The Culture and Entertainment Notebook: Painting for a Cause helping museums, police department

Local "Paint for a Cause" organizers Aaron Horrell and Barb Bailey love hosting events to welcome and unite all ages, races and backgrounds.

The artists' current "cause" painting, featuring a multi-colored dinosaur with flowers and volcanoes is on display at Painted Wren in Cape Girardeau. It will benefit the Bollinger County Museum of Natural History and is nearly finished, Horrell said.

He describes Paint for a Cause not as an organization or program, but just as "an idea."

Horrell said the particular painting for the museum is an attempt by him, Bailey and the people who painted on it to say, "we appreciate the museum being here" and "we'd like for it to stay."

According to Bailey, the first community-painted piece began in April 2015. The next painting event open for public participation will be June 16 at the River Campus and will benefit the AhNiYvWiYa Museum.

The next event "to look forward to" is planned for the 2018 SEMO District Fair in September, which would be the second time the event has been featured at the fair and will benefit the Cape Girardeau Police Department, Horrell said.

Before recently relocating, he said Paint for a Cause was "something brand new" for downtown and "a new idea" with almost 250 people participating in the first painting.

Bailey said Paint for a Cause has already benefited organizations including Women's Safe House, St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital and the local 4-H chapter. One hundred percent of the proceeds from each painting go directly to the organization, she said, in addition to the organization receiving the artwork to display when finished.

Horrell said when a new canvas is available for community members to take part in painting, they pay $1 for a few minutes of painting. Depending on the theme -- designated beforehand -- the creativity factor can obviously change with each piece, Horrell explained.

The upcoming Paint for a Cause event at the fair is "a special one," said Bailey.

"But we always have something here at the gallery," she said. "People can come in any time. We always have one up."

The size of the painting for the police department, Horrell said, is not yet defined because it must be able to fit into his pickup truck, but will have dimensions of roughly 5 feet by 7 feet.

Horrell keeps track of the people who participate in each painting, with the record being delivered with the piece when it is completed, he said.

"We have them print their name and where they're from, so that way we know exactly how many," he said.

Bailey said she and Horrell's names are listed in the paintings' record of names, but they always add their names last.

There is a template for each painting -- Horrell and Bailey explained -- derived from merged photographs and is placed on a metal canvas.

"There was a little girl in here the other day. She didn't know what to paint," Horrell said. "So I said how about painting some flowers along the side. She painted one. Then somebody else came along and outlined it a little bit and painted it green."

As for the current painting on display in the gallery now, Horrell said to acquire the template he traveled to the Bollinger County museum, photographed several different dinosaurs on display and had the image transferred to gray scale.

He said the original image featured only one dinosaur, but as it evolved it ended up with other features not originally present.

"Here at the gallery people can pick what color they want and where they want to paint," Bailey said. "At the fair, just to keep things moving along, we pick the color of the paint."

Even though the donation cost is a dollar to participate, Horrell said, it's more important donating to the cause than actually trying to decide what to paint.

Horrell said he allows "strange colors" on each painting, but it must stay with the theme of each piece.

The painting event scheduled to be on display at the SEMO District fair will be guided, Horrell said, to ensure it meets the soon-to-be-decided theme suitable for the police department.

Horrell said he is unaware of "any other couple of people in the whole world doing this."

"These are actually paintings that should be historically valuable in the future," Horrell said. "I'm just saying down the road, if we keep doing these for various causes, we could branch out away from Cape Girardeau, and we can get bigger."

Horrell said these paintings give people who are "just every day folks" a chance to be part of something unique, different, special and potentially valuable.

The last painting featured at the SEMO District Fair was to benefit the Veterans Home in Cape Girardeau. It was painted by 1,128 people and is considered "historic" by Bailey.

Horrell said he feels people don't think they "actually need this stuff, but if they're smart, they really do."

He and Bailey said they have checked with the Guinness Book of World Records and discovered there is no category for the painting displayed at the Veterans Home, but he still believes it to be a record.

"Cape Girardeau has got something going here that people don't know about," Horrell said.

jhartwig@semissourian.com

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