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Show Art Center Notes by Corke Pepper " ' Local Artists Clean Up at Kimball Art Center what a difference that Saturday's work wrought. George Ricker made an inadvertent remark about the floor needing a coat of cement paint. Two seconds later, he was dispatched to a paint store. Voila! By the end of the day. the floor shown with battleshop gray enamel. Holly Rom lugged out boxes as big as she is. filled with half-empty paints to donate to the pre-school. Linda Myers labored w ith a broom. Nancy Caravan crawled across the floor behind her with a dust pan. Nan Chalet and George Ricker polished the photography lab to have it ready for the class she soon will teach. I really didn't have the heart to expect this group to take on the Ceramics studio. Years of dirt and debris seemed beyond redemption. But there was no restraining young, handsome Dean Ho-vey. Ho-vey. Gary Campagna, Mark Johnson and Stan Johnson (all handsome, too ) joined him. The transformation they achieved in that studio is miraculous. Since the established quota of students failed to sign up for the Ceramics class this fall, we postponed it until winter, w hen w e'll try again. In the meantime, this was the best opportunity we've ever had to unload stuff that had been abandoned there so long that is was out-dated. Our current plan is to reserve Studio One for "clean" workshops, such as those in tapestry, w atercolor, life drawing, silkscreen, still life, woodblock, etching and Christmas card-making scheduled sche-duled for this fall. Studio Two will be a classroom for one of the accredited DCE classes with the University of Utah. The Ceramics studio now will house forthcoming stained glass, sculpture and jewelry classes, plus provide storage space for the accu mulation of props and materials formerly stacked to the ceiling in Studio Two. We are grateful for the help of these generous Park City artists. It makes us on the KAC staff enormously proud to have such dedicated friends. Artists need art centers. By demanding quality, we provide pro-vide incentive. With exhibits, exhib-its, we provide encouragement. encourage-ment. By merchandising work, we create professionalism professiona-lism and produce revenue. By sponsoring workshops, we induce growth. At the same time, an art center is dependent upon artist and craftspeople. It is for the fruits of their efforts and talents that we exist. I am so gratified that the Park City artists and the Kimball Art Center are working in tandem these days. Not only will an enduring relationship reward us all, it will make of the art center a more viable organization. It was a cool, crisp Saturday morning in Park City. Outside the sun shone on golden leaves. Inside the Kimball Art Center, the atmosphere was as frenetic as an ant hill. Diane Balaban. w ith her long, black braid swinging like a metronome, metro-nome, manucvered a vacuum va-cuum back and forth. Kathy Cartier looked incongruously beautiful wringing a mop. Roger Fuller, all macho muscle, carried a cabinet out of the studio. It was cleanup day at the Kimball Art Center. The Park City Artists Association haJ volunteered to whip our studios into shape prior to the onset of this season's workshops. Faced with the overwhelming overwhelm-ing dilemma of stained glass chips, wax drippings, woodworking wood-working debris and clay dust accumulated over years. I didn't know here to tell them to begin. I didn't have to. Diane had it all organized. Mary Wirick staggered under a clumsy burden of brooms and cleaning rags she had brought from home. Her husband had asked why she w as lugging all that stuff to clean the art center when she hadn't used it in her own house for years. I don't believe it! Marv got intc the spirit of the thing that she volunteered with Diane to return on Monday to paint w oodwork. All of Park City should be proud of what this great team of volunteers accomplished. accom-plished. It is the "takers" -the free-loaders - who groan about temporary inconvenience inconven-ience at the Art Center. It is the givcrs". like this fine group of artists, who do something about it. As a nonprofit organization, we are always strapped for funds. We receive no money from the City to keep us going. With the exception of a minimal grant from the Utah Arts Council, for which we are enormously grateful, we are supported solely by private contributors and commissions from our galleries galler-ies and shop. Our classes do not "make money." In the past, they havc lost considerably. The crisis in management of a nonprofit organization comes when you have to determine priorities. We have a primary' obligation to our contributors. Is it more important to use their money to pay cleaners to come in and put the studios in shape? Or is it more important to pay utility bills, staff salaries, salar-ies, payments on the building build-ing loan and other bills contingent upon survival? So when the Park City Artists, among the "givers" of the community, volunteered to take on this chore, believe me, I was on my knees.lt was a job that had to be done, but we lacked the funds to pay for it. Today, I keep running down io the lower level just to admire. You won't believe |