Artists from all over Columbia, Mo. gathered in the downtown area, The District, this past weekend. From Oct 16 – 18, these creators hosted different venues at various businesses around downtown, showing their artistic abilities.
In Makes Scents, one of the businesses that hosted these venues, one artist showed how to spin wool, while another presented the technique of wrapping wire around a sculpture. Make Scents’ owner, Christina Kelley, participates in Artrageous each year since the beginning, and likes what it provides.
“We love Artrageous Weekends,” Kelley said. “It’s great for Makes Scents and our artists. It’s also a fun event to attend.”
RBHS art club members count themselves among the participating artists. Art Happenings, or AHA usually does a Face-o-Mat booth, where anybody can come up and an AHA member creates a picture of their face. The club also does a rotating canvas event, where each person in the club paints on a canvas for a certain amount of time. After the time ends, the members switch to a different canvas and add to it as well. This cycle continues until all artists contribute something to all of the canvases.
These events proved successful for AHA in past years, so the club had little need to plan as thoroughly as other years. They only needed a quick meeting before Artrageous Weekend to remind old members and to inform the new ones of their regular routine, art club president Clara Brand said. She enjoys participating in Artrageous for the opportunities it provides.
“It’s a great way to interact with the downtown art community,” Bland said. “I always look forward to Artrageous Weekend.”
The event first started as a small city gallery in the downtown area, but has evolved to be a biannual occurrence that spans the entirety of the weekend. Kate Gunn, coordinator of Artrageous Weekends, likes the turn that the event took, saying that this gives an opportunity for participating artists.
“This structure allows us in the arts community to integrate more fully with [the] public and vice versa,” Gunn said. “Instead of just jogging from venue to venue during a typical art crawl, this event encourages you to really interact with and learn more about the amazing local organizations in Columbia that tirelessly provide arts-related entertainment and education.”
The full weekend also lets Artrageous spread different venues out over the course of a few days instead of packing it together into one, allowing a more enriching experience for artists and the public, Gunn said. Kelley likes the diversity, believing it provides different experiences with art because of the atmosphere.
“The Friday night event is fun for date nights and friends out on the town,” Kelley said. “Saturday appeals to families; kids love the hands-on activities and learning something new about many different types of art. Sunday is all about having a nice brunch and experiencing art at the same time.”
Gunn hopes to preserve the interest that people like Brand have by giving them reasons to stay involved in the weekend. As Columbia expands and attracts new people to Artrageous, she keeps this objective in mind, among others.
“Our main goal is to ensure that each Artrageous event promotes our local arts-related organizations and provides a tangible economic benefit to them,” Gunn said. “We want the community to experience these organizations through our event and then [support them].”