Column: Bev Jackson Cotter, Art Is…

Changes are coming and we are excited!

At the January meeting of the Albert Lea Art Center Board of Directors, the decision was made to create a new position for the organization, and because of that decision, Marty Shepard is the new Art Center artistic director. What does this mean?

For more than 50 years, the Art Center has been promoting local artists and artists with local connections, supporting them in their endeavors, displaying their works, showcasing local talent and encouraging the visual arts as a part of our culture along with performing arts and music. In addition, classes are held regularly, often in conjunction with Community Education, and the community is encouraged to participate through learning and involvement with the exhibits.

Whenever Marty Shepard shares her talents with Art Center, arranging a show, designing a gallery setting or coordinating an elegant tea, the results are professional, beautiful and fun. She offers a “zing” that brightens and enlightens.

When I asked her to describe just what the term artistic director means to her, she modestly replied, “The credit for the creation of this position goes to board member Carol Wolter. She had the vision and the determination and the patience to see it through.

“I am hoping to bring some new and talented local volunteers into the Art Center to join the small group that has been dedicated for years. When I think about how this endeavor could be a success for Albert Lea, I think about assisting people to see how we are all creative in some way, we just need an avenue for making the most of it.” Then she added, “We can’t all be Michelangelos, but we can all express ourselves in an artful way.”

For most of my adult life, I have worked with volunteers in many different settings. It is so gratifying to see someone, as a volunteer, pour their heart into a project and see it through to its fulfillment, often with an enthusiasm that you seldom see in the work world. Their talents shine through and often the pocketbook gets opened over and over again, until everything is just right. There must be a special place in heaven for people who care and give and work and continue to care. Years ago, I was told by an art museum director that you can accomplish anything with enthusiasm on your side.

Marty has that enthusiasm, and we welcome her and wish her the best of luck.

In a fun addendum to this column, I’d like to share with you something that I read recently. It, too, deals with art, only this time with creative thinking that touched our lives as children and continues as a wonderful memory.

Can you name the seven dwarfs?

I am reading “Napoleon’s Hemorrhoids, and Other Small Events That Changed History,” by Phil Mason, a writer who has “amassed one of the country’s largest private collections of cuttings and books chronicling the weird and the strange.”

One of the events in this collection of historical tidbits, was the problems that Walt Disney and his staff had in choosing names for the dwarfs for the movie “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” There were suggestions like “Awful, Blabby, Burpy, Chesty, Cranky, Dippy, Dirty, Flabby, Gabby, Gloomy, Hotsy, Puffy, Sniffy, Scrappy, Shifty, Sleazy, Tipsy, Weepy, Wistful and Woeful.”

Enter here Disney, the artistic director. The names he selected were Bashful, Dopey, Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy and Sneezy.

Marty: May your career as the Albert Lea Art Center artistic director be filled with wonderful, creative, challenging and rewarding decisions, and may your choices be as wise as those of Walt Disney.

Bev Jackson Cotter is a member of the Albert Lea Art Center where the annual All Member Show will be on display through Feb. 19. The Area Schools Elementary and Secondary Art Show will be exhibited from March 2 through April 2 with an open house on March 6.