Malta's ArtSpot holds Grand Opening

On Saturday night in Malta, nearly 30 people attended the Grand Opening of ArtSpot and the theme of the night was to let your hair down, create a "masterpiece" and approach art with a childlike fascination. At the conclusion of the night, when folks went home with their newest artistic creation, all three objectives were reached with flying colors.

Attendees of the ArtSpot grand opening had the opportunity to participate in several different rooms in which some of Phillips County's best-known artists were on hand to assist the novice artists.

"I am very excited about the turnout tonight because we have a good mix of new people and some of our steady, regular students here," said ArtSpot Director Kathy Bagley. "This was great."

ArtSpot, a nonprofit arts education organization formerly located in Glasgow, opened at the Malta Business Center on Saturday night and will feature a slew of upcoming classesas the calendar flips to the new year.

"We were talking in all the rooms about the workshops that are coming up for 2015," Bagley said. "We are going to continue Cocktails and Canvas on Tuesday nights, once a month, and we are going to be doing Cupcakes and Canvas once a month on Saturdays. But we also have a lot of two and three day workshops coming up that we are excited about as well."

The workshops Bagley referred to include workshops on watercolor, oil painting, graphite, fused glass as well as pottery sessions.

"People who are interested can contact me so look for our ads of upcoming events in the PC News for our upcoming workshops," Bagley added.

Ashlyn Morser, a 10-year-old Malta native, was one of the young artist at the event on Saturday night and she chose to attend Heather Cook's room where Cook spoke about the performing arts while students created masks to represent a character of their choosing.

"So (my character) was a disabled man and nobody could understand him," Morser said. "So he made a mask expressing all his feelings at once."

Morser said she was happy with how her mask turned out, but added that it could have been better.

"The glitter is all in groups so I could have done a better job, but I had fun tonight," she said. "My favorite part of the night was seeing my friend's mother's art in the silent auction."

In Judy Michael's room, students were taught how to paint barns using acrylic paint on 8x8 canvases.

"This was a lot of fun," Michael said. "A lot of neat ideas and neat people. I always learn something new and it is nice to see so much creativity. Sometimes as an artist you get so tight so it is fun to see people just being creative and not worrying about the outcome."

For more information on ArtSpot, you can visit the website at http://www.bohnsbones.com/ or call Bagley at her gallery –406-654-1523-or cell at 505-508-6830.