Participants in the Leadership Northeast fund-raiser can expect to make paper flowers like these.
Submitted photo
YMCA’s Casterline Center to benefit
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During a recent session at the YMCA’s Charlotte L. Casterline M.D. Early Learning Center in Forty Fort, some of the children dipped real flowers into paint and used them as paintbrushes.
“It always gets exciting when you’re using something that’s not so traditional,” said Anna Malsky, who helped facilitate the project.
But arts and crafts aren’t just for kids.
That’s why, as the Arts & Harmony committee of Leadership Northeast planned this weekend’s Bloom & Booze fund-raiser to benefit the Casterline Center’s arts and music programs, they included a chance for adult participants to make a hanging planter.
Bloom & Booze is set for 5 to 8:30 p.m. Saturday, March 25, at the Anamaly Gallery, 900 Rutter Ave., Forty Fort, where Anna Malsky is artist-in-residence.
During the event, Malsky said, individuals can start at one of three different stations and 1.) use decoupage to decorate a terra cotta pot; 2.) use macrame to create a fabric support and 3.) create paper flowers to fill the planter.
“Some might start with decoupage; some might start with macrame,” Malsky said. “There will be workers and volunteers on hand to help. And it’s BYOB, so people can bring their own drinks and snacks.”
If you’d like to take part in the planter project, organizers ask for a $50 donation to cover supplies. If you’d like to attend and not make the planter, Malsky said, you can visit and view the artwork from the Casterline Center children that will be on display.
“There should be 15 to 20 pieces of artwork on the walls,” Malsky said. “The older group painted their ideal springtime theme and the younger group used the flowers as paintbrushes. For a donation you can take a picture home.”
Ashley Hoffman from Leadership Northeast’s Arts and Harmony Committee said she’ll be on hand selling tickets for the basket raffle, where prizes range from Penguins hockey tickets to ingredients for an “Italian Night In” to a YMCA membership, a family camp basket and a movie basket.
“In the schools, arts and music are always the first thing to be cut,” Hoffman said, explaining why her committee wants to renovate the Casterline Center to create “an imaginative space” devoted to those pursuits.
“We want the children to be able to explore their creativity,” she said. “It means so much in life.”