Bravo to Art on the Town, Paint on the Town

Did anyone catch the recent Art on the Town, Paint On The Town brought to you by ADI (Appleton Downtown)?

Written by Paint on the Town Participant, Phyllis Collar

Well, I did and let me simply say bravo!  Why?  Because they incorporated an aspect of the visual arts that I believe is so enriching and unifying…creative experimentation.  Anyone can and should take the opportunity to do it.  And several Appleton residents did that very thing right in front of the Trout Museum of Art on Friday evening.

ADI had a cart with paints and plenty of canvases for artists young and old, both single and group efforts permitted here,  to paint to their heart’s content…no agenda…no template…just open ended fun!

We went there and the three of my children in tow wanted to paint.

We waited less than 5 minutes and one of the inviting easels they set out on the lawn became available.  A few minutes later, we walked away from the paint cart with a huge tray of every color they had and plenty of room in the center for mixing colors.  We started one all together.  Then, my 2 daughters decided they wanted to do one together, just the two of them.  So, while I continued with my son, they set off at another open easel nearly seconds later.

In the end, we wound up doing a total of three paintings.  All of them were a pleasure to take part in the creation of.

Even more importantly was the sheer joy it gave me to be there at that place at that time, watching people paint.  There is something soothing about this activity to begin with.  (Bob Ross anyone?)  but, when you find two twenty something college kids painting beside one another and exchanging flirtatious quips and disguised complements, then you really have something.

Or, that family whose little one is busy creating a masterpiece, putting every morsel of effort into a blue, rounded moon, only to be squashed by her toddler sister who scribbles some purple paint on the corner of her canvas.

The tears…the fury….but wait! Maybe that purple figure is a beautiful cascading cliff falling beneath the waves that are crashing under the moon?

“There are no right answers in art,” one mom tells her daughter as they work at an abstract picture together.

Finally, there was the family, much like mine, with a couple of kids, who decided to paint an image of themselves, with each one of them responsible for painting one person other than themselves.  They really seemed to have fun with this.  And when I snuck behind them to get a better look, I went from an “art creeper” (the dad’s words!) to a family friend in a matter of moments.

I guess what I am trying to say is that this event had a unique way of bringing people together while also bringing people to do an activity which under normal circumstances they might not attempt.

Like I have said before, mention the words “creativity” or “art” and people immediately qualify with excuses as to why they don’t participate in those sorts of things…the “oh, I am not an artist,” comment.

But, really we all are artists.  Or, at least, we all strive to be creative, in some way or other, and if we don’t, then it would be good  for all of us to try once in a while!

I appreciate and applaud this wonderful activity and I am hoping some of my new friends will share their beautiful works of art on Miativity.com!