EFPN partners with Identity Theft Council

Elder Financial Protection Network: BE WISE Community Education Events - Training for Financial Professionals

The always-innovative people of EFPN are busy presenting and teaching  how we can protect our elders, and be aware of potential harm to them. Jenefer Duane, Founder & CEO of the Elder Financial Protection Network travels across the nation sharing her expertise on the subject of protecting our elders from financial abuse. EFPN is an award-winning nonprofit organization that offers community education events and training for financial professionals.
Founded in 2000 and based in San Francisco, California, EFPN partners with financial institutions and financial professionals throughout the United States to halt and prevent elder financial abuse. They also work directly with elders to empower them to avoid financial exploitation.  EFPN has a new partnership with the San Francisco Identity Theft Council which will be launched October 27th at Fort Mason, San Francisco, CA.

Early Evening Glow on Clouds

Early Evening Glow on Clouds
oil on canvas 30" x 36"

Bilingual English / Spanish website

Dr. Peter Ernest Haiman of Berkeley, California is a child rearing expert who saw the need to bring his materials to the Spanish speaking community. He enlisted the help of our mighty team: Jude Berman, Project Manager and Editor/Author,  Anitra Grisales,  Academic Editing & Translation, and me Tatiana Promessi, his webmaster. We launched the Spanish side of his site with several articles translated and available in web and .pdf format, and are continuing to translate and post new articles frequently. Dr. Haiman is now considering other languages to make his site available in more languages.

Click the images below to see each home page:

  

This was a very interesting project which made me aware how helpful it is to have multilingual websites. Culturally translating specific pages that are useful to varied language groups can make important information more available and truly help our clients serve their communities.

Our team works well together and is available for more projects like this.

Salon International 2009

Coyote Creek & Cottonwoods, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 in. view enlarged.

This landscape painting is currently on display in San Antonio, Texas at the Greenhouse Gallery of Fine Art. They are hosting the Salon International 2009, a juried exhibition of oil paintings, as part of A Project of the International Museum of Contemporary Masters.

The Greenhouse Gallery of Fine Art is one of the most respected galleries in the United States and has been in existence for 25 years. In August 2005, the gallery relocated to a new 12,000 sq. ft. space, three times larger than the original location. While the gallery can easily accommodate 500 paintings, approximately 350 paintings were juried into this exhibition.

Jesuit Retreat Center of Los Altos, El Retiro San Igñigo

Mid 2008, then Marketing Director Evangelina Preciado and I redesigned and launched the JRC website, built with XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets giving special attention to optimizing the site for search engines. 

I've had the pleasure of being the webmaster for The Jesuit Retreat Center of Los Altos for about two years now and enjoy being part of the marketing team. 

Some key site goals we continue to focus on include showcasing the beautiful retreat center, offering information, schedules and online registration for the retreats,  and helping people support the center's mission through online donations or estate planning.

I've been working with Fr. Tom Carroll, S.J.,  Executive Director to produce HTML E-Newsletters, and may show one in my blog in future posts. Coding for email programs has provided no end of surprises! 

Cottonwood Trees in Nevada Sunshine

Cottonwoods in Nevada, oil on canvas 24" x 30"
This Nevada landscape captures the cottonwood trees which turn to brilliant yellow at the first onset of cold. The mountain desert is spotted with color in the Fall at the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada Range in the Carson Valley. We'll be up there for the holidays and I hope to find more inspirational views. This trip will likely produce snowscapes!
For more Nevada landscape paintings visit: http://promessi.com/landscapes.htm

Koru Cottage Vacation Rental in New Zealand

Koru Cottage
Imagine a riverside house nestled in native bush on the Coromandel Peninsula, with a
vibrant artist community. Go fishing, hiking, kayaking, bird watching.
Dine on New Zealand fare, fresh from the ocean or homegrown local produce.

This lovely house is available to rent overnight or long-term.

Working on the Koru Cottage website has inspired dreams of learning about Maori art, enjoying music festivals, and hiking on the Coromandel Peninsula.

Designed by Margot Duane and Philip Chudy, in collaboration with Jenefer Duane and Ron Spinhoven. The site is coded in XHTML with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and we worked hard to ensure elegant, consistent cross-platform and cross-browser viewing.

Yaro or Rabbitbrush?

Many thanks to attentive Nevada viewers, Cliff Brewer and Lisa Wetzel for looking closely at Jim's newest Nevada landscape paintings and spotting errors in our descriptions. Cliff, a professional landscaper noticed that what we called 'Yaro' is actually 'Rabbitbrush.' And Lisa, who sells real estate in the Carson Valley with ReMAX Realty Affiliates, knows her valley well. "If there is snow on the mountains, it's Spring. If there is no snow on the mountains, it's Fall."

Here is the painting they spotted, with corrected descriptions on its web page.
It's an oil painting on canvas 30 x 36 in., titled: Carson Valley, at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range

Thank you Cliff and Lisa!

Carson Valley, Nevada Oil Painting

Carson Valley, at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range
oil on canvas
30" x 36"

The Carson Valley in Northern Nevada has the drama of light and shadow in all seasons. The Sierra Nevada range rises straight up from the valley floor. I liked the brightness of the cottonwood trees and desert Yaro up against the blue-purple mountains on this Spring day.

Other Northern Nevada paintings by Jim Promessi:
Sierra Nevadas, 24" x 30"
Cottonwoods in Nevada 2 SOLD, oil 22" x 28"

EFPN, Elder Financial Protection Network teams up with Bank of the West for education program

Thanks to Darrell Holdaway's video expertise, you can watch Iowa Representative Leonard Boswell (co-sponsor of the Elder Justice Act) speak about the Bank of the West sponsored Workshop for Elders. Keynote Speaker, Jenefer Duane, CEO and Executive Director of the Elder Financial Protection Network presents valuable workshops to help prevent elder financial abuse, teaching elders how to BeWise and avoid Scams, Fraud and Identity Theft.

Darrell taught me how to play, I mean work! with YouTube.com, so I've posted the video. Thanks, Darrell, for helping me develop another skill to help my customers, like EFPN. Take a look and let me know what you think.

The voracious squirrels are ravaging our fugi persimmons, but they dine at an unusual table and leave lovely snippets of orange.

Sierra Nevadas, Oil Painting

Sierra Nevadas, oil on canvas
24 x 30 in.

Jim has been busy painting Nevada and California landscapes. This one shows the Carson Valley in Spring. I'll start posting new paintings, hopefully a new one each week for a while. I'll also post some of the websites I've been working on. Lots of production happening at the Promessi studios.

Nelly Capra's website is launched

Nelly Capra is talented in so many ways, and she shares her talents with people who enjoy all things about Italy, from food to touring, from history to learning about the culture from a native speaker. She shares her success with people in need, such as The Hunger Project.

Nelly and I have had fun together collaborating to develop a new look for her website. I enjoyed the challenge of building the site using XHTML for the content, with Cascading Style Sheets to provide the presentation elements. We worked to enhance search engine optimization, while providing compelling content to help visitors find Nelly's tours, catering, events and specialty products. You've got to try her soft almond cookies, known as Mandorletti. Nelly teaches Italian language classes, cooking classes and caters lovely dinner parties and events. Enjoy her new site: www.ornellacucinaitaliana.com.

Crystal Springs, Soaring Gulls

This painting will be exhibited at the California Art Club's
97th Annual Gold Medal Juried Exhibition.

April 27 - May 18, 2008
Pasadena Museum of California Art (PMCA)
490 East Union Street,
Pasadena, CA

Crystal Springs, Soaring Gulls
oil on canvas, 30 x 36 inc.

Twilight Clouds & Pond

Twilight Clouds & Pond
Oil Painting by Jim Promessi
30 x 40 inches

Moody and magical are the words most often heard in response to this painting. After the rains of winter, California hills are awash in a variety of greens. In this painting, the new growth can been seen on the tops of the trees. Spring is coming!
See more California landscape paintings on Jim's website: http://promessi.com

Across the Yucatan

A Book Company has released a new book called Across the Yucatan, a travel narrative by Lawrence F. Lihosit.
http://abookcompany.net

Tatiana built the webpage today using xhtml and CSS coding for search engine optimization.

The Fourth in the Backlit Oak Series

Backlit Oak #4
Oil 24 x 36 in.

The process of doing a series of paintings involving one oak tree has further proved to me that art is limitless in its creativity, in what some would consider a limited subject area.

View other paintings from this series:
Backlit Oak
Backlit Oak #3

OPA Juried Exhibition, Santa Barbara, CA

Backlit Oak 3
Oil on canvas, 11 x 14 inches

Backlit Oak 3 will be displayed at the Oil Painters of America: 2007 Western Regional Juried Exhibition of Traditional Oils Miniature Show.
September 16 - October 15, 2007 at the Waterhouse Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA

More of Jim's landscapes, still-lifes and portraits can be seen on www.promessi.com

Triptych: Coastal Range & Wild Mustard

Jim was commissioned recently to produce a triptych of a California landscape that started out with one of his existing paintings. It was an enormous challenge to produce the 'wings' or right and left panels to match the original painting in tone, color and style. Jim is very pleased with the results, as is the client, and we invite you to take a closer look at the whole piece, and each panel on a small web gallery that Tatiana produced: Triptych Gallery.

Triptych: Coastal Range & Wild Mustard, Oil on canvas, 30 inches x 9 feet

Pokerbilia.com

Tatiana just completed a new site for Pokerbilia.com. Emi Tuvey and Gordon Daggy produce clever verses to print on T-shirts that will bring a smile to poker fans everywhere. The shirts make a fun gift for your special poker-player, a casino give-away, or a way to commemorate a poker party. Take a look at their current T-shirt verses at http://pokerbilia.com.