It’s everywhere!

By Hope Wallace

            I always knew all of us were surrounded by beauty and art. I knew a person did not have to travel to large cities and visit The Museum of Modern Art in New York City or The Institute of Art in Chicago for example to find it. After this past weekend, I’m absolutely convinced.

Saturday and Sunday were check-in days for artists to bring their work to the Wassenberg Art Center for submission into our juried 55^th Annual Art Exhibit. Artists from the surrounding area, neighboring states and even further away carried in paintings, sculptures and pottery so they could undergo the jurying process which will take place on Wednesday of this week.

Paintings and drawings running the gamut from photorealism and illustration to abstract, in countless mediums, were hauled into the main gallery — painstakingly packaged or simply carried by their hanging wires — and presented to the check-in table. It was hard to maintain an accurate item count for our catalog while luscious images and color drew my eye away from the columns and numbering system! I wanted to sit and look at the sculptures and pottery from every angle and this kept tempting me away from my task at hand. I was simply stunned at the quality and broad range of works parading into the main gallery and stacked along the walls waiting for their turn to shine.

How fortunate Van Wert is to have an organization, which continues to foster a venue where artists can share their visions, creations and hard work. Small community art centers are crucial hubs where people of like interests can meet and exchange ideas and techniques gain a sense of community and belonging. Too often, these simple collectives are overlooked in our busy and rushed lives.

The lackluster economy also casts a shadow, making some think that the arts may be something potentially less essential to our lives, but nothing could be further from the truth. The arts in all their forms contribute a platform to uplift the human condition by carving a smile from nothing. When we smile our spirits rise and eventually, so will our morale. So, the next time you drive by the Wassenberg Art Center or similar community center in which you have or might like to have affiliation, think about that and perhaps stop in. Doors signify transition. Walk through and find what’s on the other side. It’s everyone’s responsibility to create a sense of community and what better place to start than the beauty created by you or your neighbor?

The 55^th Annual June Art Exhibit opens on June 5 with our reception and awards ceremony occurring on June 11 from 5–9 p.m. We’ll be having a barbeque, live music featuring guitarist, John Reichle from Montpelier.  Please join us in meeting and congratulating many of the people who bring beauty to our world.

The June Art Exhibit is sponsored through the generosity of Van Wert Federal Savings Bank. 

The Wassenberg Art Center, 643 S. Washington Street, Van Wert, Ohio, can be reached by phone at 419.238.6837 or e-mail wassenberg@embarqmail.com.  Visit the website at www.vanwert.com/wassenberg to learn more about exhibits and activities.

Open-ended art activities for young kids

By Kay Sluterbeck

Rainy days are a great time for parents or grandparents to pull the littler kids away from TV and do some fun art projects with them.  I have wonderful memories of my mother and I “making art stuff” at the kitchen table when I was so little I had to sit on a couple of big books to see what I was doing.  My father also had a wonderfully creative way to entertain us — I’ll tell you about that at the end of the article! 

Remember that with small children it is the process that counts rather than the results.  Just enjoy whatever happens.

PEANUT BUTTER SCULPTURES

Materials needed:  Crackers of assorted shapes and sizes, peanut butter, plastic knives, small paper plates, newspaper.

Cover the table with newspaper.  Put peanut butter on a paper plate.  Give the child a plastic knife.  The kids then create cracker sculptures using the peanut butter as glue.  Children can save their sculptures or eat them for snacks!  (Hint:  For extra fun, make “cages” with regular crackers to hold animal crackers.)

COOKIE CUTTER PRINTS

Materials needed:  Construction paper, cookie cutters, tempera paint (red, yellow and blue are good), shallow pans that will accommodate the cookie cutter, paint shirts, soapy water, paper towels.

Pour the paint into the pans.  Let the child choose a cookie cutter (the ones with little handles work best), dip it in paint, and press it on the construction paper to create a print.  They can overlap the prints and see how the colors blend. When the paint is dry, the kids can color the prints with crayons if they want to.

Clean up the kids and the work area with soapy water and paper towels.  Give the cookie cutters a good wash in the dishwasher or sink. 

HOLE PUNCH PICTURES

Materials needed:  Black or dark blue construction paper for background, various colors of construction paper (scraps are fine), school glue (nontoxic, cleans with water), brushes, hole punch, glitter or tinsel (optional).

Use the hole punch to make little circles of colored construction paper — about two good handfuls of “dots” per child is good.  Have the children brush the glue all over the dark construction paper, and then sprinkle the paper dots all over the glue.  Add glitter or tinsel if desired.  A grown-up can gently push down on the dots to make sure they are securely glued.  When the pictures are dry, hang them on the wall or refrigerator to show them off.

CORNY PICTURE

Materials needed:  Manila paper, black felt-tip marker, school glue or craft glue, dried corn kernels, crayons. You can use the dried corn sold to feed squirrels if you don’t happen to have any dry corn around, or you can also cut little squares of colored paper about the size of a corn kernel.

On the manila paper, the adult draws a large ear of corn with the shucks peeled halfway back (like a banana) for each child.  Draw a “brick wall” or checkerboard design on the exposed part of the corn.  (If children are old enough, they can draw the corn themselves, but you might want to have a sample drawing to show them.)  Now the child puts a dot of glue in the middle of each checkerboard square and sticks a kernel of corn to the dot until all the squares are covered.  When the glue is dry the child can carefully color the corn shucks with the crayons.  (Think creatively — don’t be surprised if the child wants to use colors like red, blue or purple for the shucks.  They don’t HAVE to be green or brown, this is Art!)

Here’s how our father kept us entertained on evenings when Mom went to her club meetings — he let us have a “Snow Party!”  Dad handed us a stack of old newspapers and let us tear them up and throw the “snowflake” scraps all over the living room.  Yelling and giggling was encouraged; Dad just sat back and watched the fun.  We had a wonderful time tearing paper, throwing it up in the air, making a huge mess, and playing in the “snow” until we were tired.  After we went to bed, Dad picked up all the paper bits and tidied the room.  Whenever we had a snow party, Dad made it very clear that this was the ONLY time we were allowed to rip up newspapers and be so noisy.  Half the fun was when he’d say conspiratorially “Now, this is a big secret!  Don’t let Mom know we made a mess!” 

Doing activities with your kids will give them a treasury of great memories as well as helping to grow their creativity.