ArtQuest Baby, noun: One who has been involved in ArtQuest for at least 10 years, starting in childhood. Bonus points if you have had at least one birthday there. Elizabeth Jobe is an ArtQuest Baby. ArtQuest’s bright walls and rooms full of projects were her stomping grounds as a kid. She was initiated into ArtQuest Babydom when she had her 2nd grade birthday party there, a party to which I, as her best friend, was invited. That party was a big deal for both of us. Elizabeth, because once word got out that you were having your party at ArtQuest, instantly everyone was your best friend. For me, my crush was going to be there and I planned to impress him with my skills at the loom. That party was years ago and I have long since moved on from that crush, but neither Elizabeth nor I have moved on from ArtQuest. ArtQuest came back into our lives last summer when Operation: NC Art Studio was created. We both signed on as volunteers ready to return to the place that excited us so much when we were younger. That summer became all about painting and creativity, an evolution from the paper and clay mediums we had used as kids. Our job was to assist in the redesign of ArtQuest. We painted walls, moved furniture, and created what is now a staple of ArtQuest; the Story Tree. The tree was made with yards of wire, miles of colorful paper, and our blood, sweat and tears. I was appointed by the featured NC artist, Bryant Holsenbeck, to design the tiled roots of the tree. She oversaw as I laid down tile after tile, switching colors and rearranging shapes. Now, a year has passed. Seeing that tree filled with the creations of young artists beckoned by the genius of my colored roots, gives me the satisfaction that I was a part of both ArtQuest’s past and future. The satisfaction from The Story tree isn’t the only thing Elizabeth and I have gained from years of ArtQuest influence. Both of us have made room for the arts in our adult lives. Through the interior design of her humble Raleigh home, Elizabeth uses her vision with many of the materials she gained from that ArtQuest renovation. (You can do a lot with chunks of old cork.) Now as an intern at Green Hill Center, I know that I can pick up a scrap of paper or an old cereal box in ArtQuest and create something without even thinking about what it could become. There’s something deeply satisfying about the unplanned-ness of it all; I can sit down and do something I enjoy, expressing a piece of myself through art and end up wanting to share it with the world. I hope that whatever career I pursue later on in life allows me to do just that: inadvertently make something beneficial to my surroundings. This is exactly what another ArtQuest Baby, Lauren, plans to do with her life. Lauren was born and raised in Greensboro, NC and has been coming to ArtQuest since before she can remember. ArtQuest is where she was introduced to her area of study at SCAD this fall: animation. “I played with the zoetrope constantly. I thought it was so cool that I could draw something and make it move.” Lauren sees the world through an artist’s lens, using painting as a source of meditation and constantly pointing out patterns like that of leaves against the sky. “It’s always a color or a pattern for me, everything is made up of lines. It’s beautiful.”
Lauren’s passion for art in daily life is what truly makes her an ArtQuest Baby. We come in many different forms with different levels of skill, but Lauren’s final words to us are words that everyone should live by, ArtQuest Baby or not, “Anyone can draw. It doesn’t matter where you start out…talent can never outweigh experience.”
Liz Harkey