Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Community connection
Life Styles clients show creative side
Elisha Batson swipes a reddish-purple brushstroke across the top of a repurposed window, a project which may appear in an art exhibit in April.
The 25-year-old Life Styles client is one of the artists whose work will be shown during the Art of Life Styles series. The yearlong series of art events includes monthly exhibits featuring work done by Life Styles artists, shown in multiple Northwest Arkansas locations. Life Styles Inc. is a nonprofit organization that serves adults with disabilities in Benton and Washington counties and helps individuals with disabilities achieve the skills and confidence they need to live as independently as possible, according to the non-profit’s website.
A kickoff event for the series will be Wednesday at Romance Diamond Company in Fayetteville, and the first exhibit featuring abstract work will begin Friday at the Green Bean in Rogers. Artwork will be featured at this location through February. Jordan Strayhorn, College for Living lead art teacher at Life Styles, said as many as 40 artists will participate in the exhibits.
Batson has been creating art for about a year, and she said she likes stained glass and objects. Strayhorn said Batson also does these “cool mosaics with colors blending together” and is inspired by different cultures sometimes. She added that Batson also draws fashion designs. Batson said she has always dreamed of being an artist and having art in an exhibit but noted she would only want to do art parttime.
Strayhorn said Batson’s art will likely fit into the April exhibit at the Pressroom in Bentonville. The exhibit will feature windows donated after being pulled out of a house. The repurposed window Batson is painting on features a wide spectrum of colors, including green, yellow, red, purple and orange.
“Elisha’s style fit that
perfectly with the layering and then it kind of looks like stained glass,” Strayhorn said.
Other students are also working on April’s project by taking found objects, gluing them to one window and then putting a window in front, like a shadow box, Strayhorn said. She added that Batson might also do well with a project for a character study and selfportraits exhibit in October and could be inspired by a science fiction exhibit in July.
Heather Van Curen, another Life Styles artist who will be part of the series, said she has been doing art for two or three years. Van Curen, 21, enjoys sewing and painting classes at Life Styles. She described her art as happy, noting that she likes to draw animals and fairy tale creatures such as dragons, unicorns, fairies and phoenixes. In her work, she said she uses “mostly every color I can find.” Strayhorn said Van Curen’s work would likely fit well in the science fiction show. Van Curen said she was kind of scared and excited to have her art shown in an exhibit.
Throughout the year, Life Styles art classes have different art units and a lot of options of styles for artists to work on, and by having an art show almost every month, “we try to get everybody’s artwork shown in some show,” Strayhorn said. There is a flexible idea for a theme for each month. Last year, the themes were more structured, and it didn’t seem as natural when it was time to produce for that theme, she said.
“We just have vague ideas that we’re going to let grow as the time gets closer,” she said.
Other ideas for the series include the debut of a claymation film the students are working on, a group paintings exhibit exploring different themes on big canvases, an exhibit taking inspiration from a masterpiece to create an artwork and a holiday sale, Strayhorn said.
At each exhibit, the pieces will be for sale, unless an artist decides he wants to keep a certain piece, in which case the Life Styles staff will mark it “not for sale.” The work can range from $35 for a smaller piece to $300 or more for bigger group art projects, she said. If a piece sells, the artist will receive half of the proceeds, and the other half goes back to Life Styles for more supplies for the art department.
“It’s so meaningful and for a good cause,” she said about the art.
Strayhorn said she loves this art series because it is a tangible way for Life Styles artists to get out in the community, noting that they can visit locations featuring their art that they might not have previously visited. People often look at Life Styles clients’ disabilities, so this series is “a way to visually look at their abilities,” she added.
“It’s a great chance for the people in their lives to come together and be proud of them,” she said of the series.