Expressing our feelings

The other day, I was sitting alone in a restaurant, minding my own business, and having breakfast. I was wearing the “let’s go Brandon cap” I had purchased, because that was how I “felt” that day!

A nice young server came up and told me that someone had complained that I was “offending” them and asked that I remove it, so I could stop “hurting their feelings.” I thought, I’m not trying to hurt anyone’s feelings! I am simply expressing my own.

Instead of blowing up, which would most probably have been my first response, I stopped myself and said…Please give me a couple minutes and stop back by. She left.

When she came back, I tried to speak clearly, slowly, and as calmly as I could muster.

My reply:

“If the ‘Opinions or Feelings’ of one American is to be catered to, safe guarded or protected it should be the same protection for all Americans.”

Under the “Woke” offended complainers’ position, we should be able to walk into every golf shop in Bella Vista and successfully demand that everyone remove their hat’s that seem to identify them with “Titleist” or someone who thinks they are in front or ahead of everyone else… that could really offend someone if they saw those hats and “felt” that way! I politely refused to disrobe to satisfy anyone else’s “feelings.” This incident was over there.

My decision to share this story was made to promote a greater good for all of us here in beautiful Bella Vista we now live in together.

This issue at hand, was settled many years ago in the “Uniquely American” document called the U.S. Constitution…It provides us the full protection of our law and allows us the right to have our own “Feelings and Opinions” and to express them at will in a free society, unlike many other parts of the world today!

With this pandemic, our country has been through terrible times recently. There are forces everywhere trying to use that damage to drive wedges anywhere they can. It can be seen in Cancel Culture, CRT and a “WOKENESS” approach to try to destroy the United States of America. They don’t want us to have a history (good or bad), individuality, free speech, cooperation, unity, and pride in the good things we, as a group, have shared here at home and worldwide. This is being fought against nationally on a large scale,

but the effort to keep it at bay locally should begin in restaurants with people expressing themselves as they see fit and minding their own business.

Everyone has the right to turn their head and look away if they do not like something they see, which would really work well to secure everyone else’s rights!

In closing: We are all solely responsible for our own feelings because they only exist in one place, which is inside each individual person alone. Deal with it. That is the American way.

Kenny Piel Bella Vista

All good things must come to an end

As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. It is with a heavy heart that the Village Art Club, dba Artisan Alliance at Wishing Spring, announces that the Bella Vista Arts and Crafts Festival will not continue in 2022 and beyond. The Alliance will be evaluating our finances and resources to determine the possibility of a future event to augment our community involvement.

The covid-19 pandemic in 2020 caused us to cancel our event as a matter of public safety. Plans were underway in 2021 to hold the festival when the ongoing concern for the health of our exhibitors, visitors and volunteers forced yet another cancellation. In light of the uncertainty regarding the pandemic, our Long Range Planning Committee recently decided that the two-year hiatus presented the club with additional challenges, i.e. the loss of exhibitors to other area shows, our volunteer partners finding another revenue stream and the possibility of another monetary deficit, so it was time to go in a different direction after 53 years.

We are most appreciative of the support of Cooper Communities, our city, POA and the groups of festival partners without whom our event would not have been possible. Our club will continue to provide our community with high-quality art and craft at our Wishing Spring Gallery and give area residents the opportunity to become clay-creative with classes at our Clay Studio. These venues provide the revenue which feeds our ultimate mission — to provide continuing education art scholarships to interested parties.

Thank you again for all of your contributions to our club and the arts in Northwest Arkansas.

Sincerely,

Jan Horan, Mary Sinkus, Denise Williamsen The Board of Directors of the Artisan Alliance at Wishing Spring