The Westlock Art Gallery and the Westlock Library were hubs of creative energy last weekend as the two organizations hosted events for Alberta Culture Days.
Both organizations hosted workshops enabling people to come in and create their own art projects using some relatively simple materials — with participants clearly enjoying the process.
At the Westlock Library, assistant director Wendy Hodgson-Sadgrove got some help from local art teacher Sharon Ouellette to provide a half dozen creative activities for children young and old.
One of the activities that proved to be the most popular was making “Art Bots,” which participants created by attaching a small electric motor to a plastic cup, which had crayons attached to it. When turned on, the bots become an interesting tool.
“It vibrates across the page to create some modern art,” she said.
Some participants also created page poems by taking a page from a damaged book and using a felt marker to black out certain words and highlight others, creating a poem with the words already on the page.
Ouellette was helping people to create “blow monsters” — you first drop a blob of watercolour paint on a page, then blow through a straw to move the paint around on the page.
Eleven-year-old Ethan Hartman said he wasn’t too sure what kind of a monster he was creating, but was obviously enjoying the process.
“It’s pretty cool.”
Ouellette said she’s been teaching art in the community for 15 years, and said she’s always looking for new and innovate ways to get kids doing art — especially to do things they haven’t already done in school.
“It make of lot of this stuff up,” she said. “I’m always looking for new stuff to do, and they have fun with it.”
Meanwhile, in another area of the library, Myrissa Neufeld and Ashley Dranchuk were creating stories on the fly using bird puppets they had made from paper towel rolls and feathers.
Dranchuk said she thought the whole process was pretty cool, and said she may take what she’s learned and build some more — as long as she can find enough feathers.
For Neufeld, it was an eye-opening experience about what can be done with simple materials.
“I don’t normally do a lot of art,” Neufeld said, adding she’s created with paper towel rolls before but never puppets. “I’ve made binoculars out of them before but never birds. I like this because we’ve made our own toys.”
Her mother Latanya Neufeld said she was pleased to be able to take part in the Culture Days activities, which she had never taken part in before.
“It’s really neat that they get to see some of this (creative process) for themselves,” she said. “It’s fun for kids and adults, learning different things.”
At the art gallery, which saw dozens of people come through the doors on Friday and Saturday to enjoy some local talent, Patricia Mackonka got a group working on creating a three-dimensional cube sculpture from a two-dimensional piece of paper.
Brandy Berry, whose daughter Sage took in the workshop, said she was happy to know there was some activity going to get kids involved in making their own art.
“It nurtures their innate abilities and helps them to express their own individuality,” she said, adding Sage doesn’t need too much encouragement to get creative. “We do lots of art stuff at home, too.”
The turnout at both was limited, with just a half dozen kids at the former and two dozen or so at the latter, organizers nonetheless said it was worthwhile and will continue to promote culture in the community.
