ARTS AND CULTURE

First State Bank’s Car Show happened this weekend! The Dirt Daubers Garden Club held their Garden show and there was a concert at the Pavilion, and Phillips County Motor Sports conducted racing that boomed through the city of Malta. Art Spot and Bohn’s Bones Art Gallery held its 3rd Annual City of Malta Arts in the Park. Sixty seven young and young at heart people came to the Art Spot booth in the park. Taking paint brush in hand, they indulged in creating race car paintings, horses, pick up trucks and tractors. Hopefully, some of those were created for Dad for Father’s Day, but, knowing how attached I get to some of my artwork, I’m sure many of the paintings were taken home and proudly displayed on their own bedroom wall or somewhere else in the house. By the way, for those of you who didn’t get back to pick up your painting on the drying table, it’s at the Bohn’s Bones Art Gallery.

What was amazing about the whole event was watching parents watching their children be creative. The children fearlessly came up and had a choice of paintings or they chose to paint something from their own imagination. The key word is fearlessly. Children of all ages sat at our tables, taking paint and canvas and turning it into something that was uniquely their own. When the parents were asked if they wanted to join in, only one did. Out of 67 people, only one parent was brave enough to create her own tractor, a pink tractor with a yellow background. Her three year old son had put a few strokes of multiple colors down on a white canvas and called it good and done. He went off to play while she seriously considered colors and brushstrokes. She is a fearless woman.

How many times have you looked at artwork and wished you could create something like it? How many times have you had a desire for a particular type of artwork, only to fail to find it and settle for something like it? Does it take years to become proficient and do something well? Of course it does. But it also takes the desire to learn and fearlessness. It takes the ability to laugh at your mistakes and look toward making the next thing you do better than the attempt made previously. People have asked me how I have moved so far away from my children, who live in Pennsylvania. They’ve asked me how I moved so many times in my life. People have marveled at the tenacity that I have against the chronic illness of Crohn’s disease that has wracked my body since the age of 16. They want to know what drives me to try to build an art gallery and an arts education program in the middle of a county and state highly driven by high school sports mania. Fearlessness.

What happens if the gallery doesn’t survive? I’ll find something else to do. I’ll always have my painting and my administrative skills and the understanding I can do whatever I set my mind to do. And maybe I’ll try again. What happens if I don’t get enough children or adults to make the programs at the Art Spot a success? I’ll keep teaching the ones who want to be taught and have the open mind that the programs could be offered again in the future at a better rate of success. But, what if people in the community see the worth of what I’m doing and support me now, either by volunteering to work with me at an event like Arts in the Park, or the upcoming KidsMat Acting Up Performing Arts Camp? What if more parents, especially the ones with younger children, understand that their children can be exposed to so much more creativity by taking advantage of our programs? What if the businesses see the value for the community of teaching them and their children how to manage an art project and become sponsors for the events? What if the community become fearless and just comes in to explore their own abilities and create the project they’ve had a brief glimpse of in their own thoughts? In my mind, the possibilities are endless, because I’m fearless and willing to keep my faith and vision for the future.