Third-graders at Admire School pose in front of the Artmobile after it made a stop at their school.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the last article in an occasional series looking at the Emporia Arts Council and its attempt to fund a new Arts Center building on Commercial Street. The Arts Council has until Friday to raise money to earn a $330,000 grant from the Mabee Foundation to help fund the building.
Kids love large, colorfully painted novelty vehicles nearly as much as they love making messes and breaking things. And in the year since the paint job on the Emporia Arts Center’s Artmobile was completed, the Artmobile has become something of an Oscar Mayer Wienermobile for the Emporia community and surrounding towns and counties.
Just about wherever the arts center goes, the Artmobile goes, too. Whether the activity is a parade or an outreach program that involves children’s art activities, the Artmobile is there. When the situation calls for it, it totes tables, chairs, paper, tents, painting materials and other art supplies. As Arts Council Director Melissa Windsor puts it, it’s “like the Arts Center on wheels.” And it attracts attention.
“It’s not always as warm as we’d like it, and it’s not always as cool as we’d like it,” Windsor said. “But it works, and it’s really fun to drive, and really fun to be a part of it. And everybody just feels happy when they see it ... if we happen to have it out and about on the street, little children especially will drive by and wave. You can see little heads in the back seat, just kind of peering up into the window ... It’s really cute.”
A repainted Frito-Lay vehicle, the 26-foot-long truck was obtained thanks to donations from the Emil Babinger Charitable Trust and the St. Patrick’s Day Committee. It made its debut during the 2006 St. Patrick’s Day parade, but the paint job hadn’t been done — signs thanking the St. Patrick’s Day committee for its donation were taped over the Frito-Lay logos.
After receiving a new paint job designed by Emporia State student Dan Dishman and painted by Thurston’s Auto Body Plus, which donated the body work, the finished truck was ready to debut at last year’s St. Patrick’s Day parade. Since then, it’s become an identifiable part of not only the Emporia community, but also the arts center’s seven-county area, serving and affecting 3,375 kids since April 20, 2007. Its travels have included stops in Admire, Olpe, Americus, Chase County and Coffey County.
Brenda Hollenbeck is usually the one doing the driving to the Arts Center’s activities and in parades.
“It was scary in the beginning,” Hollenbeck said, “because I hadn’t driven anything that large, and trying to reverse ... and parking was a challenge. So I would drive around. I would have to tell people that I had to pull in or I would have to go forward so I didn’t have to reverse.
“But it’s fun now, but it’s been over a year since I’ve been driving it. And I’ve been tooling on down the road now. It’s not a problem.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, the arts council still needed to raise $27,000 by Friday to qualify for a $330,000 Mabee Foundation challenge grant that would help pay for the proposed new arts center building next to the Granada Theatre on Commercial Street. The total cost of the new building is about $2.6 million.
One thing Windsor hasn’t figured out yet: Where the enormous truck will be parked when the arts center moves. Getting the Artmobile its own spot on Commercial Street isn’t likely.
“It’s certainly going to be a wonderful problem to have when we move into our new building,” she said.
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