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0000017c-60f7-de77-ad7e-f3f739cf0000Arts & More airs Fridays at 7:50 a.m. and 4:20 p.m.Theme music: "Like A Beginner Again" by Dan Barry of Seas of Jupiter

Art Center of Battle Creek Teams with Paris Gallery to Help City Heal

Robbie Feinberg/WMUK

Last month’s bombings in Paris shook the world, and finding solace or hope in the tragedy isn’t easy. However, in the wake of the bloodshed, one local arts organization has found a way to help -- The Art Center of Battle Creek is bringing the region's artists together in an effort to help Paris heal.

Linda Holderbaum remembers watching the TV as last month’s bombings unfolded in Paris. She sat and stared at the screen. And as the news kept getting worse, Holderbaum says she felt two emotions.

First was shock, that French citizens were being forced to endure these attacks. And second, after seeing the damage, she also felt motivated to find a way to help.

"And it doesn’t really matter where it is, it still pulls at your heartstrings," Holderbaum says. "So I started thinking, what else can we do?" 

Credit Robbie Feinberg/WMUK

  Holderbaum knew she could use her role as the director of the Art Center of Battle Creek to show some solidarity with the French people. So Holderbaum decided that, as part of the Art Center’s Holidays Around the Worldexhibition, the center would offer ribbons for visitors to write messages of support for France. But she wasn’t done.

"Well, then I’m driving down the road one day and I think we’re an art center, let’s do more than that," Holderbaum says. "We all know how art heals. And I thought there’s got to be a way to tie art into it. So I happened to stop at a store and bought some two and a half by three and a half inch canvases."

Holderbaum thought, what if she got dozens of local artists to each paint one of these little canvasses, then collect them all and send them to France? She headed back to the Art Center and asked a class what they thought.

"Would you be willing to help with this if we actually did paintings?" she asked the class.

"And I said, what if I can find some place in France I can send them to?" Holderbaum says. "Just our little way of saying we’re sorry, part of us is coming to you in artwork. And they said yes, yes, yes, and wanted to participate."

A new project was born. Holderbaum bought up nearly every tiny piece of canvas in town. She handed them out to local artists and art students. Their job: to paint them, then bring return them to the center,where they’d be displayed.

As for what to paint, there was just one rule:

"All I wanted them to do was include the Eiffel Tower," Holderbaum says. "Do it any way you want, paint it, collage it, draw on it. But it just has to have the Eiffel Tower incorporated into it." 

Credit Robbie Feinberg/WMUK

Holderbaum then leads me into the Center’s gallery, where a few tiny canvasses dot the walls already. Made from paint, cloth, paper, each little canvas prominently displays the Eiffel Tower, standing strong, with some aspect of America by its side, supporting it.

Some show the French flag, others the Statue of Liberty. One even includes a bit of Michigan.

"This one’s a really neat one – it’s the Eiffel tower within a snowglobe," Holderbaum says, pointing to a multi-colored canvas on the wall. "And [the artist] wanted to show the French people what Michigan looked like, so she added birch trees and snow, because Michigan is known for snow."

But these canvasses won’t be staying on the wall, Holderbaum says. A few weeks ago, Holderbaum contacted the Mona Bismarck American Center, a gallery in France that showcases American art.

And she gave them a proposal: if she could send all these tiny canvases from Battle Creek to Paris, would the center put them on display? In the gallery, inside a school, wherever. Well, the center said yes.

But even as the paintings prepare for their trip to France, Holderbaum says she doesn’t expect their showing to be a big deal. The paintings are simply a small gesture, she says. From one country to the next, to add a little hope.

“I’m hoping it will uplift them somehow. Maybe you’re right, it’s only a little thing," she says. "But there are people in this world that really feel for you and want to help you get through this, in an artistic way. That’s a different way. You can’t pat them on the back or give them a hug. This is a way to give them a hug visually.”

Credit Robbie Feinberg/WMUK

  Only a few canvasses line the Art Center’s walls right now, but Holderbaum says she eventually expects more than a hundred. She hopes that when they reach France, the sheer number of these paintings – dozens, all lined up, one after another after another – will show French citizens that even artists from a small, Michigan town are supporting them.

These paintings are just one part of the larger Holidays Around the World exhibition at the Art Center of Battle Creek. It runs through December 23rd.

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