Letting art grow

There's a garden in My Local's backyard.

We didn't plant anything, but you can see the little black guard outlining it and green stuff shooting up everywhere.

We dismissed most of it as weeds. If it grows like a weed and doesn't look like a flower, it must be a weed. Then a lily popped out.

In many ways the art scene in this town can be seen as a garden. To be sure, new art pops up every month. Certain types that have always grown here are accepted and displayed. Others simply pop up unexpectedly and must be nurtured and recognized not immediately dismissed.

There's a show this weekend at Buckner Brewing Co.'s River View Room that some might consider a weed. The "Bare Essentials" art show features eight paintings and drawings of nude men and women. Thomas Shaner organized this as his first solo show after he made a joke in a drawing class about doing a nude exhibit. He got laughs from the group initially, then got encouragement.

Thomas decided to go for it. Shake things up a little. Michelangelo's David stands about 17 feet tall and naked. Classic art often features nude subjects.

Thomas graduated from Southeast Missouri State University in 2003 with a bachelor's degree in art. He said that once he thought about it, he really wanted to do a nude show because violence and blood get airtime and put in art, but sex and nudity disrupt the moral set.

He told me about one store that took his poster down under pretenses that it was a family establishment -- one that sells porn magazines and Kama Sutra books.

The guy spills insight like paint. During our conversation he said the message in his paintings is to show that people should accept themselves as they are with no clothes or labels to hide behind.

The paintings are not obscene by any means. He used pictures of models for his works, and they're mostly just sitting somewhere or standing next to something.

"We're all born naked. It's OK to show that as art," he said.

When you have a perfect idea of how something should look and parameters something should follow, you miss out on a lot of things.

We need to learn to let the art community grow.