Gainesville group seeks to help young artists

Feb. 7—Gainesville Area Visual Arts (GAVA) is encouraging students to pursue a career in the visual arts through their annual scholarship.

"I'm committed to helping these kids get some money," said GAVA President Joe Conner. "Cooke County has a lot of low income students, and if they can get a few scholarships, it adds up."

Members host an annual "For the Love of Art" art show to raise money for the scholarship. At this event on Friday, over 100 attendees raised around $6,000 before deductions for show expenses.

"It's still to be determined," said Conner. "Roughly, I'm thinking at least $3,000 to $4,000 for scholarships."

These scholarships help GAVA to spread the message to young artists that they can do art as a career.

"You can make a living ... everything has some design behind it. People don't really understand that, or I suppose they don't really think about it," said Conner. "Storefronts and architecture for buildings and cars you drive, it's everything."

This idea that design is involved in so many different areas not only helps to encourage students, but it helps to assuage the fears of parents as "We had quite a few students from Valley View show on Friday night, and I met one of them and her dad," said Conner. "I was explaining to him that she could create a living and a career out of doing art, and I don't think he'd ever really thought about that."

GAVA has also worked with Robin Perkins, the art teacher at Gainesville High School, to help encourage students.

"Cooke County has a lot of low income students, and if they can get a few scholarships, it adds up."

"When my kid was saying that she wanted to go study fine art or animation, the Talent Search [advisory program] ladies used to advise all the students, 'Oh no, you can't make a living in visual arts,'" said Conner. "That's changing because of the art teacher there, which is good."

SCHOLARSHIP

At the time of print, only one student has applied for GAVA's scholarship this year.

Students wishing to apply need to mail their application along with two letters of recommendation to GAVA Scholarship 2023 at P.O. Box 495, Gainesville, Texas 76241.

"Once we have all the applications in, I'll be personally interviewing all the students," said Conner. "We collect art samples from each student and a rough bio, and then I will present that to our GAVA members ... at our April meeting."

Students must be a graduating senior in Cooke County who plan to major or minor in the visual arts.

"That could be anything from architecture to game design, animation to fine arts," said Conner.

Applications must be postmarked by Mar. 1. To print the application or to get more information, visit gainesvilleareavisualarts. org/gava-scholarship.

ART SHOW

There were a few concerns early last week about how the weather would impact attendance at "For the Love of Art."

"I almost rescheduled when that weather hit last week because I didn't want to risk people slipping and falling," said Conner. "I'm glad I didn't cancel; I think everybody just wanted to get our after being stuck in for three days ... And we haven't had an in-person [For the Love of Art] show since 2020."

At the show, the raffle raised just under $1,000 on the raffle, over $140 in donations at the bar and $100 as another donation. Eleven artists sold art, of which 20 percent of the proceeds will go toward the scholarships, adding a bit over $400. Another 5 grand was raised via sponsorships.

Some of the money will pay for the catering, the drinks served, advertising design and space rental, but the rest will go toward the scholarships.

"I'd like to thank everybody who came out and all our sponsors as well," said Conner.