By Tracie Mitchell
Staff Writer 

Greater Learning Foundation honored for promoting arts

 

June 18, 2016



THERMOPOLIS - The Hot Springs Greater Learning Foundation was formed in 1993 to promote the arts through education in the community but since its founding has done much more for the community than just promote the arts. In the process of promoting the arts, the foundation has promoted community and economic development by bringing people from all over to Thermopolis.

“We have always recognized the arts as economic development. We have more galleries downtown than we did five years ago and musicians everywhere,” past chairman of Hot Springs Greater Learning Foundation and art stroll organizer Toddi Darlington said.

The foundation’s contribution to the community and the arts earned one of the six 2015 Governor’s Arts Awards, the Distinguished Service Award from the North Big Horn Basin Music Education Association and the Thermopolis-Hot Springs County Chamber of Commerce 2015 Nonprofit Business of the Year Award.

“It’s for our contribution to the arts in the community, but we are viewing it as an award for the whole community, not just for us, because we have so many volunteers, people that support us, people that come to the concerts and partnerships in the community, so it’s really a community award,” Hot Springs Greater Learning Foundation education director Jacky Wright said.

The foundation promotes the arts and contributes to the community in many ways throughout the year. Wright brings in performing artists-in-residence, public concerts and education for the students in the Hot Springs County schools and works closely with the schools to get the programs into all grades of the school. “It gradually built up, we do eight residencies a year and its musicians, writers and dance groups. It really covers the whole aspect of the arts,” Wright said.

The foundation formed an art guild and created Friday evening art strolls as another way to promote the arts and the community. “Three years ago we decided that we had to start doing something for the visual artist, so we formed an art guild and we have 21 members. We started doing, under the foundation, the Smoking Waters Art Guild, acts as a subcommittee under the Greater Learning Foundation.

“The foundation started doing the art strolls and we included the art guild members as part of the artists that stroll. We did that for a year and the second year we added the Second Friday ArtStroll, second Friday of every month, and then the second year we added the still strolling Saturday, that gives the artist an opportunity to stay set up on Saturday and draw the public back downtown,” Darlington said.

The art stroll is an art show, an outlet for the artist to sell their work and learning experience rolled into one.

Darlington said, “We require that our artists, they have to show and have to be able to talk about their work and we encourage them to demonstrate. That’s becoming more and more popular. They have to be able to teach their skill to someone else.”

She added, “This year we added an art activity, and that almost doubled the amount of strollers on Friday night. We were struggling, we were getting mostly the 40s age up strolling, so we were struggling on how to get more families and decided on an art activity and it’s become huge. By adding the art activity, we have found that we usually have two or three other businesses that have added art activities. Our goal is to draw people downtown, introduce them to the arts and educate them about the visual arts.”

The first and third Friday of every month is for jam sessions. “The first Friday and the third Friday of the month are our music jams at the Exxon Travel Center. Anybody at any level of musicianship is welcome. We have people who come from all over to play at those,” Wright said.

The foundation also does the Big Horn Basin Folk Festival in August. “The foundation is doing the Big Horn Basin Folk Festival. Sue Blakey (Hot Springs Greater Learning Foundation Director) got the Wyoming Arts Council involved and they helped her write a National Endowment of the Arts grant and we were awarded that so we put together the Big Horn Basin Folk Festival. You can find information about it at wyomingfolkfestival.com. We named it (website) Wyoming folk festival because the Wyoming Arts Council said that they are projecting that within three years it will become a state festival, not just a regional festival,” Darlington said.

The folk festival highlights folk art. Darlington said Wright lines up musical entertainment. The festival is in Hot Springs State Park and this year will be Aug. 6-7 in conjunction with the Gift of the Waters pageant weekend. She said they have demonstrators that demonstrate folk art, like horse hair braiding, leather craft, just all sorts of demonstrations and most of those are hands on.

Darlington said, “They have to be hands on, people have to be able to try their hand at it.”

Any activities in Thermopolis that support the arts or the sciences are supported by the foundation. “If there are activities in the area that are art or science related, and the organizers give us the information, we will help promote them,” Darlington said.

 
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