ROBERT PIERCE

   • Leader & Times

Liberal’s Baker Arts Center has many fun activities for children of all ages throughout the year, and several of those take place during the summer season.

Two of those activities recently took place, and Baker Director Misty Martin said both the theater camp in July and Art Night in August at the Five State Fair went quite well.

The theater camp, Martin said, was very fun, and kids had a good time. She said with many of Baker Arts’ activities focused on visual arts such as painting, drawing and pottery, she felt performing arts often get overlooked.

“I really wanted to bring that in, and we had Addie Harris and Eli Harris who designed and led that camp,” she said. “They were rock stars. They did so good. They designed it so helps the kids let their guard down and express themselves and step out of their comfort zone. They were here all week doing those things and practicing. They worked on a play and got to perform it later in the week for their parents and grandparents, and it was a really good camp.”

With Art Night, Martin said Baker Arts was asked to participate in the events for one night of the fair, as exhibits were going up inside the Seward County Ag Building for people to see.

“On that particular night, I was super excited because we got to debut our Baker Arts mobile arts studio,” she said. “We now have a camper that has been redone and furnished to be a mobile arts studio.”

Martin said on Art Night, the mobile art studio was taken to the fairgrounds, and it contained all of the supplies needed for the various activities the night would bring.

“That particular night, we had these potted plants you could decorate, bedazzle and paint,” she said. “It was a great night. We had a lot of people coming through there. We also had some free watercolor activities for people to do there. It was fun because we got to do it was this big introduction of our mobile arts studio.”

Martin said all of Baker Arts’s summer activities had great turnouts.

“We had a lot of people taking part in the things we’re doing at Baker or in the community, and getting to be a part of that has been great,” she said. “We met people we haven’t met before. We had people come in who’ve never been before, same with the fairgrounds. We had people who stopped by to do art that night at the mobile art studio at the fair who had never been to Baker before and now are excited to take some classes and be a part of something.”

Martin said the summer likewise saw much of the community at Baker Arts, and with her heart centered on the center being a hub and a connection in the community, that is exactly what happened this summer.

“We had people of different ages, different backgrounds who were attending the fair that night, who took part in things, and everybody was relaxed,” she said. “We had parents, kids, siblings and friends just coming up to have a good time together.”

During the Five State Fair’s last full day, Baker Arts got to be part of the fun once again, as staff was asked to have its mobile arts studio at the fairgrounds, this time in a different location.

“We had a crew of Baker staff who were doing face painting that day,” Martin said. “It was a lot of fun.”

Martin said activities such as the theater camp and Art Night help bring an identity to Baker Arts for many.

“One of the things it does is it helps people become aware of Baker or get to try something new,” she said. “A lot of kids are really into sports, and sometimes, the arts get overlooked. When they’re there at the fair and they try something new, they really like doing it, and I think it’s really good for the community.”

Overall, Martin said she was quite pleased with the theater camp and Art Night.

“We had a great turnout for the theater camp,” she said. “The kids absolutely loved it. The staff I put in place, Addie and Eli, they know how to bring life to an idea when it comes to theater, and they did an amazing job. That was a super big win, same with the fair.”

With all of Baker Arts’ activities, Martin said she wants people to be able to relax, experience things, sit still for a minute and be able to try something new.

“Even if it’s not something new to them, people tend to not take time to do the things they enjoy, and whenever they’re at the fair or a different event in the community and we have a space for them to just stop for a moment and dig into those kinds of things, I think it’s priceless,” she said.