Art in the Park offers creative outlet for families
By Sherry Lucas
Youngsters will be encouraged to learn about and enjoy different forms of art and creative expression at the free event.
Art in the Park, a free event at Lions Club Park on Saturday, March 28, lands on Red Brick Roads festival weekend as a family-friendly, all-ages outlet for creative exploration and celebration.
Demonstrations and interactive activities are hallmarks of this event, which joined the Red Brick Roads festival with the fest’s spring move last year.
Art in the Park is 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., a time-frame that allows plenty of fun, but doesn’t tucker out participants. This way, they have time to see and join art in action, plus have plenty of energy to enjoy the rest of festivities taking place when gates open at 1:30 p.m. on the Red Brick Roads Music and Arts Festival grounds.
Festival organizers encourage Art in the Park enthusiasts to keep up that creativity momentum and join festival-goers for the rest of the day for music and more art to see, as the Plein Air Paint Out works are displayed at Wyatt Waters Gallery.
Art in the Park participating artists include visual artist Lucia Duque and her students, Mississippi College art professor Elyse Payne and students from the MC Art Department with a variety of media, painters Brantley Jones and Hannah Nichols, and wood worker Bob Catlett.
Music in the park enhances the scene. Hinds Rock Band and Jazz Combo from Hinds Community College, under the leadership of John Jackson, will perform on the Atmos Stage, 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Subject matter, the variety of media and age range of artists all contribute to the event’s all-ages appeal.
“There will be lots to do for ‘kids’ of all ages!” said Arts Council of Clinton President Bob Blanton.
Interactive opportunities will abound at the annual Art in the Park on March 28.
Artist Lucia Duque will be joined by some of her after-school painting students at the event — six to ten children, ages five to thirteen, she said. Duque’s favorite technique for painting outdoors is watercolor, though she is still deciding whether to pull acrylics, too, into the mix.
“I will give my students the option to choose between different techniques that we practice in class, such as charcoal, pencil drawing or acrylic,” she said.
“I’m very excited to be able to do this with them because this month, we are learning about Impressionism and how artists from that period stopped painting in the studio and started working outdoors,” Duque said. “They became fascinated with painting light and how it changes throughout the day, so this is a perfect opportunity for the students to put into practice what we have been learning.”
