Valentine’s Day is coming and it has me thinking of love letters.

Does anyone send love letters anymore? A text is really not the same thing. For one thing, you can’t stumble on a box of texts your grandparents wrote to each other 50 years ago.

We do get some “love letters” or messages of encouragement at the Austin Area Commission for the Arts. For the sake of posterity, I’m going to share some of them here. Then I just have to remember to print out the article and file it away for 2047’s executive director to find and appreciate.

I think you’ll find as you read, the love letters to the Austin Area Commission for the Arts are also highly complementary to Austin as a community.

For instance, we survey attendees at the Austin ArtWorks Festival in August. A sample of the comments we collected:

“Loved the great variety of artists. Music was excellent.”

“Everyone is very friendly and welcoming. Really nice arts and artistic people.”

“It was nice to see my 8-year-old girl trying different art projects and exploring.”

“Artists sharing their art. True community. All cultures are accepted and represented in art or presence.”

“I always love to have the opportunity to come and enjoy the community.” We also survey the artists who exhibit at the ArtWorks Festival. Here are some comments from the artists:

“Excellent planning, lots of help and really friendly people! WOW! A pleasure.”

“Loved the community and the support to the arts. The volunteers were amazing and the show was well put together!”

“Great city with wonderful people in it. Love the chocolate malts at Tendermaids too!”

Social media reviews also provided some appreciation:

“We love the arts center! We love all the classes that are offered and the gift shop has such beautiful and unique things.”

“Must see and must do in Austin, Mn!…Anyone located within a radius of 200 miles should support this arts group!”

One patron sent us this comment through our website:

“The Wednesday movies are great! Thank you for putting this on.”

We also surveyed Paramount Theatre patrons, asking about what type of programming is desired. We got some compliments in the ‘comment’ section of that survey:

“I think the paramount is a great venue for family oriented shows. Great acoustics, and setting is great for good shows.”

“Thanks for all you do! Keeping tickets affordable is important and the Paramount does keep them affordable.”

Thanks for what you do to make the Austin Area Commission for the Arts and our community as a whole, lovable. Here’s to making more art with the hope of inspiring more ‘love letters’ in the future.

Coming soon at the Paramount Theatre

•Feb. 7: $5 movie, “Charade,” 7:30 p.m.

•Feb. 10: “Rogue Valley, 7:30 p.m.

•Feb. 11: MacPhail Spotlight, 7 p.m.

•Feb. 14: “Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 7:30 p.m.

Coming soon at the ArtWorks Center

•Feb. 10: $5 Kids Studio, 10:30 a.m.

•Feb. 10: Family Art Studio: Paint the Town Pink, 1 p.m.

•Feb. 15 and 22: Introduction to Drawing with Bonnie Broitzman