Like squares on a busy family’s kitchen calendar, bank windows at Third and Box Butte in Alliance have heralded hand-painted previews of community events for years.
Keep Alliance Beautiful Executive Director Kathy Worley started painting windows 20 years ago during her time with United Way. “We had $12 in the special events fund,” Worley recalled. She advertised on the panes and the organization hosted a fundraiser that netted more than $2,000. “Then people started asking me to paint their windows.”
After countless messages for business and local happenings, Worley is passing the paintbrush to Executive Director Kyren Gibson and Administrative Assistant Bailey Johnson at Carnegie Arts Center (CAC). The service became a source of income for KAB when Worley joined the Keep America Beautiful affiliate and will fill a similar role at CAC. “(Painting windows) is an ongoing fundraiser to support operations, which are the backbone for all of Carnegie’s services,” Gibson explained. “I will still help Kyren and Bailey paint windows, but I want to help out at the recycling center more,” Worley added.
From flyers on business doors to newspaper community calendars to radio announcements to social media everyone has a favorite source of event information. Worley’s template at BMO, however, proved unique. She emphasized the number of people who pass the corner every week. “I really wanted to promote community events on this window,” she said. “If a non-profit is going to the effort I want to promote the event. I like that it’s officially being taken over.” Mission Store mini grants paid for supplies.
Taking on window painting build’s on Gibson’s history of collaboration with KAB. “We’ve been working with KAB for seven years on community art projects (including bottle cap murals, crosswalks and co-teaching art classes),” she said. Gibson was even one of Worley’s first art students at the Carnegie. “Investment in youth has come full circle,” Gibson observed. “We’re giving job opportunities to a new generation to pursue art.”
Worley mentioned challenges they will face such as inclement weather and how time consuming painting a single message can be. Yet, she recalled highlights such as hearing about a group of cyclists coming to town and promoting them on as many windows as she could. The practice took on an added significance throughout the Covid pandemic. Worley said, “Everything I did during Covid was super heartfelt. It was a really weird time to be out when nobody was out . . . my favorites are when people say ‘do whatever you want to do.’”
Whether dictated by the business or left more to the artist’s discretion, windows offer another medium for art and expression. “Carnegie has always been about service to community, outreach and to bring art beyond our wall. We do that with education programs and partner organizations. We have been creating public artwork for seven years – this is an extension of that,” Gibson said. “We are grateful for businesses letting us utilize their windows to get information out to the community.”
Initial projects this fall are crosswalk murals at Grandview and Emerson elementary schools as well as a painting promoting the St. Agnes Academy chili feed. “Bailey and I are both painters (so it’s an opportunity) to create even if it’s labor intensive. Painting outdoors makes it more extreme,” Gibson said. “(Window painting is) one of the more engaging forms of art,” Johnson said.