Creative Opportunities
Art Crawl features exhibition by people with disabilities

By Tiffany Allison

There will be a new extension to April’s Art Crawl on Friday, April 3. Crawlers be ready to turn from the commonly trodden path of the King Street strip and up North Depot Street to see featured artists who do not frequently enjoy the limelight of the artistic community.

Winter into Spring 1

This exclusive exhibit, entitled “Winter into Spring,” will display multimedia artwork created by Watauga Opportunities clients in their art classes.

Watauga Opportunities, a not-for-profit organization, provides vocational assessment, career exploration, guidance, work adjustment, developmental activities and supported employment for people with disabilities.

“These are competent, capable adults who may have suffered a stroke, overcome a chemical dependency, or who have varied physical or mental abilities,” the organization’s Web site reads. “These persons may have faced a crisis in their personal life or to their health.”

Mary Anne Maier, compensatory education instructor of creative expression for Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute, teaches the community visual and performing arts classes at Watauga Opportunities every week. Maier started substituting in the fall of 2009 at the community college teaching a community workshop at Watauga Opportunities with Cheryl Easley and Paige Jones, other community college teachers.
“They wanted me to come and do a workshop,” she said.

Maier noticed a rising interest in abstract art within her students during the workshop and what started out as just a workshop turned into weekly classes after she received a grass roots grant from the Watauga Arts Council. Her classes focus on creative expression through watercolor, oil pastels, collage and other visual art mediums as well as dance, movement and performing arts techniques.

Maier explained that the idea behind the exhibit formed out of her class time experience. She wanted her students to have an opportunity to participate in a project that most people take for granted.

“I want them to be able to have a creative life,” she said. “If I can just help them be more creative in their past time, they can become a creator of art instead of just a consumer.”

The theme behind the exhibit is transformation. The visual art represents the emotions or thoughts that the artists feel during winter and spring. The performing arts section of the exhibit will begin around 8 p.m. when some of her students will perform a skit and a seasonal-themed video will be played.

“It’s got a little bit of everything,” she said. “We’ve been working on shapes and gesture movements.”

Maier with her students practiced their performance every week at the High Country Dance Studio who donated their space to her class.

“We are doing all our movement workshops there,” she said. “We are using scarves, hula-hoops and peacock feathers to encourage movement. The space is really open and give us plenty of room to move.”

Although Maier has diligently prepared her students for Friday night, she did not organize this entire event on her own. Maier credits the success of the show to the decisive services of Jill Smith and the support of the community. Smith of Jill Smith Design volunteered as the art curator, which required her to sift through the piles of artwork and decide what pieces were to be displayed.

Mike Hill of Purveyors of Art & Design Materials cut all the matting for the artwork, Cheap Joe’s Art Stuff donated illustration board and watercolors, and Creative Printing edited the seasonal video.

The community joined together to build an exhibit to encourage rising artists like Robert Patterson, a Watauga Opportunities client, to peruse his love of watercolor and surrealism.

“I love to do art work. I am learning about water color,” he said. “I feel excellent about my art being on display. After the show, I’m taking my art to my mother who is sick. I would like to use my artistic talent to use water color to paint surrealism.”

The exhibition will on display at the High Country Press office, located at 130 N. Depot St. in downtown Boone.