Clark Cultural Art Center Celebrates Grand Opening with a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony
Monday, May 9th, 2016 -- 11:28 AM
-Clark Cultural Art Center celebrated their official opening with a ribbon cutting ceremony on Saturday.Located on East 4th Street in Neillsville, in the former Methodist Church, the CART Center has already hosted several smaller events even before Saturday including showcasing student’s art, painting classes, cooking classes and more. However, Saturday was the day they officially opened their doors to the public. I spoke with Linda Garrett, one of the masterminds behind the center, and she talked about the process of putting everything together.
"Volunteers is probably one of the biggest things that helped us out. We had a vision, of course, and with our mission of wanting to bring arts to Clark and allowing artists to have a hub. Having that vision and then having volunteers, that agreed with that vision and really wanted it, created what we have today which is CART. The Clark Cultural Art Center and it's history. We're actually creating history and it's kinda cool because we don't get to do that very often. So, I'm excited in having the grand opening and with as many people that have showed up, this is a dream come true. So, I'm so glad to be able to offer this to Neillsville and Clark County. I couldn't do it with out all the people."
She then talked about the types of shows and displays that will be at the center.
"We have our painting classes which is oil, water color and acrylic. We have drawing classes. We have pastel classes. We'll be having music classes, which is a group lesson, which is something no one's probably experienced. We're going to be doing that will piano and acoustic guitar. Eventually, will bring in strings. I don't know when, but that's coming. We have pottery. We have sculpting. We'll have wood art and welding, which is the metal art. You'll be seeing that within the next couple months. Culinary arts. A lot of cooking classes are coming in. We've contacted several different chefs throughout Wisconsin and they're going to be coming in and teaching. We have a chef from Door County. We have a chef from the Twin Cities. So, I'm kind of excited about that."
Linda said, after the initial surprise, the community has been very supportive and she's received a great response about the center.
"Surprised. Highly surprised that we were putting this together, but very, very supportive. Excited. We had Phillip Harder, who had come out from Minneapolis, he grew up here in Neillsville. He's with a film festival and he's an actual director. So, he does short films and stuff. I had an opportunity to meet him and his wife, Isabella, in the city. We're talking about doing a film festival. As an example, somebody that grew up here, that wouldn't think, is now a director and he does short films and he flies all over the world doing this. So, it's kinda interesting. So many artists are coming out of the wood work."
As the name implies, the Clark Cultural Art Center is for all of Clark County.
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