Baton Rouge has a cure for the same-old-weekend-regimen blues for less than the price of the typical college student’s bar tab.
The Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge and Corks N Canvas offer creative opportunities for students 21 and older to hang with friends, get their drink on and simultaneously discover their inner Picasso.
Attendees of Happy Hour Art and Sip and Spin — put on by The Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge and Corks N Canvas — are encouraged to bring their own alcohol to enjoy while painting a canvas or working at a pottery wheel with the help of a qualified instructor.
Robin McAndrew, University alumna and Community School for the Arts director, said she came up with the idea for the programs three years ago.
“I thought people would enjoy socializing while they painted, so we formulated it so that people come in groups,” McAndrew said. “They bring their own wine and hors d’oeurves, and we supply the artists and the supplies.”
Sip and Spin and Happy Hour Art don’t have a typical stiff art-environment setting, McAndrew said.
“It has a different atmosphere as opposed to a classroom,” she said. “So it’s quite a bit more fun — and the liquor helps.”
McAndrew said the Arts Council’s programs are “the real deal.”
“Some programs have a basic paint-by-number system or have a lot of the work already sketched out for you,” she said. “Our artist takes the time to walk through and talk to each student to make sure she presents the information in a way that everyone can understand.”
McAndrew said the artists will make sure participants leave with a sense of pride.
“You don’t have to have an ounce of art experience at all,” she said. “The point of class is to get together with a group of your friends, create something cool and learn a little bit about art in the process.”
The great thing about the arts council’s programs is it provides an alternative to normal weekend events, McAndrew said.
“It’s something different as opposed to meeting at a bar. It’s something social, and it’s art,” she said. “Art is always good.”
Sip and Spin, which follows the same premise as Happy Hour Art, lets attendees work with a pottery wheel, McAndrew said.
“Instead of painting, we do clay,” she said. “So the group gathers here, and the artist introduces the potter’s wheel and basic hand-building skills, then they’ll learn how to experience throwing pottery on the wheel.”
Shelby Kiper, art and design junior and assistant and instructor at Corks N Canvas, said students always enjoy participating in the program.
“We have a purple-and-gold fleur de lis, an eye of the tiger, we even have a Mike painting,” she said. “It’s a pretty neat thing for LSU students to get involved in. We even have guys come in with their beer or their whiskey and really get into it.”
Kiper said working at Corks N Canvas is the best job she has ever had.
“It’s fun to teach, it’s therapeutic and it’s a fun environment,” she said. “As an art student, it’s nice to see the fun, less serious side of art.”
Corks N Canvas gives participants their own creative license, Kiper said.
“It’s inspiring in a way,” she said. “People come in really nervous and say things like, ‘I can’t draw a stick figure,’ and that’s the good thing. They’re never going to have to. We show them they really can do it.”
Rod Parker, director of the LSU School of Art, said the programs are therapeutic, recreational art sessions.
“Anything worth knowing takes a lifetime to accomplish,” he said. “So, the three hours it takes to create a lifetime’s worth of work provides a very, very, very small view of the time it actually takes to understand art.”
Parker said the programs have the potential to be both beneficial and detrimental to a person’s experience with art.
“Something like that may spark an interest in the arts, but it also has the potential to make something serious seem trivial,” Parker said.
____
Contact Cathryn Core at [email protected]