Tuesday marks National Creativity Day, a chance to celebrate the creatives in your life and also the creative inside you.
“I love it,” said Bonnie Potter, painting instructor, Gallery 53. “I had never heard of Creativity Day, but I think it’s wonderful. It’s a great idea.”
Painting was the most popular suggestion to celebrate.
“I would say it’s good for the soul,” she added. “When you’re painting you forget all about your troubles and what’s bothering you. It just makes you feel good.”
For first timers, she suggested starting out with a still life.
“It’s good to start with something simple so you don’t get overwhelmed,” she added.
Christine Webster, president of Gallery 53 and retired Meriden art educator, encourages everyone to schedule a fun art activity at the gallery.
“Clearly the arts are important as a means to vent and think outside the box and get off your computers and phones. Maybe learn to paint or draw, have fun with classes and socialize,” she added. “I think just getting out and doing fun things, creative things just does wonders for your emotional health.”
Gallery 53 and Splat Art Studio offer paint classes, paint nights and workshops.
“We have paint and sip classes, do something like that,” Gallery 53 director Sandy Goodyear said. “So you get together with your friends and have a good time and create something.”
“We’ve been big on getting ready and celebrating summer,” Splat Art Studio owner Kate McNamee said. “We’ve been doing some studies on ice cream, sunsets and beaches and have been creating pieces focused on and inspired by that. So that can be some fun art projects to do.”
Splat also loves to paint rocks and give them away.
“That’s something really fun and simple people can do. People have rocks in their backyards,” McNamee said.
McNamee also suggests chalk art as well.
“You have your driveway at your disposal,” she added. “It's easy to do and it’s beautiful and fun to do big art outside.”
Goodyear suggests everyone take it a step further and try something that you’ve never done before.
“You don’t realize how creative you are until you try something that is outside of your box,” she added.
Gallery 53 also teaches mosaic, fuze glass jewelry, tie dye, crochet and knitting, and pottery classes which are other artistic ways to celebrate.
“One of the things that I really love is in the front half of this room there is a show every month,” Goodyear said. “And people that think they have no creative talents go through that show and look at things and go ‘Oh I think I could do something like this.’ So the exposure here makes people realize they have the ability to do it.”
Different shows are held including the current textile show, photography, and the next show called “Birds in Bloom.”
“We’re thinking about doing like a recycled art, junk sculpture type of thing to get the high school kids to think about recycling and create some unique art,” Webster said.
Gallery 53’s mission is to serve the community and keep the art alive in Meriden which they have been doing for the past 116 years. And Splat Art Studio has been inspiring and bringing joy through art for the past 16 years.
“It’s a beautiful happy space with happy vibes and we get people embracing the love of art,” McNamee said. “And in the process they're actually learning how to feel comfortable doing art on their own.”
So whether you’re a traditional creative indulging in the arts or a writer, poet, photographer, musician, filmmaker, blogger, graphic artist etc. celebrate yourself and the fellow creatives around you.
“It’s awesome they created a day to focus on creatives in the community,” McNamee said. “I think National Creativity Day should be 365 days of the year.”
chooks@record-journal.com203-317-2279