two Burbank special effects makeup artists survived an intense first elimination episode Wednesday night in Syfy’s new reality competition series “Face Off.” The show’s debut pitted 12 up-and-coming artists in challenges that tested their edgy creative skills, including turning a live model into a hybrid of a half-human/half-animal. Judging were renowned sci-fi makeup artists three-time Academy Award winner Ve Neill (“Pirates of the Caribbean”)

I t takes a good, healthy dose of will and dedication for one to slow the pace of our feverishly spinning world and take notice of what is really important. It also takes a good solid heap of introspective creativity to transform those things deemed significant into a tangible manifestation that can inspire others to also apply the brakes and realize just how much we render to the trivial and take the treasures for granted. Through subtle nuisances, vivid revelation and colorful clarity, that message is celebrated in the collaboration of three local artists who have joined forces to present "Three Artists — One World," the newly opened exhibit at the Burbank Creative Arts Center.

DOWNTOWN — Faced with multimillion-dollar budget deficits brought on by spiraling revenues and escalating employee costs, Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena are considering consolidating a wide range of services and programs to save money. Early discussions focus on the viability of joint police dispatch, consolidated technology services and achieving economies of scale by buying everything from paper clips to brake pads. Long-term ideas include a bus service linking the three cities.

Caring for homeless families and providing children with materials to express their creativity were the goals of two recent fundraisers staged by Family Promise of the East San Fernando Valley and McKinley Elementary School. The main ballroom of the newly opened Glendale Embassy Suites served as the venue for last week?s Family Promise of the East San Fernando Valley?s annual fundraiser. Billed as ?An Evening to Celebrate the Building of the Promise,? the event was coordinated by Chairwoman Linda Taylor and her committee that included Sherri Cowen, Diane Cripe, Debi Felser, Deena McCarthy, Bob Nicol, Connie Rinicker and former Burbank Mayor Marsha Ramos . Established in 2008, the local Family Promise chapter is a part of more than 150 networks across the country that are committed to helping low-income families achieve lasting independence.

DOWNTOWN — A team of Burbank officials is aiming to draw new business to the city by creating an “innovation zone” that could offer incentives to companies. The zone would target businesses with a high-tech focus or with innovative approaches to creative industries, possibly outgrowths of the entertainment industry, officials said. Officials would also court companies that plan to operate in environmentally sustainable ways, they said. While sustainability is a focus for the new zone, which would be in the South San Fernando redevelopment zone, economic development has been the inspiration for the concept, said Mary Hamzoian, Burbank’s economic development manager.