The Pea Pea Ridge community now has its own art gallery with the Old City Hall Gallery up and running at the former site of municipal offices in downtown Pea Ridge. Primarily located in the long hallway beside the Butterstick Bakery, the displayed art is also displayed inside the bakery area itself.
With 500 samples of art done by Pea Ridge students completed under the direction of art teacher John McGee, the Intermediate School educator has finally located a venue to put on display art that has been rendered by students he has taught over the past 20 years.
"I have quite a collection of art in my storage room, and I have been looking for ways to get it out into the public. I estimate that the students here have produced over 500,000 artworks since I have been here and some of it wound up in storage.
"Art is meant to be seen and up until now, I have been very limited in my options for displaying that art," McGee said.
"After I had to combine my Primary art room and Intermediate art rooms into one location last year, I really had to come up with a way to reduce the amount of my storage. I was not going to just throw away student art and obviously, the best solution was to put it on public display, but until now, I really had nowhere to place it."
The opportunity for the gallery presented itself after Tom and Erica Boyle opened the Butterstick Bakery this spring in the old court rooms in what was was once the City Hall. After McGee visited with Mrs. Boyle and sought permission to place an exhibit somewhere on the wall space in the business. the offer was made to use both the adjoining hallway and the restaurant dining area.
"The reception by the public that has come inside has been very positive," Mrs. Boyle said. "They have come away impressed with the quality and amount of art done by the local art students. There is a lot of talent in our community."
Pea Ridge students have had their art displayed in exhibits in Springdale, Fayetteville, Little Rock, Fort Smith, Pine Bluff, Jonesboro, and Tulsa, Okla., over the years, but this is the first time this much art has been put on display in its own home.
"I will likely mount and display at least 200 more pieces over the next two weeks as I plan to go from the ceiling to the floor with the display. We will be offering to the public, an artistic immersion with observers walking the hall completely surrounded by the colorful art lining the walls," McGee said.
The art display will not be static, as new pieces and exhibits will be placed on display on a regular basis. While a lot of the artwork was left behind by students intentionally, a lot of it was also left behind unintentionally and McGee hopes that perhaps students and/or their parents may recognize the art and eventually take it home.
The collection is as varied as it is large. Media on display includes pencil drawings, charcoal drawing, oil pastel drawings, glue drawings, tempera paintings, acrylic paintings, and other types of artistic expression.
Quite a few of the artworks on display have won local and state awards over the years, with some of them appearing in the official Arkansas Calendar published by the Arkansas Department of Wildlife and Conservation.
McGee has plans to have individual students put on art shows of their own. Fifth-grade students who wish to participate, will have an area where a collection of their art from their years as a Pea Ridge student can be shown as a grouping.
Northwest Arkansas has become a mecca of sorts for all things artistic. The opening of the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville seven years ago led to an explosion of public interest in visual art. New venues have opened and are planned across northwest Arkansas to cater to higher profile that art has attained in the past few years.
Pea Ridge, in a small way, has jumped onto that band wagon. The gallery hours downtown will be the same as the host business -- 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
Community on 06/20/2018