Friends of Brown County State Park have received a grant to more closely link the park’s scenery with the art it inspires.
The group received a matching grant check for $1,400 last month from Tom Hohmann of the Indiana Parks Alliance. It’ll go toward a new art installation that will be displayed in the park’s Nature Center, said Vicky Wyatt, president of the Friends group.
The Indiana Parks Alliance is a membership-based organization that supports the needs of Indiana state parks and reservoirs.
Wyatt, Friends vice president Dwight Thompson and treasurer Janet Kramer collaborated with BCSP Naturalist Patrick Haulter to make this grant award possible.
The plan is to design seven to nine leaf sculptures out of copper that are meant to be touched. “This would almost bring the leaf to life,” the grant application says.
Amy Greely will make them throughout the winter, Wyatt said. Haulter estimated they’d be installed in the spring.
This is one step in the process of updating the displays in the Nature Center. This spring, the group would like to offer an art contest to design new items for the display cases, Wyatt said.
“Not only would the sculptures enhance the Nature Center by their colors, they would also give a more updated look and continue the theme of our lovely community,” the grant application said.
For the past couple of years, the Indiana Arts Commission has been intentionally marrying the arts and outdoors through its own grant program, Arts in the Parks. Grants have been made to more than a dozen local artists to paint at state parks, perform music and/or otherwise involve park visitors in the creation of their art.
Haulter plans to expand that idea even more in 2018 by inviting practitioners of traditional arts to teach their crafts. He’s working in conjunction with Jon Kay, a Brown Countian who leads Traditional Arts Indiana.
Earlier this year, a class taught by local blacksmith at the park John Bennett attracted several students, Haulter said.
Other possible subjects include basket weaving, fence rail splitting, cabin building, blanket weaving or bowl carving — and he’d like to use Brown County people to teach those crafts whenever possible.
The more people there are to carry on these traditions, the more likely the skills are to be passed on for more generations, Haulter said.
“Quite honestly, if we don’t, they might die soon.”
