Success Story for April 2019 – Painting Parties

Humans are creative beings. Making art is a creative outlet that is a necessary part of life; especially when life is also filled with difficult family situations such as job loss and drug addiction. These difficulties have been identified in Greenup County by Extension volunteers as areas of concern for our population. In order to provide a creative outlet to people in our community, “Painting Parties” were organized by the Greenup Fine Arts Extension Program and led by Brush Therapy Mobile Art Studio owner/artist, Christy Harris. Christy said, “Art is therapeutic. I see painting as a form of ‘imaginative meditation’ it forces you to take your mind away from everyday tasks and focus on what’s directly in front of you in that moment.” 

The library subsidized the cost of the events in order to make them equally accessible to anyone who wished to participate. The first class filled to capacity so quickly that a second class was added to meet the requests. A third class was added at a different library location in order to reach out into a lesser populated area of the county. All class participants reported that they learned new art skills as a result of attending the class and that they enjoyed their time spent being creative at the library. Denise Greathouse, Events Coordinator at the Greenup Library said, "Several people that attended learned a new skill. They arrived saying I can not paint and Christy told them the point was to have fun, which everyone did. We like to promote new things at the library and try to encourage people to try new things. I believe we introduced some to the library for the first time. One of the goals of the libraries hosting programs is to bring new people into the library and allow them to see that we are not just about books, we offer several different services. Our partnership with Greenup Extension helped us achieve that goal."