Peabody creates community art

Brothers Madden and Mack Johns add their creativity to an art project on Saturday during the Peabody Fall Festival. Peabody community members of all ages contributed to the drawings that will be made into banners for downtown Peabody.

Peabody community members were invited to leave their mark on a silk banner on Saturday at the Art in the Park Banner Painting booth at the Peabody Fall Festival. Some drew intricate creations while others made dots and other doodles, but all seemed to enjoy adding their creative touches to the project.

Several additional banners were on display as well at the booth. Peabody-Burns elementary, middle and high school students created the banners during the week.

“The elementary school students did drawings about the community, middle schoolers added their touch by outlining the drawings and then the high schoolers came in and filled in the background which just really made it all stand out. It was amazing to see them work on it together,” said Sunflower Theatre Executive Director Susan Mayo.

The banner project is designed to be a community portrait and is sponsored by the Sunflower Theatre in Peabody. The theatre received a Kansas Arts Commission (KAC) Touring Roster Grant so they brought in KAC Touring Roster Artist Carol Bradbury to help make 8 crowd-sourced collaborative banners that create a big-picture portrayal of individual and community connection for downtown Peabody.

Bradbury is the founder of Bloomerang Studios, Inc., a collaborative art experience that celebrates community connection. Her process builds awareness of a community’s diversity while helping to shape its creative identity. Her facilitation helps participants tap into their imagination more readily and experience flow.

Bradbury’s work is informed by her diverse experience in art, design, branding, psychology and restorative practices. She holds degrees in design and painting from the Kansas City Art Institute and the University of Kansas and is the recipient of multiple awards and scholarships. She has been honored with the Kansas Arts Commission Emerging Artist Award and Go Topeka’s Women of Influence Award.

To create the final designs, Bradbury works with the collective contributions of participants as a foundational medium, like a musician sampling sounds for making music. She helps communities, startups and small businesses bring their visions and brands to life.
“Now that we have created these banners, Carol will take pictures of these and digitally create composite illustrations to create the banners,” said Mayo.

Bradbury said working with Peabody members on the project, both at the Fall Festival and with the students, has gone really well.

“There has been a lot of great energy. It’s wonderful to see the project grow and evolve. These are reflections of who we are together. It’s a community garden,” said Bradbury.

The project is also supported by a Peabody classroom project called Haiku Dream. Haiku Dream uses different approaches to writing to explore another side of the community— its vision for the future.

“The whole school is involved in the Haiku project. They write the Haikus, and then Carol will take them and put them on the backs of the banners to go with the artwork on the front,” said Mayo.

“So the kids will be coming up with their own dream haikus. We gotta get into the minds of the babes—the wisdom of the babes. I’ve given them prompts. They will choose the top eight that will be on the backside of the banner. It’s another extension of identity of who we are together,” said Bradbury. “Combining the Haikus with the art is like the wisdom of the crowd coming together.”

The banners will be done in December.

“We will wait until the spring and nice weather to have an installation celebration. We haven’t set a date for that yet, but we will let everyone know once we do,” said Mayo.

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