The blue-and-purple sunset lit up the sky Friday evening for the Eco-Artwalk, an event celebrating art focusing on earth’s natural beauty.
About 600 participants took advantage of the free admission and walked around venues and shops in the downtown area to view paintings and photography. Cinema Verde, an annual local film festival that co-sponsored the event, also showed short student films.
Thomas Arthur, an artist who travels the country performing his show titled “Earthanima,” told the audience he goes out and looks for images in the earth that have human-like qualities.
“My sense is that the earth is alive,” he said. “By personifying nature, I am making it human and hoping to make people feel empathetic.”
Janet Davies, an audience member, said she liked how the dance made the crowd look at nature from an artistic perspective.
“He found a way to make us stop looking at him as a performer and just focus on the ball,” she said. “Most performers want us to focus on them, but not Arthur.”
Ken McMurry, the coordinator for the event, said he wanted people to interact with art in a fun way and not just learn about environmental issues. He also wanted them to use creativity to find solutions to sustainability problems.
“The art and films play off of each other to help people tap into their creative side,” he said. “So if they are faced with a problem, they will think creatively and maybe use recycled fabric to make clothing or a bike frame to make furniture.”
