C4K paints pet portraits as a fundraiser
Local young artists are raising money for both Cutwell 4 Kids and the Arkansas Single Parent Scholarship Fund of Garland County by painting pet portraits.
For $25 each, a young artist who is either with C4K or in Jennifer Henley’s art classes at Park Magnet School District will take a submitted photo of a pet and create a portrait. Anthony Tidwell, founder of
C4K, said they hope to sell 200 portraits.
The deadline to submit photos is March 26.
Tidwell said the idea was pitched to him by Laura Lee Willard, program manager of the Single Parent Scholarship Fund.
“When Laura brought it up,
I said ‘Let’s roll with it,’” Tidwell said, noting Willard has been a part of C4K for years.
“She’s been assisting with C4K since 2016, helping with grant writing and documentation,” he said.
After agreeing to the project, Willard asked if he could get one of his students to paint a pet portrait for flyers and “the first one I thought of was Kaziah,” he said, referring to C4K student Kaziah Olive.
Tidwell said Olive’s mother,
Keyosha Olive, works at Park Magnet, and Henley heard about the project and wanted to help. While not the first time C4K has worked with a school, Tidwell said this is the first time they have worked with a school during the school year.
“Usually I’m in the summertime,” Tidwell said, because he doesn’t want to “intrude with kids’ education.” He said he agreed to include the school because “they came to me … I
know I’m not intruding with their curriculum.”
“I love that I’m working with the school. I’m excited,” Tidwell said.
The portraits can be made in several mediums such as paint or crayons, he said. The project launched late last week and right now only has around 10 submissions, so “I have 10 kids from Park Elementary School” working on the portraits.
While all of the submissions have been dogs so far, Tidwell said all pets are welcome.
“We’re looking forward to other pets,” he said. “Snakes, frogs, turtles, fish.”
Supplies for the program were donated by Dreamchaser Houseboat Rentals.
Portraits will take four to six weeks to mail out, and a flyer for the project says “all profits will be split between ASPSF-GC and C4K — going directly into serving single parents through ASPSF-GC scholarships and free art classes during C4K’s summer Birth of an Artist program.”
The Birth of an Artist program will return this summer for its eighth year.
Tidwell said prior to the seventh year of the program, “we planned the whole year out. In March, that was wiped out.”
Due to the ongoing pandemic, Tidwell said a “concrete plan” has not been created for the program.
One thing Tidwell said he knows will happen is the students will be sent art kits this summer donated by the Elizabeth D. Wagner Foundation so they will have “enough supplies to last all summer.”
While the 2020 season was a difficult one that saw many students leave the program, Tidwell said a silver lining was that by doing a virtual program he had two students who don’t live in Garland County who were able to participate.
Since the 2020 program ended, Tidwell said some old friends who follow him on social media have reached out to him about their children virtually participating in the program so this year they will have participants from Texas, Illinois and North Carolina.
He said friends and classmates of the students have also shown interest in participating, so he has set aside 60 art kits, with
20 going to each of those three states. The program will consist of eight sessions, each designed to have the students create a finished project because he knows from personal experience children can move around a lot, he said, noting, “I don’t want it to be where you have to come back to complete it. Walk out with a finished product.”
While it is unclear if C4K will be able to hold in-person classes again this year, Tidwell said a Jamaican drummer named Agymah is going to teach a class on drumming. “I’m hoping it will be in person,” he said, noting this is the “first time we’ve introduced instruments.”
C4K instructors Hope Mason and Marcus Montgomery are both coming back this year to help teach, he said.
The Birth of an Artist is also adding a new competition this year with the theme, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, where the students will make a piece of visual art showing what they want to do when they are older.
He said there will be a first, second and third place award for students in each grade from kindergarten through 12th grade.
The only requirements, Tidwell said, are that the entries have to be on topic, and that they have “got to be visual — drawing, painting, crayon.”
After a year like 2020, Tidwell said that he thankful “just to still be around … through all that’s been going on.”